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?