Third Interview Preparation

One thing I hope to get out of my interview is some more information on how a paleontologist can faithfully reconstruct a process such as the one above.

1.  Who do you plan to interview?  What is this person's area of expertise?

- I plan on interviewing Dr. Stuart S. Sumida. Dr. Sumida is an expert in the study of Late Paleozoic Tetrapods and comparative vertebrate anatomy.

2.  Verify that you have called your interviewee to schedule an interview.  What is the date and time of the interview? 

- I have contacted Dr. Sumida through e-mail and am waiting for a response. I do know from my mentor that Dr. Sumida is either still in Chicago or coming back from there, so I will give him a week to reply before I send another message.

3.  Phrase an open-ended question that will help you find research resources that would help to answer the EQ.

- In your opinion, what resources would best help me to find answers for how a paleontologist can best reconstruct the life of a prehistoric creature?

4.  Phrase an open-ended question that will help you think about other useful activities you might do to help you answer the EQ (IC2, possible experts to talk to, etc).

- If I wanted to explore the life of a prehistoric creature, what sort of activity can provide me with the most useful information?

5.  Phrase two open-ended questions that help you to understand your interviewee's perspective on an aspect of your EQ. 

- How important is it to look at the context in which a paleontologist finds a fossil? In your experience, has this context ever helped you determine a possible reconstruction of a prehistoric creature?

Blog 13: 10 Hour Mentorship Check-In

Essential Question: How can a paleontologist best reconstruct the life of a prehistoric creature?

I find this picture really funny because there's a robotic raptor manning this Japanese hotel's check-in. Good thing only humans are operating this check-in. By the way, the girl on the bottom left is actually a robot.

1.   Where are you doing your mentorship?

- Lately, my mentor and I have primarily been meeting at my local library since its really hard for me to make the trip over to Santa Ana during school time. Also, we met at my house today.

2.   Who is your contact?  What makes this person an expert?

- Dr. Eric Scott is my contact and he is an authority in paleontology due to his vast work experience, expertise on ancient horses and camels, and education on Physical Anthropology, a field very closely related to Paleontology since it deals with fossilized hominids, at UCLA.

3.   How many  hours have you done during the school year? (Summer Mentorship Hours and Mentorship Hours should be reflected separately in your Senior Project Hours log located on the right hand side of your blog).

- As of today, I would have done 10 hours of mentorship hours during the school year. 

4.   Succinctly summarize what you did, how well you and your mentor worked together, and how you plan to complete the remaining hours.

- So far, I have cleaned one of my mentor's many fossils from the San Bernardino County Museum's collections when he was still working there. I also was able to witness him and his colleague Dr. Brown begin to write a scientific paper along with being able to touch an actual mammoth lower jaw. Also, I analyzed an article detailing a traveling dinosaur exhibit that aims for scientific accuracy in its restorations of dinosaurs. As for the synergy between my mentor and I, I think that we work together really well and if it weren't for the distance impediment we would probably be more consistent with meeting up. Seeing that I have 40 hours to go, one plan I have is to set up a schedule so that my mentor and I can meet more consistently before the may deadline. Another idea that I have, but that I have to run by Mr. Rivas is that I might try to hit two birds with one stone by asking my mentor if he could help me out with my second independent component. I'm not to sure about that last idea but I think that its worth it to ask Mr. Rivas tomorrow. 

Blog 12: Holiday Project Update

My main activity during winter break.

1.    It is important to consistently work on your senior project, whether it is break or we are in school.  What did you do over the break with your senior project?

-      -  I’m going to be honest; I haven’t been very productive over break. The few things I did get done though are a personal tally of how many hours I have spent on my first independent component and also a sort of mental picture of what I want my second independent component to be about.

2.    What was the most important thing you learned from what you did, and why?  What was the source of what you learned?

-      -  As I said before, I thought about what I was going to do for my second independent component (I want to do a complete reconstruction of a dinosaur of my choosing). My main issue is thinking of what materials that I will use that will both be sturdy and cheap. It occurred to me to look up what museums use to connect the bones so I looked it up and found this FAQ (my source) and as it turns out they use steel rods to connect individual bones. From this, I learned that whatever I do I’m going to need strong but malleable wire, which is important because the frame work of my dinosaur needs to be able to bear the weight of what I do on top of it and not bend the frame inward.

3.  Your third interview will be a 10 question interview related to possible answers for your EQ. Who do you plan to talk to and why?

-      -  For my third interview, I’m planning on talking to Gabriel Santos, museum collections manager of the Raymond M Alf Museum, because he is currently studying a type of ocean hippo which means that interviewing him would allow me to probe his studies and to find out what type of analyses push his research along more.