Expectations & Goals for the Summer

My expectations for the summer internship is to learn as much about the collections as possible. Since I have begun working in the Peabody Museum, I have been told that we see about 0.04% of the Museum's collections. I'm more than ecstatic to learn more about one of the collections in the museum. Geology is one of  science topics that I know very little about, but I am very interested in learning more about it and what the collections holds. I also can not wait to learn on how this internship is going to prepare me for collage. Whether that will be improving my time management  skills, to my ability to do collage work. I expect to walk away from the internship with a vast amount of scientific knowledge along with a few preparations for collage.
My personal goal for the summer internship is to learn as much as I possibly can and complete the internship at my 110% best. I plan to achieve this by showing up to all of the schedule trainings and doing all of the homework that comes with them. Next, show up to all of the lab days that I have been assigned, along with any reading and homework that comes along with it. Then, I plan to do all of the work that comes after the internship that includes making the poster and presenting it.

Departure - Expectations and Goals

To be honest, I'm just ready to embrace this summer internship with open arms and accept whatever is thrown at me. My expectations for this internship is learn more about the museum in the 6 weeks that I'm in the Collections working than my all of my previous visits to the museum combined. I've heard that less or around 1% of the Peabody's Collection is out on display on the floor and I'm expecting this summer internship to show me much more than all 3 floors of the Museum. Aside from the knowledge presented, I hope to meet nice and friendly people working in collaboration with Dr. Sweeney in the Botany Collections to foster friendships to make this experience more enjoyable. During lunch time or downtime, I hope I can talk to those in the Collections about something else besides the internship such as how college is like, how they found their major, how'd they end up at the Collections, etc. On the flip side, I hope that everyone will be lenient and patient with me during the first few weeks if I mess up or ask unnecessary questions to relieve some anxiety about being the odd one out of everyone working there. 

One personal goal that I hope to get out of this internship is what is the experience to work in a museum's collections. Obviously, a museum's collections is different from how a research lab and I'm wondering in what ways are the two different from each other. In terms of steps on how to achieve my goal, I'd say that you can't really describe it in steps like baking a cake out of a cookbook. At it's core, it's mostly 

Step 1. Acquire Collections internship. 

Step 2. Go through training for said internship. 

Step 3. Go to internship on required days. 

Step 4. Do work for internship. 

Step 5. Repeat steps 3 and 4 until the internship is over. 

Step 6. Do post internship stuff such as making a poster, presenting the poster, etc.

My goal is something different in which I'm in it for the experience and I'll achieve it simply by living through life and enjoying every second of it.

Isaac Faustino

MAYA Conference

Yesterday I attended the MAYA Conference at the Peabody Museum. It was so amazing to get to meet students from all over North East who had interests so similar to myself! Groups from Philadelphia Zoo, New England Aquarium, The National Aquarium, and CT Science Center all attended from programs very similar to EVO.

The day started off with introductions in the auditorium of Luce Hall. We all got to learn a little bit about everyone else’s programs, and what the MAYA Conference is about. This was my first year attending, but many other students had come years prior.

After introductions, our first workshop began. Over the course of the morning, I attended three different workshops. One was on climate change, while another was about urban resources, and another on engineering. All three covered very different topics that all tied back to the main focus of the conference: environmentalism.

During lunch, EVO students presented their summer research from their labs in a poster session. We had several groups of students come to ours, and everyone had really great feedback!

We ended my day with a tour of a chemical engineering lab that two EVO students worked in, learning about their research. They worked with Yale Postdocs to study chemicals found in the air in and around New Haven.

Unfortunately, I could not attend the second day of the conference, but I was able to meet some amazing people on the day that I did go. I can’t wait for next years conference!

Conclusions

All in all this summer has been filled with science adventures! While my initial reaction to the project was intimidation, I soon realized that identifying insects was not as challenging as I originally thought. It became like a game between Gayatri, Kristine, and myself: who could correctly identify the most insects in a day. This helped in motivating me to keep going!

Through this experience I have realized that I love working in the collection. The connection that I felt to this work was incredible, and is something that I want to continue to pursue in the future. I am already working additional hours in the lab, and intend to look for more opportunities after the summer ends. I have also been looking into colleges that offer geology as a course of study, where I can hopefully further my experience and expertise.

Outcome ( August 7th)

The outcome of my project would be  very helpful for the scientist stuying foraminifera,
during my time in the lab I learned about the importance about every sediment sample I had  to wash , everytime we got to bottle the sample ,  also labeling  the tubes. I feel grateful I was  part of this project in terms of making the research more easy for Dr.Hull and other scientist stuying foraminifera.  From this project know I have more understanding of the importance of this project and forams. In the beginning  of this project I had no idea why they study them or what was even a foram now everything make sense to me,  being part of this project makes me proud of myself , the work I did in the lab would be useful somehow in the present and future.

Last Day (Aug 7th)

Farewell Foraminifera.

This internship has been a journey both exciting and overwhelming. But it's sure to be one that I will never forget.

There's so much that I learned and got to experience as these weeks flew by. Though I wasn't explicitly part of the oceanographic expeditions that Dr. Hull and her colleagues went on, I got to be part of actually bringing their work to the light. I'm grateful to have been part of the lab routines that would bring them to the research that those scientists have been spending all their time doing.

It's serious dedication that all of these scientists have, not just in the lab I was interning at, but in general. Dedication like that deserves to be known.

The new knowledge that I get to take home with me might not have anything to do with the future that I want, but knowledge doesn't always have to be opaque. I'm sure that there will be a time that I will get to shed all this new information and probably even surprise a few people with it. The experience that I had at the lab is one that I want to share, and I never will hesitate to.


 

I learned.....

I learned so many awesome , important things during my time in the lab and also when I was out of the lab. I learned something new about why scientist study foraminifera , forams are a single cell organism that can be found deep in the ocean sometimes 500km into the ocean. They are very important to study because they can tell us about how the climate was million years ago even though they are so small to see with your naked eye ,but they can be seem through a microscope and  they will blow your mind away , they are all types of size , shape, color etc. iv´e also learned that climate change has play important role in Earth History. Earth have been through all types of climate from cold glaciers to  hot tropical climate million of years ago and the incredible thing that animals adapt to all types of climate  and evoled to the species they are now, even though most living things went extinct like the dinosaurs , theres some animals still alive in the present that been going through evolution for million of years. I  learned how to say Epoch the correct way also .