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!  :)

Week 6 of Internship: The word at the VC

This week I got to talk to people out in the Visitor Center and get their opinions a little bit.  I had them choose what case study they would want to learn more about, from a set of 14 pictures.  (Species affected by global warming).

Pictures on a white board for visitors to choose from

I wrote down what everyone said and came up with some interesting trends, such as how the majority of women in their 20's and 30's as well as school age girls chose the emperor penguin over the rest.  This wasn't a huge surprise given the options.
So the next round, I removed the penguin and turtle to force a harder choice, so many in that age group switched to the next most familiar and cute creature: the clown fish.  As my fellow intern Nick puts it, they're only interested in "charismatic mega fauna".  :)
However, there was a very large number of people who chose things that were more local and meaningful to them personally.  My favorite comment I found funny was, "I chose Dungeness Crab because I like to eat them.  And I'm interested in keeping that going." :)
The two most surprising comments were from gentlemen who were roughly age 60 to 70.  This demographic is kind of stereotyped as being very skeptical of climate change.  One chose phytoplankton and said, "they are basic foodstuff.  They're at the bottom  of the food chain, so that has effects all the way up."  The other chose algae and said, "some people don't believe [climate change] and think it's 'business as usual', but I don't think so.  Algae will probably be one of the first affected."  Wooohoo!  You go dudes!

So my next challenge is figuring out how to do the rest of my formative evaluations to determine if people will tell a story and what media they want to help with that, as well as getting a more clear picture of what my final product (exhibit proposal) will look like.

I also got to work in the visitor center this week for a day and a half to help out.  That was fun.  I hung out at the touch tank for the first time and learned more about the animals there.  Hoping to do that again soon.  Here are a few pictures.  Sorry some of them are a bit blurry.  One of these days I swear I'll get a decent camera.  Hopefully before I'm 80.

Hatfield Marine Science Center tide pool touch tanks

variety of invertebrates in the touch tank

Giant green sea anemones, orange cup coral,
strawberry anemones, coralline algae

FYI on the above picture, the strawberry anemones are the tiny red ones dotting the rocks to right of the top anemone.  The coralline algae are the crusted pink stuff toward the top and also in circles around the bottom anemone.

Rock scallop

Sea stars galore, red sea urchin,
and sea cucumber (the long orange creature to the left of the urchin)

Leather star- very soft

Week 5 of Internship: Erupting Into High Gear!

This week I had a meeting with my mentor Nancee, as well as Mark and Shawn, other Free Choice Learning guru’s. I showed them all the stuff I had collected and we talked about the next steps. I feel I have a much more clear view of what’s going on with this exhibit and I’m ready to start the next phase. That is to talk with visitors to do some informal research on what things are going to work well for the exhibit. This will help me with my planning. It’s kind of crazy to think that I only have 5 weeks.
I was present when the now locally famous Murre disturbances happened at Yaquina Head last Monday. You can read about it at this post.
This weekend when I was off, my kids and I went to central Oregon and discovered volcanoes! (Hence the “erupting” in this blog title.) I didn't even realize prior to arriving in the area that Newberry National Volcanic Monument just south of Bend, Oregon, even existed!  We got to drive to the top of a cinder cone and walk all around the rim of it, take a hike amidst a huge lava flow, and walk through a lava tube cave. We also went to the John Day fossil beds at Sheep Rock and the Painted Hills, and the High Desert Museum. Super cool! I thought going to central Oregon would be a short and slightly boring trip but I realized after arriving that there was so much to do I could have easily stayed for a week.

Lava Butte Cinder Cone and lava field (Newberry National Volcanic Monument)

Lava Butte cinder cone volcano and the red road we took to the top

The inside crater of the volcano

The slopes were rather steep

The cinder cone is made up of all these "cinders" - colorful lava rocks (basalt)

View of one side of the lava flow from the top of the cinder cone.  The winding trail we walked in the flow is also visible

View of the cascades from the top of the cinder cone - this is an entirely volcanic range

What an awesome place!  I was at the height of geeking out.  I love volcanism.  On our drive back we took a scenic route and saw a lot more lava flows, collected lava rocks now that we were outside of the national monument, and got to visit this way cool observatory (Dee Wright Observatory in Willamette National Forest) where my camera batteries died which was naturally quite upsetting!  But here's what I did get.

Dee Wright Observatory, Willamette National Forest - blends in nicely with the lava field

Steps up to observatory.  Just add a bit of mortar to this big natural pile of lava rocks and voila!

 The setup of this observatory was really awesome.  The inside had these windows that give the perfect view to each volcano/ feature.  All the windows were labeled with what was in the view.  If I'd had more battery power I would have photographed each of them.

View of sister through observatory windows

On the top of the observatory were great views as well as this really cool compass with the volcanoes and such labeled as to their location.

Cool compass on top of the observatory points to all the geologic features in the area

View of the sisters from the top of the observatory

The volcanic stuff was a huge highlight of this Oregon experience for me.  (I'm excited to also go to Crater Lake in a couple weeks.)  It also helped me remember again how much I love volcanism and would love to study it more.  That's what is so cool about geology!  It's not just rocks.  It's all this other cool stuff too- volcanoes, mountains, canyons, earthquakes, oceanography, fossils, dinosaurs!  Who wouldn't like all of that?

Thanks for reading.  Please comment!  I really appreciate feedback! :)