Blog 24: Last Presentation Reflection

I would like to thank everyone who has helped me with my project. All the paleontologists I've met, my parents and other family members who have always pushed me to be at my best, and most of all to the senior team who pushed me out of my comfort zone with this project and in turn allowed me experience so many amazing things and to meet so many amazing and kind new people. Thank you very much!

(1) Positive Statement

What are you most proud of in your block presentation and/or your senior project? Why?

- In terms of my presentation, I'm very proud of the set up that I had for the room and of how well I was able to walk around the classroom and just overall be interactive with my audience. The reason why I'm proud of this is because in my previous lesson presentations I had an issue with sticking behind the teachers desk, which limited how interactive I could be with my audience and I was also proud of my set up because it helped me to continually be more interactive throughout my presentation. I'm also very proud of the second independent component and mentorship that I had for my overall project because both allowed me to connect experts in the field and to widen my knowledge of what a paleontologist really does.

(2) Questions to Consider

a.     What assessment would you give yourself on your block presentation?  Use the component contract to defend that assessment.

- I would self evaluate that my final presentation deserves an AE. For one, I went above and beyond in my creative set up of the room I presented and not only did that set up set an atmosphere for my presentation, it also allowed me to continually be more interactive with my audience and to keep them invested in my presentation. I also related the props in my set up to what I was presenting and I think I went above and beyond with that just by having a sheer amount of props that I both brought and used. Also, I think my presentation was above average in how it kept my audience invested because I was using the pictures on my slideshow to demonstrate the majority of the points I was making with my presentation. Additionally, I think I deserve an AE on my final presentation because of how well I had my presentation memorized, since my presentation only had short bullets and not long sentences. That happened because of how well practiced I must have seemed to my audience. For all the reasons above, I think I deserve an AE for my presentation.

b.     What assessment would you give yourself on your overall senior project? Use the component contract to defend that assessment.

- Overall, I think I deserve an AE on my senior project because on a vast majority of the components I've gone above what the contract called for. For example, my independent component 2  was around 70 hours. Also, my first independent component I actually traveled. Also, I went above and beyond with mentorship because even though I didn't surpass the service learning hours I think its what I had to do to earn those hours that makes that above and beyond. For example, after my mentor got his new job he and I had to put a great amount of effort into organizing when we'd meet each other and so I think in that sense I've went above and beyond for that. Also, I kept up to date with all the more smaller parts of my project like the notebook, where I took notes in color, and my blog, where I'm extremely thorough in my answers to questions like this one.

(3) What worked for you in your senior project?

- My independent components, research, blog, and my mentorship went notably well for me in my senior project.

(4) (What didn't work) If you had a time machine, what would you have done differently to improve your senior project?

- If I had a time machine, I'd try to improve upon my previous lesson presentations and gotten more mentorship hours and I would've also done more with my second independent component.

(5) Finding Value

How has the senior project been helpful to you in your future endeavors?   Be specific and use examples.

- One of the major issues with paleontology today has been the fact that jobs in paleontology are few and far between and that the funding for research is very rare in world that increasingly doesn't want to care for abstract fields like paleontology. I think my project has helped to prepare me for future difficulties in building up my career because throughout my project I've been introduced to many renowned experts in paleontology. My project has allowed me to network with these amazing and very kind people and I think they'd be a great source of wisdom and knowledge for me in the future and that this knowledge is going to get me through the hard times that are going to be present for me. I've also gotten to know an amazing dinosaur artist named Brian Engh and a paleontologist known as Dr. Mathew Wedel who both are renowned for their illustrative work of dinosaurs and I think they will be essential to my honing of my sculptor skills to reconstruct ancient life.

Blog 23: Exit Interview Prep

There's nothing quite like a funny meme to unnerve me before an interview. That poor Tyrannosaurus rex it was so close, yet so far.

(1) What is your essential question, and what are your answers?  What is your best answer and why?

My essential question is "How can a paleontologist best reconstruct the life of a prehistoric creature" and my answers to this question are that a paleontologist can analyze the context a fossilized creature was found in, analyze the fossils associated with that creature, or use the comparative method and the creature's phylogenetic context to reconstruct aspects of that prehistoric creature that wouldn't normally be known. 

As for the best answer to this question, there isn't a best answer. each of the answers that I stated before have their limitations as to what type of information they can reveal about an ancient creature and it would be very ignorant for a paleontologist to stick to only one of these answers. In fact, I would argue that the best way for a paleontologist to reconstruct the life of a prehistoric creature is to take up a holistic approach to paleontology and use all of the answers I have and to use the other methods that I didn't include as answers like evodevo, or isotope analysis. There are so many approaches that are leading to fascinating discoveries in paleontology. I think that this is the best answer to my question because the scientific method calls for hypotheses to be tested repeatedly until so much evidence is built up either for them or against them that it becomes hard to deny them. This means that by using different approaches towards reconstructing the life of a prehistoric creature, paleontologists can use that mountain of evidence to either contradict or support that reconstruction of that creature. 

(2) What process did you take to arrive at this answer?

At first, I was going to lean towards my second answer, because fossils provide very indisputable evidence for the reconstruction of a prehistoric creature, because they are actual physical remnants of that creature. However, I began to lean towards my current answer when I started to notice how interwoven each of my three answers were. If I wanted to get as much information about the context a fossilized creature is found in, there would most likely be the fossils of other creatures that would need to be analyzed in order to get detailed information. Also, if I want to compare a fossil to another fossil or the bone of a modern day animal, I still need to analyze that fossil to get the information I need to compare it to another animal's bone. This interconnectedness between all my answers revealed to me that a paleontologist would have their view of the ancient world severely limited if they didn't use any and every type of analysis possible to squeeze as much information as possible from the remnants of ancient creatures.

(3) What problems did you face?  How did you resolve them?

While I was researching for this project I had many issues trying to come up with reputable sources of information for my topic and in addition to that I was having a hard time deciding what the focus of my project should be. I was able to resolve my research problem by being introduced to Cal Poly Pomona's amazing online database, which helped me a lot. With this influx of detailed studies, I began to be pushed towards reconstruction. The final key to the puzzle for me from there was finding this really cool article that I unfortunately didn't save, that talked about how museum exhibits are supposed to teach their viewers a story and to fill them with awe. After that and some help from my mentor Eric Scott, Mr. Rivas, and Mrs. Ortega, I arrived to my EQ, which gave me the direction that I desperately craved. 

(4) What are the two most significant sources you used to answer your essential question and why?

One significant source was the Cal Poly database because many of the sources I have came from their database and all of those sources added to my understanding of what a paleontologist does by showing me the outcome of their hard work. The other significant source for me was my interviews with my mentor, Dr. Stuart Sumida, Dr. Andrew Farke, and Dr. Mathew Wedel. These accomplished scientists and absolute role models were part of the reason why I began seeing how my answers to my essential question were interwoven with each other and they all gave me insight as to how an accomplished paleontologist should go about reconstructing the ancient world.