Blog 11: Lesson 1 Reflection

This was my exact sentiment before this presentation. I probably would've been more confident if I just practiced some more.

1. What are you most proud of in your lesson, and why?

- I am very proud of my lesson props because I spent a lot of time collecting the gems from Trona and to make the brochure for each pair of people and when I looked at the faces of the audience when I presented them with these props it was a really great feeling. Also, I loved how well the audience responded to the fossil examples that I showed.

2. What assessment would you give yourself on your lesson? Explain why you earned that grade using evidence from the component contract.

- I would give myself a P+. I know that I didn't get all the information I had on my lesson plan within the 10 minute time constraint and I didn't handle the technical difficulties I had with the Mac on the lectern very well, so I realize that these flaws would decrease my grade. However, I want to point out that I put in a lot of time to create and print out the brochures that I handed out and also I was trying to be very thorough with my information and I think it was because of this that I went over the time limit. Another way I went above and beyond was the multitude of props that I brought for demonstration. I used some of the crystals that I found in Trona and I also talked about two fossils that I had. Additionally, I feel that I had a really effective hook because my closing to it was making some people nod their heads, and so that indicates that I had their attention. 

3. If you could go back, what would you change about your lesson?  How can you use that knowledge to give a better Lesson 2?

- I would've spent less time trying to resolve the technical issues I had with the Mac and I would've adjusted my lesson to be shorter. What this tells me about my lesson two is that I need to practice significantly more for the presentation and while doing that I need to time myself so I can practice getting my message across within the given time. Also, next time I'm going to take some time to see how to operate Microsoft Power Point, so that next time I don't have issues with getting my slide show presentation to work.

Blog 10 - Interview 2 Reflection

Around a week ago, my mentor started his new job at the John D. Cooper Center in Santa Ana.

1. Please explain how you are spending your mentorship time (Is it at a workplace or somewhere else?  Are you shadowing?  Are you able to do tasks that are meaningfully related to the topic?  If so, what?  Are there other people who are experts in the location?  Etc...)

- Lately there's been a massive change with my mentorship and because of this, I haven't been able to attend. More specifically, my mentor got a new job at a paleontological research center in Orange County, so going to his work place is out of the question for me, its just too far. However, I am working with him to set up days during the weekend where I can go over to his home, volunteer together with him at the San Bernardino County Museum, or whatever else we think of. Most of the time at mentorship though, I clean fossils, which is relevant to paleontology because it is the basic type of evidence that a paleontologist uses so in that sense my mentorship is very meaningful. Also, because my mentor and I would be able to work on fossils at his home, I am going to have the opportunity to perhaps actually get to analyze completed fossils (fossil cleaning takes so long so analysis doesn't normally come until much later after the fossil is completely cleaned).

2.  How did you find your mentor?  How did you convince this person to help you?  

- I actually planned ahead for senior project. The story goes like this: one day during the summer before junior year, I realized that I was woefully behind on my community service hours so I began looking to see if there were any museums near my home that I could possibly volunteer at. I grew to like the idea more and more realizing where there's a museum there's probably a curator of paleontology so I searched and searched and I eventually found the San Bernardino County Museum. I signed up to be a volunteer in the Education department in the hopes that one day I would have a chance to meet their curator of paleontology, Dr. Eric Scott. As luck would have it, I came just in time because a few months later the museum opened up a hall of geology which contained a volunteer run fossil cleaning lab that was overseen by Dr. Scott, so in the subsequent training session to learn how to safely clean fossils, I met my future mentor: Dr. Scott. When the time to get a mentor came around, I sent an email to him (in the time between when he became my mentor and when I first met him, I was involved in a few museum events with Dr. Scott), which practically begged him to be mentor, and he agreed to be mentor and better yet he was even excited to start.

3. How would you rate your comfort level with your mentor at this point in your relationship?  How does this relate to the time you've spent so far at mentorship/with this person.

- I feel quite comfortable around Dr. Scott. He's a very funny and kind person, which makes being comfortable really easy to do. So far, I think that the time I've spent with Dr. Scott has been indicative of my relationship with him because during my summer mentorship I've spent large increments of time around him as a shadow and also for cleaning fossils which has shown me his character and I've come to be very happy to have found such a great person to be my mentor.

4. What went well in this interview?  Why do you think so?  What do you still need to improve?  How do you know?  How will you go about it?

- This time around, I think that I asked better questions to my mentor, because I think that with the amount of information about his current status and background that they got me,  I can confidently say that he is an authority in paleontology. As for improvement, I really need to work on my in-interview conversation skills, because, like my first interview, I tended to just sit there and listen to my mentor speak. I know this because this whole interview was pretty much just my mentor speaking and it was very easy to notice that I barely guided the interview. For next interview, I'm going to listen to the other interviews of my peers so that I can perhaps pick up on a few tips to guiding my interviews.

To listen to my full interview pleas click here.

Blog 9 - Advisory Prep 3

This is both a hilarious and a prime example of dinosaur giving advice. By the way, dinosaurs aren't extinct. They're everywhere! Birds are the last branch of this family of animals; birds are specifically known as avian dinosaurs. The ones we think of, like T. Rex and Triceratops, are called non-avian dinosaurs.

I know this has nothing to do with this blog so the next picture will have everything to do with it.

1. State whether or not you currently have a mentor, and what the status of your interview is with that person.

- Currently, I still have my mentor, Dr. Eric Scott. Regarding interview 2, I'm still trying to coordinate a date with him for it.

2. At this point, your research is probably guiding your studies toward more specific areas within your topic.  Name the area or two you find most promising and explain your reasons.   

- So far, the one area of Paleontology that is beginning to grow on me is Paleoecology, more specifically the reconstruction of paleoenvironments. Paleoecology is the paleontological sub field that aims to reconstruct the entire ecology, meaning everything from food webs to organism interaction, using the evidence given by fossils and the matrix they are found in. The main reason why I'm starting to like this part of paleontology is the fact that I want to be able to reconstruct the world of any dinosaur from their perspective, but in order to do that I need to be able to put together who their world worked in the big picture. It is like the old phrase of "putting yourself in someone's shoes" to get to know who they are and why they do what they do. To be able to accurately render a dinosaur's life, or any other ancient creature, a paleontologist has to understand the context in which they lived: what other organisms were around, what type of biome did it live in, etc. So long story short I'm beginning to lean towards the paleontological sub field of paleoecology for my project because it would impart a great deal of understanding of how an ancient creature's life was like.

3. What kinds of sources do you think will help you in the next month to gain more research depth?  Where will you go to get them?

- Honestly, I've been exploring the Cal Poly Pomona Library database like crazy for articles about paleoenvironments or even how some fossils can reveal a lot about what an ancient environment was like, so I'm not sure how I can get more specific than that. However, one thing that would be really nice is if I can find a source where the study focuses on the reconstruction of a specific organism as a whole within its ecological context; such a source, would give lots of insight as to what I need to be studying. One place I can look for this might be the research help desk at Cal Poly, I just need to set aside the time to look for that one guy that showed us the Cal Poly database. Additionally, I think that there is probably a documentary out there that tries to do this so it'd be helpful to find a database of those.

4. Write down a possible EQ.  Please don't worry about wording other than ensuring that it provides the option for multiple correct answers.  At this point, the senior team is most interested in understanding your thought process.

- What evidence is most useful when a paleontologist attempts to reconstruct an organism and its ecological context?

Blog 8: Independent Component 1 Proposal

Only in my case, I will just leave them where I find them. Kind of sad isn't it. Darn you Department of the Interior (shakes fist angrily in the air).

1.  Describe in detail what you plan to do for your 30 hours.

- For my independent component, I plan on attending Gem-O-Rama in Trona California (it’s the event Mr. Holt talked to us about). Specifically, I plan on attending the morning events of Gem-O-Rama. The first morning event takes place Saturday morning and is called the "Mud Trip" where attendees dig through mud to find crystals of hanksite, trona, and borax; following the ending of that event, my plan is to visit the Trona Pinnacles where I plan to hike and hunt for fossils or possibly other types of minerals for the rest of the afternoon. On Sunday morning, I want to go to the "Pink Halite" event of Gem-O-Rama and then depart once again to the Trona Pinnacles in the afternoon; however, this time I will be there for less time, since the next day is school. After the trip, I plan on writing a paper about the viability of there being fossils at the Trona Pinnacles and what kind of environment these natural landmarks suggest ancient organisms lived in; this paper will later be peer reviewed and I will post the final draft on my blog as a google doc share-able link.

2.  Discuss how or what you will do to meet the expectation of showing 30 hours of evidence.

- To show evidence of my work, I plan on taking various pictures of myself doing the activities I just described, except the paper. I'm also entertaining the possibility of uploading several video logs of my daily progress and posting these videos as links on my blog, but I wish for the senior team to give me their opinions about that idea. For the research paper, I plan on posting a separate resources log into my working bibliography and on posting my pre-edited version of my paper as well as my final draft on my blog.

3.  Explain how what you will be doing will help you explore your topic in more depth.

- For the most part, the events I will participate in Gem-O-Rama closely reflect several parts of the acquisition of fossils. For example, the "Mud Trip" event parallels the jobs of excavators at the La Brea Tar Pits, who treat the fossils they find with specific chemicals to safely remove them from their surrounding matrix, since you also have to specifically use brine to remove the mud from the crystals without causing them harm. Also, the "Pink Halite" trip closely resembles the act of finding fossils in the field since Paleontologists need to keep a sharp eye out to find an exposed part of a fossil and it also shows the fact that you have to know where fossils to can be to even find any because if you recall the video Mr. Holt showed then one can see that the people looking through the salt flats were obviously going to find nothing. In short, the "Pink Halite" trip would help me see how useful knowing where fossils can be and being observant of the ground can lead to great finds and in the case of this trip, that find would be crystals in the stream Mr. Holt showed us. The trips to the Trona Pinnacles would help me explore my topic because I would literally look for fossils, which makes me apply my knowledge of what types of rock would host fossils and it would make me keep an observant demeanor to spot exposures. However, I won't be collecting the fossils I find since the land where the Trona Pinnacles are located on prohibits the extraction of fossils. The only artifacts I will take are any rock samples within the vicinity of the fossil that I could possibly use to uncover the type of environment that the fossilized organism lived in.  Furthermore, I will notate measurements of, observations of, and locations of any fossils I find on my trip which would reflect the field journal that most Paleontologists keep. In addition to the trips, the research paper would help me gain a deeper understanding of Paleontology by putting me in a position where I have to do both a fact based and observation based analysis of the Trona Pinnacles in terms of the topics I stated earlier. Overall, these activities would help me explore Paleontology more deeply by helping me explore what aspect of a Paleontologist’s work I would like to direct my overall project towards.

Blog 7 - Second Interview Preparation

One of the places my mentor used to volunteer at were the La Brea Tar Pits, where he soon discovered that he wanted to specialize in the ancient horses that were being uncovered there.

1.    Who is your mentor and where do they work?  If their workplace does not reflect their expertise, what makes them an expert?

- My mentor is Dr. Eric Scott and he works in the San Bernardino County Museum.

2.    What five questions will you ask them about their background?

1.        What did you study in college in both your undergraduate and graduate years? How do these study areas relate to paleontology?
2.        How long have you been a Paleontologist? Where have you worked?
3.        How long have you worked in the San Bernardino County Museum and why did you begin work here in the first place?
4.        Do you feel that your work experience reflects your expertise in Paleontology? Why so?
5.        In your opinion, what makes someone an expert in Paleontology? Why?

Blog 6 - Advisory Prep

This is one very wise and cute turtle.

1. What has worked well for you concerning senior project this year?  What has made it a positive experience for you?  

- So far, what has worked well for me as far as the senior project goes is my mentorship because my mentor is an extremely nice person and we both contact each other ahead of time to set up days for me to go to the San Bernardino County Museum. Also, the fact that my mentor takes time out of his work to show me really cool fossils, like the brown fragment of a Timber wolf femur that he published an article about (its one of my sources), always reminds of how awesome my topic is.

The fossil I talked about is the one in the center. As one can see, the interesting thing about it is the fact that its quite obvious that it was the result of an injury, yet the animal it belonged lived long enough for the bone to heal which is suggested by its roughness. Cool right!

2. What are you finding difficult concerning senior project?  How can you adapt to make that portion work better for you?  How might the senior team help?

- The really difficult part of senior project for me so far is coming up with an idea of what I can do for my first independent component, because I've looked for any possible classes I can take and I've found absolutely nothing so I can perhaps talk a lot more with my mentor about this so he could help me brainstorm ideas. On this point, it would be very helpful if the senior team could perhaps give examples of what past seniors have done, explain it to me, or even help me brainstorm ideas.

Blog 5 - Interview 1 Reflection

Chris Pratt is amazing. That must have been a hilarious interview.

1. What is the most important thing I learned from the interview?  Is there anything I would do differently for other interviews?

- The most important thing that I learned in this interview is that I need to work on my skills as an interviewer, so that next time I can engage my interviewee a lot more than I did during this interview.

2. Did I get additional resources and contacts?  What is the most useful?  Why?

- My interviewee, Dr. Scott, didn't give me multiple contacts, but he did tell me that he could put me in touch with a Biology professor at CSU San Bernardino called Stuart Sumida. Dr. Scott also told me that I should look into the works of two paleoartists called Greg Paul and Mark Hallet for possible sources of information. I think that contact with Dr. Sumida would be more useful to my project, because I was told by Dr. Scott that he could give me a lot of information about restoring prehistoric animals, which is an area I'm leaning towards for my project, or he could put me in touch with paleoartists who could show me how they use fossil evidence to portray extinct creatures as they do.

3. What makes my interviewee qualified to help me? 

- Dr. Scott is qualified to help me because he's spent around 24 years working as a Curator of Paleontology for the San Bernardino County Museum, which means that he most definitely has a lot of connections with other paleontologists. Also, Dr. Scott has made significant finds during his career as a paleontologist, which makes him a great source of information about paleontology in general, and he's known around the country for his work with prehistoric horses (he's even been invited to Africa to look at a huge deposit of horse fossils). 

Interview Audio Recording

Blog 4 - House Advisory Prep 1

Good ole Tyrannosaurus Rex providing you with some hilarious advice.

Write a short explanation of what you are hoping to accomplish through your senior project topic.

- As a little boy, I was in love with dinosaurs and I could never fully satisfy my curiosity about them. Later on, I learned that Paleontologists study dinosaurs and some time after that, I learned that the word Paleontology (the field of science a Paleontologist works in) meant "the study of ancient life," so obviously that meant that dinosaurs weren't they only creatures studied. Consequently, my goal now for my senior project is to deepen my understanding of Paleontology as a field through my experience with it. In addition, I remember my mentor, Dr. Eric Scott, once telling me over the summer that at one point of his experience as a volunteer at the La Brea Tar Pits, he decided that since none of the experts at the Tar Pits were specialized in ancient horses that he would specialize in horses. In short, I want to begin to uncover what exact aspect of the Paleontology of dinosaurs that I may want to specialize in someday. 

Progress on My Fossil

Please excuse the terrible quality of this picture, but I only have an iPhone 4 to take pictures with so it was the best I could do. Anyways, if you really squint hard and look at where my dental pick tool is pointing, you could see the three protrusions that are part of the fossil. Also, if you look at the right side of the fossil you can see a tan looking rock then you can see the part of the fossil that I chipped off by accident. My progress this time has gone positively well! I usually love to speculate what this fossil could be and so far my head screams lower or upper jaw because of the way the three protrusions are in a "U/V" formation. Who knows, only time and more dirt scrapping will tell. I just can't wait to see what it turns out to be. 

Blog 3 - First Interview Preparation

1.  Who do you plan to interview?  Why?

- I plan on interviewing my mentor because I believe that he'd be able to provide me with information that could give me an idea of where I want my senior project to go.

2.  Five questions will be assigned to all seniors to ask.  What additional questions do you plan to ask?

- In your job, what do you do with the fossils you obtain after they've been taken out of their plaster jacket? As a curator for the museum, what are your responsibilities?

Blog 2 - Summer Mentorship

This picture was taken on my third day of my mentorship. Next to me is another volunteer who was helping Dr. Scott clean fossils. Also, the camera was inside an Allosaurus skull replica (if you wondering).

1. List the contact name, phone number, and organization of the person with whom you volunteered.

- Eric Scott, (909) 798 – 8616, San Bernardino County Museum

2. What qualified this person as an expert in your topic choice?     

- Although Dr. Scott technically doesn’t have a degree in paleontology (the exact name is gone from my memory), the field he did actually intend to work in dealt with fossils of ancient hominids (in other words, all kinds of human species), which is very closely related to what a paleontologist actually does. Also, he has worked as a Paleontologist since he was a teen and professionally started at around 1998 when he got the curatorial position at the San Bernardino County Museum. Overall, his two most outstanding qualifications as an expert in the field are that he’s had a very long experience with the work itself and that his field of expertise is within the realm of what a Paleontologist does.

3. List three questions for further exploration now that you've completed your summer hours.    

- How can paleontology reveal our place as humans among the multitude of living organisms on our planet?

- How is the knowledge acquired by Paleontologists used to reveal relationships between entirely different organisms?

- Why is it important to fund the research conducted by Paleontologists?

4. What is the most important thing you gained from this experience? Why?

- Overall, my summer mentorship showed me that the work of a Paleontologist requires the utmost patience because fossil cleaning is tedious since it is done by scraping millimeter upon millimeter of dirt off a fossil for hours on end and you have to constantly find ways to reveal complex ideas to groups of people (in my mentor’s case, children) in ways that do justice to the ideas, yet are simple enough for the not so well informed to comprehend.

5. What is your senior project topic going to be?  How did mentorship help you make your decision?  Please explain.

- My senior project topic is going to continue being Paleontology. My mentorship convinced of this because my mentor showed me how even the tiniest bit of information about extinct creatures could fill a room full of children with wonder and how knowledge about where fossils are likely to come from can keep eager construction companies from destroying vital pieces of natural history. Also, my mentorship showed me what really goes on behind the scenes with Paleontologists, and it was always something that isn’t shown in the movies, so from my point of view it is exactly what I looked forward to in my mentorship.

Blog 1 – Senior Final Lesson/Interview Reflection

1. What three lessons were most helpful for you to see, and why?

-One lesson that I found very helpful was Myles' lesson  on small animal veterinary medicine, because it showed me that having passion for your topic helps to engage the audience. JJ's lesson was also very helpful because at some points of his lesson I found that his voice became very monotone and it made the presentation more boring when he talked like that. The Astrophysics presentation also taught me that even though you have three separate answers for your EQ, because the Astrophysics lesson had answers to the EQ that built upon each other.

2. List one thing that you learned about the senior project in interviews that will help you get off to a good start?

-One thing that I learned from the interviews was that there would be times during my senior year where I have very few homework, but that this time isn't to be wasted because I can instead use that time to work on my project.

3. What topic(s) are you considering, and why?

-I am thinking about doing Paleontology because I've loved that field of science ever since I was a toddler and because I really want to explore it thoroughly as a career path.

4. What EQ do you think might be interesting to consider in guiding a project like this? (Please don't worry about any sort of formula...we want this question to come from your genuine interest).

-What is the most important thing that a fossil can tell a paleontologist about an extinct species?

5. What are some ideas you have about finding summer mentorship?

-I actually have already contacted the curator of Paleontology (who already knows me) at the museum that I volunteer at and he has accepted, but lately we've been having communication issues and so I plan on calling him.