Independent Component #1 Essay

This is one of the larger more impressive ridges of the Trona Pinnacles. Also, I almost got stuck on the really steep hill on the right side of the picture. 

Click here to access my essay on the possibility of their being fossils near the Trona Pinnacles and the context of such fossils. 

Lesson 2 Reflection

I think I will have other events later in life that will merit more nervousness than this presentation.

1.What are you most proud of in your Lesson 2 Presentation and why?

- I’m very proud of the fact that two table groups actually got the correct answer for my activity, because I knew walking in to the presentation that my activity was most likely going to be too complicated to the class so I wasn’t expecting anyone to get the right answer in the allotted amount of time.

2. a.     What assessment would you give yourself on your Lesson 2 Presentation (self-assessment)?

       AE       P          AP       CR       NC

     b.     Explain why you deserve that grade using evidence from the Lesson 2 component contract.

- My lesson 2 deserves an AE because I went above and beyond in the preparation of my activity. Also, I provided interesting and relevant props to both my answer one and EQ in the crystals that were passed around class and the fossils of ancient creatures. Additionally, people liked my brochure because it gave them quite a bit of background information on my topic that taught them more information in addition to what they learned from my presentation.

3. What worked for you in your Lesson 2?

- I really liked how people responded to their receiving of candy during my activity and I also really liked how well people responded to the content on the slide in my presentation about a study conducted by my mentor on a poor three-legged Timber Wolf.

4. What didn't work? If you had a time machine, what would you have done differently to improve your Lesson 2?

- For one, I think I had too much content in my slide show so I would’ve eliminated one of the scientific studies that I cited. Furthermore, I would’ve come up with a much simpler activity that would still be very informational for the audience.

5. What do you think your answer #2 is going to be?

- I have already formed an idea for my answer 2 and that is physical analysis of a fossil can reveal a lot about a prehistoric creature’s appearance and life. This can also be seen in the same study by my mentor that I cited during my presentation.

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.

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.