Week Five
Week Five
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February 9th through February 15th
A judgemental crow (Corvus brachyrhynchos) watches Prairie and I complete our wrack survey for the week... he probably wanted snacks
Happy International Women and Girls in Science Day!! (Feb. 11th)
In my internship, Dr. Ross Whippo gave myself and my intern partner, Prairie Sievers, our first training on how to use R studio to organize and create basic graphs or illustrations using datasets. While it's just the first few steps of becoming familiar with the most widely-used computer system for statistical analysis in biological sciences, it was extremely interesting and I am looking forward to learning more! I didn't realize how cool I'd think coding is, but there's something insanely gratifying about using a computer language to create the graphics you need to express your experiments. Honestly, I joked it's a form of modern-day spell casting; with these few crucial terms, and a distinct pattern of expressing functions, your data is transformed from numeric or character values to a visual representation of your tested variables. That's phenomenal.
I also got to go on a survey to the Gulf of Alaska with Prairie, NOAA experts Kris Holderied (my new favorite oceanography expert) and our captain, Mike! He's been piloting vessels in Alaskan waters since he was sixteen, so although I was nervous and completely new to the instruments we were using to collect data, I was very comfortable from 9:00 when we showed up to NCCOS offices through 16:00 when we returned! The four of us were able to scout for marine mammals of note, and collect phytoplankton samples as well as CDT data at around 7 survey locations within the bay or nearing Elizabeth Island.
A photo of the survey sites (identified by yellow dots), which are targeted and approached using coordinates and a GPS installed onboard the vessel. We reached the lowest red dot closest to the peninsula on this image (technically within the Gulf of Alaska).
Kris Holderied (on left) operates the winch to raise the CDT as it continues collecting subsurface data. I (right) am reading the current depths out to Prairie Sievers and preparing to bring the CDT back into the boat before moving to the next survey spot (thank you, Prairie, for the image!).
A physical copy of data collection for the CDT. Here, we document foraging marine mammals spotted during data collection (an indication of prey presence), precise location (long-lat), beaufort (measure of sea swell height in feet), and more. This is completed at every survey location, and in conjunction with the CDT records and phytoplankton sampling, scientists of many backgrounds can grasp the activity and health of Kachemak Bay's ecosystems.
Surveys of wrack continued on Friday; it had snowed just recently so to our surprise, Prairie and I discovered two of our randomly generated plots were 100% snow rather than marine deposition.
The Semester By the Bay crew hosted a fajita night on Saturday, and although this is not internship or career-related, I am so incredibly grateful to be surrounded by a group of women scientists who push each other to make the world a better place. Whether we're attending community events in Homer, wanting to conduct scientific surveys that Homer residents want to see, or reminding each other that we can go out and explore Alaska while completing upper-level coursework... I am ready to see what my colleagues accomplish tomorrow, next month, and in the next few years as we enter the workforce of environmental scientists.
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