Saving Oysters in Oregon – week 9

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presentation. presentation… presentation.

Hey y’all!

Sorry this last post is so late.. it’s been super busy!  I had my final presentation for Oregon Sea Grant last Thursday, a guest presentation on Friday for the COSEE program, and I will give another presentation tomorrow to my organization.  Presentations are the bane of my existence, but I made a BALLER powerpoint, practiced a ton, and was able to get through the first two without fainting or hyperventilating.  Not that I was that close, but I can just imagine that happening..

Our final OSG presentations weren’t scheduled for the end of our summer internship though.  I still have another week left, and I am on a sprint to the finish line!  I still have a few projects to finish before this week is up.  (I have to analyze all 96 videos from last last week, and I have to shoot more with the oyster clusters turned around)

reflection.

As for my thoughts on this whole experience.. It was amazing.  If you’re thinking about applying, DO IT.

I cannot express my gratitude to Oregon Sea Grant and my mentor for setting up such a great summer internship.  I came here because I needed more experience in the marine science/policy/mgmt arena to help my decision-making about graduate school, and I got that and much more.  Before, I knew I wanted to end up working with marine environmental issues, and I knew that I needed and wanted to get more schooling, but I didn’t know which way to go:  science? management? academia? government? etc etc.

Now, I have a better idea of what working in the marine sciences for the government is like.  Not only have I gotten experience with actual research, techniques and methods, but I have also been exposed to everything else that surrounds the science and definitely affects it.  Policy, money, bureaucracy, stakeholders, the citizens of Coos Bay.  It’s all in there.

I have also met amazing people.  Intelligent, hard-working, passionate scientists, directors, and managers, who have all been extremely friendly and willing to share advice from years of experience in the field.  I have learned a lot just by talking with them, and I’ll definitely take their advice when I start applying to graduate schools.  The students I’ve been living with have been amazing too!  The students here at Oregon Institute of Marine Biology and I went on some cool adventures in Coos Bay.  It’s been great.

And my mentor?  Awesome.  Since day one, Steve Rumrill has been there to answer questions, offer advice.. all those good things mentors should do.  He was always on the move, switching from one project to the next, planning another one down the road, and he always brought me along.  I came here looking to learn as much as I could and get as much experience as I could, and I definitely got that.  Thank you!

What’s next?

Although I don’t have a CONCRETE idea about which graduate program I will be applying to, I now know what I will be looking for in my search.  While that search is going on though, I will be in New Mexico, working with Sapphire Energy on algae biofuel for a few months.  Trying out the private sector!

 

It’s been a good summer, and I’ll miss everyone I’ve met here in Oregon.  I hope you all had fun reading this blog.  Sayonara, folks!

Hot Springs…Guided

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Hear ye! Hear ye! This is the last week for me at the VC! I am sad/happy/stressed to leave. Sad because I have made some lifelong friends to whom I will have to say goodbye to. Happy because I miss my hometown. Stressed because I have to pack/clean/finish my project/finish my portfolio!

Last week was a crucial one, for I did visitor assessments to see what people learned from the panels. People seemed to understand what the LHX tag does and how it works. That is a main point of the research, which makes me happy to share to the public, and even happier that they understand this concept. I did see that people didn’t read the entire thing because it was so full of text. So my first order of business is to shorten the text into captions and bullets to make it more vacation-friendly.

My symposium experience on Thursday was excellent. All of my fellow scholars did an excellent job with their presentations, from which I learned about policy, web design, shellfish transport, nutrient deposition, and other great subjects with which Oregon Sea Grant dirties its hands with.

The rest of the weekend I spent with Betty and Margaretmary in Corvallis, McKenzie for camping, and the Terwilliger Hot Springs. We had a blast! On the way back from the Hot Springs, we stopped by the Scandinavian Festival in the town of Junction City. A weird experience, but a good one regardless!

This week, I intend to finish my assessments, my portfolio, packing, cleaning, and conducting live performances at Cafe Mundo on Thursday as well as a farewell party on Tuesday at my mentor’s house!

Thank you all for reading and to OSG staff for this great experience. I recommend this program to any who find interest in outreach, and a multi-discipline approach to science and community.

-Diego

The Final Countdown

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It’s the final week of what has turned out to be a great summer internship. Needless to say, I’m surprised at how quickly my time here has gone, but pleased about all of the personal and professional progress I’ve made since June.

Last week was busy, getting ready for final Scholars Symposium presentations and writing up the sections of the final document that Sea Grant is putting together.  Like I’ve mentioned in passing before, my work and interviews have all lead to the final process of creating a few key parts to a larger document that will be published by Sea Grant later this year about expanding Oregon’s exports to China and the Asian market.  Kenneth Wingerter, the post-bac who initially started the research on the project is going to come back, write an introduction and executive summary, and tie together our information for a final publication with all stakeholders and the community in mind.  While I’m basically just putting together a rough draft to be edited by many others, I can’t wait to see what Ken and everyone else does with our work.

My work this summer has introduced me to so much about the Oregon Coast, working in a position that is meant to educate and help others, and the huge impact international trade plays on our country.  It has given me perspective on one part of the industry, that will be invaluable in navigating my future careers.  I know now that local food marketing is something that I want to become more involved with and to be able to weigh my experience in two extremes of the food marketing system.

I celebrated my birthday this weekend with the great friends I’ve made here in Oregon.  We went out on the town in Newport (yes, it’s possible to go out on the town here!), eventually working our way to Moby Dick’s for some karaoke. Then, I got to enjoy some camping with Diego and Margaretmary for the rest of the weekend.  We went to Terwilliger Hot Springs and got to experience a different part of Oregon — nude outdoors-men included.

I feel so lucky to have gotten this experience and am sincerely grateful to Sarah, Eric, and Jenna for choosing me for my position.  My mentors Tim and Rob were supportive and helpful throughout the process and I couldn’t have done the work I did without their guidance and help.  While I’m not 100% sure about my plans upon returning home, I feel that my experience here will be something that reflects positively on my ability to learn quickly, adjust to new environments, and produce quality work.

This week will be spent finishing drafting all of my information into workable documents, forming my final portfolio, and getting ready to make the long drive back to Louisiana.  And did I mention surf lessons? I can’t express my excitement and happiness over all I’ve experienced this summer, but I think my sadness about having to leave says it all.  To close, I’ll leave you with a few pictures of a great summer…until next time Oregon!

Later Oregon!

swimming with whales!

mussel hunters

My first live performance on the uke

The Sea Grant Ladies

The Final Shabang!

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Hello everyone,

It really is hard to believe that it is our last week with Oregon Sea Grant. I have had a really awesome time here, and I have definitely enjoyed my project! I will be sad to go home!

Just to give an update on last weeks events: I spent the majority of last week preparing for the presentation and completing the portfolio (I turned it in early! Oops!). I also managed to complete the “Academics” tab, and add a few more student researcher profiles. And then of course, as you all know, we had the final symposium on Thursday which I felt went really well! Everyone had really awesome presentations, and it was great to get a more detailed feel for what all of you are working on! I was really nervous about giving my presentation (I can get pretty sweaty in front of a big crowd), but the longer I talked the more comfortable I became. It was definitely good practice for someone like me who is wanting to teach science at the high school level!

As far as this week goes, I plan to write up some protocols on how to make changes and upload new information/media files to the website. Jenna Borberg, my mentor, will be taking a Drupal Boot Camp course, and will hopefully be able to utilize these written protocols when I leave (at which point site management will fall into her hands). I will also be sending out some emails to find out if any departments have anything to add or change within the “Academics” tab. Aside from that, I will just be tying up some loose ends (uploading additional pictures, adding a few institute descriptions, digging for relevant social media, and adding additional student features).

Now that I’ve given my work spiel, I would just like to say again that this has been a really awesome opportunity to live independently, acquire a new skill, work with an awesome mentor, and learn more about what I eventually want to do with my life. Thank you Oregon Sea Grant for this opportunity – it has been truly been a great experience!

It was great to get to know you all! Lets definitely find each other on facebook and stay in touch. I would love to know in what direction everyone decides to go over the next couple years!

Farewell,

Shealyn

Sea_Gil’s Flying Home

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Well here we are folks. It’s my last week in Oregon. It’s so weird to think I will be on a flight back home to NY in a couple of days.

Last week was busy between some more data mining and preparing for the Summer Scholars Symposium (nice alliteration). I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous when giving my presentation. It’s funny how I’ve given a bunch of presentations throughout college but I still get a little scared. I’m pretty happy with the way mine went though and on a few of the evaluations people mentioned that I had good public speaking skills so that was nice! Everyone’s presentations were very informative and I think we all did a good job! It seems like everyone did a lot of interesting work this summer and I think all the scholars count their time here as a good experience. I know I do!

On Friday, I (along with Sara) gave my presentation at the EPA Summer Intern “gathering”. This one stressed me out too, even though I had just given the same presentation the day before. I think I was a bit scared because I had been working with these people all summer and I wanted to impress them with the project I’ve been working on. Though I do work at the EPA, I am mostly in my little office all the time and I don’t think people know exactly what I’ve been up to this summer. The EPA presentation went well and because I had given the presentation so many times at that point (especially with my practice run throughs), I felt more confident when speaking about my research. After the talks were done, Sara’s mentor came over to her and me and said that while we did a good job at the Symposium, he thought we improved over all on our presentations at the EPA. I would like to thank all the evaluations for that compliment. I read them over on Friday morning and tried to incorporate many of the suggestions that were written down by the audience from the previous day.

Friday was also Betty’s birthday! It was a lot of fun. We ended the night singing karaoke at Moby Dick’s of course! For the rest of the weekend, Betty, Diego, and I went on a little camping trip in the Willamette National Forest. Saturday evening was spent collecting wood and Diego was able to start up a nice fire which we used to roast some tofurkey hot dogs and marshmallows. On Sunday morning we explored the Terwilliger Hot Springs. The springs were pretty awesome but after sitting in them for some time I started feeling a bit woozy. I know you are not supposed to stay in a hot tub for too long so I imagine that it would be the same for the springs. After the hot springs, we decided to swim in a (much cooler) reservoir. It was a refreshing experience and there was even a waterfall nearby!

Terwilliger Hot Springs!

Right now I am starting to work on my portfolio because this week is kind of busy for me since I am going surfing from Tuesday-Thursday. I just don’t want to get eaten by a shark when I’m out there AHHHHHHHH! I got freaked out after Katie told me that they were in fact sharks around here. I just have to think that the chances of that happening are pretty slim. Other than that I need to work on some metadata stuff aka data about the data. I also need to compile all the spreadsheets/articles/documents that go along with the project that I have been doing so I can give it all to Katie for the future.

I’d like to end by thanking Sarah and Eric for making my summer in Oregon such a good experience! I had a great time out here and learned a lot on a subject I barely had any in depth knowledge about before. One thing definitive thing I’ve discovered is that bivalves are more complicated than they appear. For anyone reading this who is thinking about applying for the Oregon Sea Grant Summer Scholar Fellowship, I would highly recommend it.

While I am happy to be going home soon, I am going to miss the friends I’ve made out here but I’m sure we’ll stay in touch! Adios Oregon, it’s been great!

SWAMPED!

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SNEAK PREVIEW OF MY PRESENTATION!

I just wrote a whole post and it somehow got erased, so here I go again.  I have to keep this short because I’m so busy trying to get everything done that needs to get done before the program ends.  Currently I’m working on my symposium presentation (sneak preview on your left), which is taking longer than expected.  I decided to use an alternative presentation format, but I think that when it’s done it will definitely have been worth it.  My hope is to finish by this afternoon so that the rest of my time here can be spent working on my final document.

Last week was mostly spent transcribing the interviews that I did in Portland and Seattle, but by the end of the week I started on my final presentation.  My mentor, Dr. Tim, also gave me a copy of a white paper on aquaculture that was published in 2009.  I found this really helpful, as it gave me an idea of what my final document should include and how it should be organized.  While I have experience with technical writing, my biggest difficulty is being concise.  Since it is an informative white paper, it is meant to have many bullet points and brief factual statements.  Achieving that and communicating the importance and research that I’ve done will be a great accomplishment.  I think the best way to start that process is by finishing my presentation, as it relays my information as to-the-point as possible.

On Wednesday I got to perform with Diego, Becca (Volunteer Coordinator at the VC) and her fiancee Chris.  It was a great experience, especially since I have a really hard time getting on stage.  I’m proud of the different things I’ve allowed myself to experience this summer and I hope to take that with me when I leave.

Again, this week and next week are gearing up to be my busiest, but I’m so ready to see my work pulled together in a well-organized document.  While I won’t get to see the full white paper for a few months (it’s being edited and combined with a previous interns work), I think that just seeing my portion on a printed page will give me a lot of satisfaction.  ALSO, this Friday is my 22nd birthday! I’m sad I can’t spend it with my family and friends at home, but the friends I’ve made this summer will definitely help make it a memorable one.

Student Profiles

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Hello!

Wow! I can’t believe we only have two weeks left here! The summer really flew by – we are already giving our final presentations!

I spent that majority of last week working on student profiles. As I explained in my last blog post, this required A LOT of emailing. I probably have 200+ emails floating around out there…which is probably a good thing since I only get responses to about 15% of those. It is summer – you can’t always count on people being attached to the hip with their email.

Anyway, after emailing lots and lots of faculty members from various colleges, departments, centers, and institutes, I collected a lot of undergraduate and graduate student names. I then emailed all of these students (using a standard template email I created) and asked them to fill in their information in the fields provided if they felt comfortable being featured. I used an example feature on graduate student Sarah Allan to give them a feel for what I was looking for.

Undergraduate students were a bit harder to track down than graduate students. Eric Dickey was kind enough to meet with me to help brainstorm other potential people to contact. Eventually, I had enough contacts to fill about two pages worth of undergraduate profiles and five pages worth of graduate profiles.

Between emails, I also worked on the “Research & Funding Opportunities” tab we created. I decided to use this tab as a sort of portal for link outs to the variety of opportunities offered at Oregon State (for example, I included the Oregon Sea Grant Summer Scholars Program in there). Jenna has made some edits to this page, so I will be tweaking things a little bit this week.

As far as this week goes, I have spent the majority of today (Monday), working on my final presentation and portfolio! I can’t believe the time has gone so fast – I have had such a good experience with this project! I have never had the opportunity to combine my artistic endeavors with my scientific interests, so this truly has been awesome.

After I get my presentation and portfolio wrapped up, I plan on spending the rest of the week working on the “Academics” tab, where I plan to highlight academic programs offered at the university to both graduates and undergraduates interested in the marine sciences. I will spend the last week I have here (after our presentation at HMSC) wrapping up some loose ends and writing up protocols for Jenna so that she can maintain the website with little trouble!

I’m excited to see everyone again this week! Good luck with preparation!

-Shealyn

 

The Sea Cow |wk.8|

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Hello Everyone,

This week is our final symposium for Sea Grant meaning next week is our last week! As such, I’ve been doing a lot of contemplating about what I’ve learned from this internship. These are equally important and even more so together than alone. First, a new respect for time. Time flies, people. While I’m happy with what I have turned out so far, and will turn out, I feel like I would be happier with another two weeks. Second, it’s important to get to know people and ask questions. There are so many benefits to this. In short, it saves you work time and you’ll get a better experience out of it having made new friends. These suggestions may seem obvious to you, as they were to me, but I have developed a new appreciation for them.

I have also learned that I am not too excited about working in front of a computer all day. This is dramatized by the fact that I’m taking an online physics II course (which I’m DONE with Wednesday, by the way!!!!). If I could find a job with a nice balance of field and desk work I would be quite content.

Last week I worked on editing transect clips for the mapping interface. I’m waiting to get some location data before I can get them posted to the map. Unfortunately, I highly doubt I’ll have it put together enough to display at Thursday’s symposium. I really only have Monday and Tuesday of this week to work on my presentation and anything else because Wednesday I’m going out on Oregon State’s boat, the Elakha, to help with an ROV cruise!

I also completed my invertebrate video and Bob Swingle has uploaded it to YouTube, so please go ahead and take a look!

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This video highlights 19 reoccurring invertebrate species found in, but not limited to, the Redfish Rocks Marine Reserve/Marine Protected Area. These clips were taken by remote operated vehicle (ROV) in September of 2010. The depth ranges from 24 to 52 meters, with the average being around 37 meters. 10 centimeter laser spacing. There are 19 identified invertebrates – how many more can you spot?

Identified species: Vermilion sea stars, orange puff ball sponge, California hydrocoral, California sea cucumber, purple sea urchin, rainbow star, orange cup coral, giant plumose anemone, basket stars, gorgonian, giant acorn barnacle, orange encrusting sponge, pink stars, sunflower stars, fish-eating anemone, painted anemone, sand-rose anemone, octopus, dungeness crab.

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The umbilical is also lifted onto the boat

ROV is lifted by crane to the boat

Friday I had the opportunity to help out the loading process of the ROV. Basically, I carried a bunch of equipment onto the Elahka, helped adhere the umbilical (the cord that carries data/power/etc. from the boat to ROV) to the boat, and set up the hydrophone.

bh

ODFW's ROV, The Sea Cow

Most of this weekend consisted of doing physics homework. I had two exams to do and numerous other assignments to finish. I though it would be pretty stressful to get everything done but since I had been working on it for the last couple weeks it wasn’t really that bad…I got my exams done and was able to go crabbing with Lauren, Sara, and Sara’s visiting boyfriend, Tim. I’ve got a few more assignments to finish and then the last day of class if Wednesday!!!

A Week of Reading.

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ODFW Adventures: IIX

Sometimes, you’ve gotta spend some quality time with the things that aren’t wildly exciting. So this week, now that I’ve accomplished my big task of the determining the herring quota and making the spawning maps, I spent all 5 days, 8 hours each, working on one thing: the annotated bibliography. If you remember, I started on this task several weeks ago. The bibliography consists of citations and annotations of many articles, mostly peer-reviewed journal articles, that will help the Nearshore Team accomplish the task of writing the supplementary document about climate change for the Oregon Nearshore Strategy. That being said, I have now read over 50 articles about climate change related to things as large as all the oceans on our watery planet, to as small as a single species in Newport’s own Yaquina Bay. My knowledge of upwelling, salinity changes, temperature changes, freshwater inputs, and other ocean-related factors has increased ten-fold since I came to Newport and began this specific task. But I will admit, I am now even more confused about wave height changes due to climate change now that I have read several very confusing, mathematical, and technical journal articles about the subject that I didn’t understand. But with all the time I spent on the bibliography this week, I have read the majority of the articles we have gathered (probably about 80 articles total) and I hope to finish reading and documenting the last few articles before I leave, as I have several tasks left to do in the next two weeks as I finish up my internship. For Sea Grant, I will be preparing a presentation and writing a final report about my internship to submit, while for ODFW I will be writing up protocols for all of the processes in the determination of the herring quota, such as how to count the eggs and make the maps. So I will be very busy in my last days here, and I will hopefully leave the office on the 19th with everything checked off on my to-do list!

This week I simply made a lot of omelets because I bought a rather large amount of salmon at Fred Meyer that I ended up eating all week. With all of my delicious salmon and egg combos, I realized that I always make omelets when I have a lot of random stuff in my refrigerator that I need to use, usually including produce and plain yogurt (a great fat-free creamy addition to your omelets!).We also went crabbing two more times this weekend in Waldport, but sadly we only caught one! But I still have hope of catching more delicious dungeness crabs before I head home! Below is a picture of me holding Guapito, our only crab of the weekend.