Week 9 of Internship: Only 1 left! Can't I stay 10 more?

I had another fantastic meeting this week with one of my mentors/ exhibit team, Shawn.  Nancee and Mark were both gone.  Shawn really liked what I've been coming up with and said that I've exceeded their expectations.  Naturally that made me feel really good.
He also mentioned the online Free Choice Learning master's degree OSU offers and said this is the type of project it involves, and that I'm doing work just as good as those students.  Shawn mentioned this program several weeks ago and it started the wheels turning in my head.  I'm sure it will stay on my radar as I finish my undergrad and start teaching.
Ever since the meeting I have been hard at work putting together the exhibit proposal.  I've never done anything quite like this, so it's challenging to find the right format and way of doing it.  I'm seeking feedback and advice on it from some folks, so that will help me get it pulled together these last few days.

Saturday was an awesome day working in the Visitor Center to cover for Brian who accidentally signed up for 18 straight days of work (covering for others who had covered for him).  Holy cow, I love the VC!  I got to work at the tide pools and I really love to talk to people and teach them about all the echinoderms especially in that tank.  I love to show off the sea cucumber guts, and point out the sea stars' madroporites.  Perfect for a biology geek like me.
I also got to do Ocean Quest (yay) which I also love...perfect for a geology geek like me. :)  (See why I love it here so much?)

To top it all off, right after Ocean Quest, I was invited by the wonderful Harrison and Kristen (the aquarists) to join them and Diana to feed all the animals, because the volunteer feeder called in sick.  How fun!  Somehow I missed the part of someone asking me if I wanted gloves, so I had stinky hands for a while.  But I didn't care.  It was a cool new experience.  I even got to use the giant pole to feed fish and anemones in the global tank. Sweet.  Something new every day!

Feeding Rock Fish in the global tank

Today was my final shift as a Working Waterfront Docent at Port Dock 1 where the Sea Lions hang out.  For those who don't know, Working Waterfront was started by a group of organizations in Newport including the Port, HMSC, the aquarium, local merchants, and a foundation that has been formed to raise money to repair and replace the docks.  They trained a bunch of volunteer docents and have someone stationed down there 10-4 every day.

Here I am at Port Dock 1 in my lovely red docent jacket :)

California Sea Lion at Port Dock 1 in Newport today

It's been a fun adventure.  Today I tried something new at the end of my shift and actually announced a Sea Lion talk and then spoke to the whole group for a few minutes about the sea lions.  I think it went well, and then it led into tons of questions from people.  People don't seem to always know that I'm there to answer questions.  If I were going to be doing another shift, I think I would do this Sea Lion talk about every 15 minutes for the constant flow of new visitors, or just whenever there is a big crowd of people.


So, all that happened just since Friday!  Monday through Thursday of this week was my final vacation with my kids.  We had a blast visiting Crater Lake then heading to Crescent City California to see the redwoods and explore the coast one last time including the stretch from Crescent City to Bandon.  Over this summer we have explored the Oregon Coast from the southern end up to Tillamook (we had planned to go all the way up but ran out of time on that trip).  We've also gone to the west-most point in the state (Cape Blanco Lighthouse), and gone as far east as the Sheep Rock Unit of the John Day Fossil Beds.  Actually if you include the drive to get here from Utah, we've traveled the entire width of the state!  It has been a crazy fun time and I'm going to have a hard time leaving.
 

Wizard Island - here you can really see that it's a cinder cone

Pumice Rock (orange formation) and the colorful cliffs

"Phantom Ship" - an interesting ancient volcanic formation

Phantom Ship again with shimmering water

The Pinnacles- fossil fumaroles (volcanic gas vents)

More pinnacles

A newly created trail led to beautiful Plaikni Falls

The Fam

Redwood Tree in Crescent City, CA

So I actually didn't realize this was the final post for the internship folks... so I have to just say that this has been the most amazing experience, and I am grateful to have been a part of such a great program and to associate with amazing people.  Nancee, Shawn, Mark, McKenzie, Becca, Bill, Harrison, Kristen, the bookstore staff and all the VC volunteers, Chris Burns from Working Waterfronts, Eric and Sarah in Corvallis, and so many others, I can't name them all.  You have all made a huge impact on me and I will really miss being around such a dynamic crew.

I have also loved every chance I got to be around my fellow visitor center interns Brian, Diana, and Nick.  I hope we all stay in touch, I am excited to see what you all do in the future, cause you're so awesome!  Brian has so much knowledge and is so patient in sharing it with anyone.  I have picked his brain several times and he took the time to teach me the animals in the touch tank so I would feel more confident interpreting there.  Diana has that amazing announcer voice, and is so willing to jump in and help out and learn anything.  It's been fun to get to do stuff with her like learning to feed, and that unforgettable experience with Aurora the octopus!  Nick always makes me smile with his quirky and friendly personality.  Sometimes when I'm sick of being isolated in the library, I will visit the VC for some Nick-inspired laughs.  Thanks guys, it's been a blast!

Week 7 of Internship: Sea Lions, Octopuses, and Egg Cases - oh my!

At the beginning of last week I mapped out how I envision the exhibit and showed it to my mentor Nancee to make sure I'm on the right track.  She seemed to think I am which was encouraging probably for both of us.  That makes me feel much better about getting my final product done - the exhibit proposal.  But first, I still have some feedback to gather from people in the visitor center.

Here is the messy little sketch I made of how I imagine the kiosk interface for the interactive portion, which is going to be totally sweet:

So, I had to put my surveying on hold a little bit while I waited for some graphics I needed to be able to explain to people the exhibit so they could give me their opinion about it.  I do have what I need as of today and it's totally awesome and I tested it out a little today.  This week I will dive in with gusto to get the info I need to make my proposal.  I figured out that there are only 13 working days left- eek!  That makes me kinda nervous, but I'm sure I can get the things done that I need to, I just need to stay very focused.

Back to last week...I didn't just sit around and wait for graphics, I did all kinds of awesome stuff.

1- Sea Lions
I had the awesome chance to participate in a training to be a docent for the "working waterfront" project at Port Dock 1 over on the historic bay front.  There is a dock there that Sea Lions hang out on, no more than 20 feet below the pier!  (The dock is falling apart so a foundation has been set up to raise money to repair and replace it.)  So a group of organizations decided to put a docent out there 10-4 every day, and I signed up to help out with that once a week.
So I got to learn about sea lions, whales, seabirds, fishing boats, and more.  Friday afternoon and Saturday morning I did the very first shifts for this project.  In preparation I did this post on Sea Lions where I solidified my working knowledge of California Sea Lions.  Friday was super fun with 7 or 8 sea lions fighting for space on the dock and entertaining the heck out of us silly humans.

2- Octopus
I mentioned during my first week of training that the highlight was getting to touch the Giant Pacific Octopus in back.  Well, I got to do this again, but this time in front, after closing, for over an hour and a half!  And not only that... she showed us her beak!  Like 20 times!  After getting over the initial wonder and awe of it during which none of us had a camera but didn't want to leave to try to get one, McKenzie felt comfortable running off to grab the HMSC camera and her own phone so we could get some footage.  Click here for the amazing pictures and video to see for yourself!

3- Egg Case
Spring tides were this week, so I went out early with my roommate and we collected some great fossils and stuff, but the absolute highlight was finding an empty skate egg case!  I think it was from a Big Skate.  I have it in water and hoping to find a way to preserve it to save for my future classroom.  A tougher task than I realized.

Much more cool stuff happened this week and it has been really amazing and fun.  For instance, you can check out this post I started on the echinoderms in the touch tanks to help myself with interpreting there in the visitor center.  Naturally, I didn't finish them all or get to continue to do all the creatures in the tanks.  Things just happen so quickly around here I can't keep up with it all!
And speaking of not keeping up,  I must get back to work and pray that I have enough time to get everything done that I need to before it's time to go home!  :)

Skate Egg Case

We found an egg case!  Otherwise known as a Mermaid's Purse.  My roommate MJ and I went to a beach someone told me about and found this laying there.  We finally figured out it was empty so I took it with me and I'm looking into how to preserve it.

Common Murre Disturbance

Monday night I had the pleasure of volunteering to help out with murre research.  Actually I was interpreting to the public while the others watched them through the scopes, and when there weren't people there to talk to I took lots of pictures and watched the excitement through binoculars.  I love getting to talk to people so that was fun, although I felt bad that I was often asked questions I didn't have the answer to since I was completely new to murres (aside from the one introduction I had to them my first week, on June 20th's blog post at the bottom.)
Apparently I chose the most exciting time to come.  There was a constant string of disturbances the entire time I was there.  A disturbance was explained to me as an event where a larger bird comes in and scares murres away and sometimes tries to eat them (as in when a bald eagle will come to eat an adult, the others scatter, and sea gulls come in and snatch up all the eggs).  At this point the chicks had all hatched but were too small to fledge (leave the colony).
Instead of bald eagles though, it was juvenille California Brown Pelicans causing all the trouble that night (and could be still happening, which if it does, the rocks may be cleared by the end of the week).

The Pelicans came in and went through this infuriating (to me) routine of flapping their wings to scare away the adult murres, and at this point many of the chicks fell down to the water. All they seemed to be after was to steal whatever fish the parents had brought to feed their chick. When the murres got scared they would drop it and the pelican would eat it. Sometimes the pelicans would eat small chicks, and sea gulls being the opportunists they are rushed in to eat many chicks with the parents scared away. The pelicans were also seen swallowing a chick then spitting it back out then swallowing again and repeating until the chick was dead. I don’t know what the pelicans got out of this since they didn’t eat these chicks.

Juvenile California Brown Pelicans and Sea Gulls severely thinned out the Common Murre colony

The colony was thinned to a fraction of its original size that night. It was sad to watch. I also went down to the beach the next day and saw many dead chicks washed up. Apparently hundreds of them were further down on the beach.