EVOLUTIONS Internships 2018

We have been learning about the Western Interior Seaway and the formations that the fossils come from. Our project was about the Niobrara Chalk, Pierre Shale, and Fox Hills Formations. We compiled a bunch of data about the geologic makeup of the formations (the lithology), the different species found in each formation (the biodiversity), and we used the data to determite what the environment was like in our discussion/conclusion. We went to the beach on Wednesday to see if we could find any invertebrates. We found a lot of crabs, snails, and a few clams. We found a large, living horseshoe crab as well.

When coming into the program, something that I hoped to learn was how to carry out a research project, earn about the application of the research and its importance to education. My expectation is the same to an extent from what I learned since I learned about the implementation of the study in the real world and why it's essential. However, I still struggle to understand how to fully carry out a research project since, the project that I was assigned regarded little data analysis. Even though, the project that I was assigned provided little data analysis; it had a strong background in information. Finally, I got the chance to not only focus on my project but also the projects that individuals within the program were doing as well. The most challenging aspects of my research experience did not have the chance to focus on a specific problem or question. When we did try to focus on a particular issue or question it was deemed not necessary or not useful so, there was no funding

     At this point in time, my internship has been over for about a week and I am planning what I want to include on my poster. I have been brainstorming ideas of possible research questions that could apply to what I did during my internship, but this is proving to be a difficult task because most of the work I did revolved around cataloging outflows rather than actually exploring a question. So far, I have been able to come up with my methods and procedures and some of the basic information that I want to include on my poster about outflows and star formation. I also have results for my research in the sense that I have different types of images of various outflows in the Orion Nebula to showcase on my poster. However, I do not have results that exactly answer any specific research question at this point.      Throughout my internship, I learned things such as what star formation is and what happens during it, how to look for outflows, how to use various computer programs such Glue,