{"id":6057,"date":"2019-07-15T19:36:06","date_gmt":"2019-07-16T02:36:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/seagrantscholars\/?p=6057"},"modified":"2019-07-15T19:36:06","modified_gmt":"2019-07-16T02:36:06","slug":"first-few-weeks-as-a-sea-grant-scholar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/seagrantscholars\/2019\/07\/15\/first-few-weeks-as-a-sea-grant-scholar\/","title":{"rendered":"First few weeks as a Sea Grant Scholar"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m writing this blog post sitting on the porch outside my apartment at the Hatfield Marine Science Center, enjoying an unreasonably beautiful morning. I\u2019m giving my legs a chance to catch up to my tan arms, since I wear pants all the time for the lab. I can smell my roommate\u2019s dutch baby pancake cooking in the oven, my sunscreen, and the sea. Who knew you could spend part of a summer doing research but still feel like you\u2019re getting a much-needed break?<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve had many prior experiences working in science laboratories performing research, but being able to be an intern at the Environmental Protection Agency has given me a glimpse into many different avenues that I can take, and all of them make me really excited. I\u2019ve volunteered with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife doing intertidal surveys documenting communities after the sea star wasting disease, I\u2019ve spent days falling and crawling (but mostly falling) through mud flats to pick eelgrass and take water samples, and I\u2019ve thrown (and then pulled back up) water quality instruments over bridges to collect samples of streams for laboratory testing. All of this has happened in gorgeous Oregon.<\/p>\n

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Pulling up a water sample to take back to the lab<\/p><\/div>\n

I don\u2019t think it\u2019s possible to emphasize how incredibly kind and patient everyone has been. My mentors have spent hours training us and explaining the core concepts of their work. A lot of my work has to do with the estuaries in Newport, Oregon. The first time we went to the mud flats was to collect sand for the eelgrass we were going to get later during low tide. When we went to pick the plants, however, we found almost all of them were desiccated and showed signs of eelgrass wasting disease, a disease that caused a large eelgrass decline in the 1930\u2019s. We took some back with us to study, but then when we went out again we found the eelgrass were much healthier. Some time later I went to Sally\u2019s Bend with Dr. Fiona Tomas Nash\u2019s team to document characteristics of the wasting disease as part of a project they were involved in.<\/p>\n

So far I spend my days learning how to operate new instruments for water quality testing. In the morning and afternoon my colleague and roommate, Autumn Herrington, and I monitor and sample the tanks holding eelgrass we collected from the estuary. When I get home afterwards I go to the beach, just a few minutes of a walk from the dorms. I swear the beaches here are some of the cleanest I\u2019ve ever seen \u2013 they are beautiful! I also take advantage of the kitchen and cook as many things as I can. So far I\u2019ve baked a cherry pie for my roommate\u2019s birthday, a carrot cake, banana bread, and banana muffins (with oats \u2013 see, I can be healthy), and cinnamon rolls. Luckily my roommates eat the food as well so I\u2019m not tempted to eat everything myself.<\/p>\n

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South Beach, just a short walk from the dorms!<\/p><\/div>\n

I\u2019ve been an Oregon Sea Grant Scholar for four weeks. I love the work and the people I\u2019m with every day, and I\u2019m very excited for the rest of my internship.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m writing this blog post sitting on the porch outside my apartment at the Hatfield Marine Science Center, enjoying an unreasonably beautiful morning. I\u2019m giving my legs a chance to catch up to my tan arms, since I wear pants … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9810,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6057","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/seagrantscholars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6057","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/seagrantscholars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/seagrantscholars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/seagrantscholars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9810"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/seagrantscholars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6057"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/seagrantscholars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6057\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6060,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/seagrantscholars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6057\/revisions\/6060"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/seagrantscholars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6057"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/seagrantscholars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6057"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/seagrantscholars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6057"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}