Research Experience for Community College Students in Critical Zone Science

June 8^th, 2016

Today I met up with the other interns at the Sustainability, Energy and Environment Complex (SEEC) building at Research Park. We filmed our elevator speeches which were a 1 minute long summary of who we were, who we were working with, what our projects over the summer consisted of and the importance of our project. Afterwards, we participated in a communication workshop that involved a discussion about communicating and the scientific process. We learned the importance of defining your research question, keeping good records, making a work plan, working with collaborators, choosing an effective title for the project, and using a poster to tell a story. We then partnered up with another intern and came up with a quick scientific poster. Taylor and I came up with a ridiculous poster which asked, “What is the glucose content of martian moss?” and presented that our research was primarily located on mars, and that we determined a new species of moss that had an incredibly high sugar content, which had implications for lollipop production. It was hysterical seeing what the other interns came up with!

After the communication workshop was over, we heard from Robert Anderson, a geomorphologist working at the Boulder Critical Zone Observatory (CZO). He went into detail about some of his geology research and other research projects that had relevance. I confess that I’m not entirely intrigued by geology, so I did find myself straining somewhat to pay close attention. Regardless, I did learn a few geology concepts I hadn’t considered before, and it was fascinating to hear the history of the landscape formation of Boulder. It definitely made me have a greater appreciation for the natural beauty of my surroundings.

After the presentation, we all carpooled over to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) for a tour. The tour consisted of 4 presenters in different departments. A major highlight of the tour was seeing the Science on a Sphere demonstration which consisted of a large sphere suspended from the ceiling which acted as the projection screen surface that five different projectors cast an image on. The sphere represented a digital globe with an extensive amount of data sets. The sphere had information about real-time satellite images of the earth, precipitation, forecasts, ocean flow, land and water temperatures, vegetation, chlorophyll concentration, travel trajectories, and even Facebook friend connections! It was mesmerizing!! Here is a link with information about the Science on a Sphere http://sos.noaa.gov/What_is_SOS/index.html.

Today was a lot of fun and extremely informative. I’m wiped out! It was a bit of information overload!!