I have made it through week 1 with no huge catastrophes! This week has been exhausting and jam packed but I have learned so much and I have really enjoyed my work in the lab.
The first week has been fantastic! With the guidance of my frontline mentor, Charles Seaton, my project will control the quality of data from the LOBO (Land/Ocean Biogeochemistry Observatory). This week I learned about the LOBO, how it generally works, as well as the types of data it monitors. To my surprise, this instrument monitors A LOT of different types of data ranging from Salinity, Fluorescence, to Oxygen, Nitrate, as well a list of other characteristics of the Columbia River Estuary.
This first week has been filled with moving in and meeting all of the other interns and learning about my project for the summer. I drove up to Beaverton from Sacramento and was delighted to finally arrive at my apartment on Friday evening. The apartment has a lot of amenities and is next to every bit of shopping that I could ever need so that was a great plus as well.
It’s been a brilliantly exciting week out here in Astoria. On Tuesday I was overwhelmed with acronyms and uses for the field instruments (CTD: Conductivity, Temperature, Depth. CT: Conductivity, Temperature. ADCP: Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler. etc.) and then taken out to set up a station underneath the Astoria-Megler Bridge. I have to say, I felt pretty cool setting up scientific instruments with all the cars rushing by above me. Wednesday started at 5:00am because we had to meet the boat and take the glider out to its first data collection point.
Submitted by Evan Jackson on June 12, 2009 - 1:19pm
Wow! What a week. The first five days have been extremely busy and packed with a great deal of material. I started off the week conducting literature searches on the compound I’m going be studying this summer, manganese dioxide. It turns out that it has some pretty interesting properties that have not been examined in the context that CMOP is focused on. Over the next nine weeks I’m going be studying the reactivity of both synthetic and biogenic nano-sized MnO2.
In the beginning of the week I was introduced to Google Earth version 5 and all of its new functions with the markup language KML. KML is very closely related to XML. Nevertheless, KML is only meant to be used with Google Earth. There is also .kmz, which is a file type that can be used when saving a .kml file. The only use that has is if you have images included with your .kml, and you would want them to be displayed on any computer.
This week was a lot of setup and review.I got to meet everyone in the lab, and got my cubicle and computer.My project this summer is to make a sensor for detecting iron nanoparticles in solution.This week I looked at past methods that have been tried, and compiled their data and methods.I also started work on an electrochemical method that shows some promise.
My week was three days. On Monday I was here for the intern and staff introductions, computer and website information, and pictures for the blog. I had to leave before the safety training, so I have to take the safety training with the high school students. I had final exams on Monday afternoon, Tuesday, and Wednesday. On Thursday, I met with Ethan, Jeff, and Jim for email, blog, laptop set up. Then I spent some time doing the big brain. At lunch, my mentor Liz showed me around campus. The rest of the afternoon, I printed my certificates, got my i.d. and looked up stats for Liz.
Submitted by Bill Odette on June 12, 2009 - 10:02am
Week one is almost over, and it's been interesting to say the least. I've learned a lot of practical techniques this week including colony PCR, plasmid DNA purification, gel preparation, etc. I'm still trying to wrap my head around exactly what my project will entail, but it's becoming clearer every day, and I'm excited to get into the meat of the work. I'm running my PCR products from yesterday on a gel as I type this, so hopefully there will be some positive results.
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