Monday, July 7, 2014

Bridget Begay - Week 2: Elk Sighting and Safety Training

Hello everyone,

In this past week, I've attended a lab safety training session, research seminar and a separate safety training for donning a immersion suit. But first, I would like to talk about assisting another fellow COSEE intern and new friend, Cindy! The project that Cindy is partaking in is the human dimensions project, where she analyzes the socio-economic effects of marine reserves for coastal communities. Her project is designed in such a way that she communicates a large amount with the public and deals with the data directly as she inputs it into a program that helps her team draw conclusions regarding the effectiveness of such policies and how it relates to research. When I went along with her on one of her field-days, we did a lot of observing and watched how people valued the reserve (as it pertains to their activity). The state parks that we visited were locate in Cascade Head: Knights Park, Roads Ends, Devil River, 35th and Nel Scott. While leaving the second to last location, Knights Park, we spotted deer resting underneath a tree near the road. We had to stop, observe them and take a few pictures. I have seen wild elk before on the Navajo Reservation in New Mexico, it's exciting to see them alive and well. I look forward to assisting Cindy in these upcoming weeks! 


Wild Elk spotted resting underneath a tree near Knight's Park. 

 Continuing with this weeks events, included a lab safety training session was very informative about how to be safe in and out of the lab environment. A few examples of the topics discussed was know your surroundings (labeled chemicals or samples, emergency items, other projects occurring in the same lab). A second topic discussed was referencing more than Safety Data Sheets (SDS) on handling any hazardous chemicals in lab, so consulting a lab assistant or scholarly literature. A few other topics was correctly labeling samples or items used in lab and knowing what kind of personal protective equipment (PPE) required in lab. I think this lab safety training confirmed information I knew and added more valuable information to be safe and alert in the lab environment. Next, the research seminar presented by Luisa Massarani was quite interesting. The main topic of the presentation was gaining insight on how effective a kid science exhibit is presented and constructed in the country of Brazil. I didn't know that Brazil's population survey indicate that they had about the same level of interest (in percentage) in sports as in science. I thought the kid's drawings of their experience of the science exhibit after a couple of weeks was cute and fascinating, especially to see how much they remember and how much it impacted them. Lastly, donning an immersion suit at the end of week was worth practicing because it's required that anyone aboard a ship has to be able to put on one in less than 60 seconds. We did an additional safety training because on July 11, I will be attending a cruise for sample data collection along the Oregon coast. I'm looking forward to this because it's exciting to be out on the water and to see what kind of soft-sediment fish live along the benthic zone or ocean floor. It's definitely going to be a learning experience to be aboard a research vessel again and applying safety procedures, including effectively communicating with the crew aboard. Thank you for reading and I will post pictures of the cruise in the near future. 


Bridget B.




When I took a walk to the South Beach State Park and managed to capture this beautiful sunset. 

View of the sunset from South Beach State Park. 


  

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