Meeting and Miscellaneous, February 24, 2010

My name is Troy and I’m one of the paleontology graduate students involved with the Po Plains project. This is my first time writing a blog, so I’m not entirely sure what to write about. We had a meeting this morning to discuss the direction of our outreach for this project, with social networking being a large part of it (considering the vast number of people with whom you can get in touch). Unfortunately, I’m a little out of my area of understanding.

We are about to enter the third month of the project, and I’m worried that we are still waiting on our samples. We are putting the website together now, since we don’t need any samples for it. I know our intern is really excited about the fossils, and I hope that we get them before she loses interest. I won’t be the primary graduate student on this project until next semester, but I’m already concerned that we are running out of time. I’ve been in school long enough to know how quickly semesters pass.

Po Plain Reflection February 18, 2010

I attended the Conference on Higher Education Pedagogy (=teaching) and went to a session on internships that gave me a good framework we can use for this project.

I will send a copy of the internship plan to the project team for their reactions and suggestions. I think this will give us a good way to organize our approach. We are all struggling a little as we are trying to start so many things at once, but I am starting to see what some benchmarks and deliverables can be.

I also see the value of articulating our goals and referring back to them. We have actually accomplished quite a bit in the past month--despite the SNOW!

Starting Off

I am the graduate assistant for the Po Plain study working between the research and outreach aspect of the project. I have been working with Ceseley (STEM intern) on how to communicate the research aspect of the Po Plain Project via a website to communicate paleontology and sequence stratigraphy to the public.

Meetings with Ceseley are going very well, I always feel I talk her ear off, but I think she understands more of what we are doing and why we feel it is important. Recently, I have mainly just talked about the research aspect and tried to give her a story type explanation of the interactions and interworkings of the Po Plain. I really wanted to give her some excitement about the project and understand that from just one shell you can tell a whole story about it and that it is really interesting. I hope I have at least made her excited about this project, but with me not having much to give her so far, I hope it all works out.

I have written half of the website for the project so far and I feel it is going well. I am trying to write sections for the website describing the project, the research aspect, sequence stratigraphy, paleontology, and quantitative methods. It is slightly overwhelming, but I got to do it.

Po Plain Reflection January 2010

We kicked off the STEM Education and Public Outreach (EPO) component of Dr. Kovalewki's Po Plain NSF Research project at the beginning of the 2010 spring semester.

By working with our partner over in Multicultural Programs we hired an undergraduate intern who will work with us, Ceseley. She is a Biology major, so first off we need to start building her understanding of the background geosciences information for her to be able to help us with the "Communicating STEM with the Public" aspect of this project. She will also be working on some of the research after our samples arrive in March.

Jackie, one of the Graduate Assistants on the project is doing a great job of helping translate complex geo concepts. She said this is helpful to her just in communicating about the science. She is really taking seriously the concept of mentoring.

I had the idea to get Ceseley to help us with social networking like Facebook and Blogspot to start out. The Geos Outreach program hasn't done that yet although I have colleagues who have encouraged it (thanks Beth and Denny!). Turns out this may be a really good idea. It is easy for her! But because I am not in that world yet it has been really hard for me to imagine how to even get started. I am SO EXCITED to be able to have this opportunity to move forward with these communication technologies!

One of the educational tools I really believe in and try to build into all my work is reflection. I have tried to encourage it with students and colleagues, but now it looks like using blogs we can actually make it pretty easy for everyone to document the various viewpoints that are working on our EPO.

Reflections of the First Month on the Job

I was hired as an undergraduate intern to work with Dr. Michal Kowalewski on his Po Plain Project, as well as to help with outreach projects in regards to the Museum of Geosciences on campus. These projects will help allow the community what the Geology Department has to offer.

Since I'm a Biological Sciences major, there's a gap between the sciences, and therefore I need a broad overview of different terms and generalizations. Llyn, the Geosciences Outreach Coordinator and Jackie, the graduate student assigned to this project have helped me to get a basic understanding.

I've also been helping the museum work on broadening their horizons, by get more in touch with social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, and blogs.

When I think about Geology, personally I think about geologists communicating with other geologists. These social tools could hopefully help change this, by communicating this science with the community in a way that all would understand.

With almost a month into the internship, I can see that the job will definitely be a learning experience for me as well as the Geology Department.