Internship #10

Today my work consisted of working on a new project instead of the core samples!!!! (yes this is very exciting) When we go out in the field to collect samples we keep a jar of the species that were collected in the net. That is the little jar in the picture. This process is called cleaning. I basically go through and clean out the jar and put each different specie into a different vial. There are fairy shrimp, copopods, cladocerans and ostracods. I go through all of the liquid in the jar and sort out the species for it then to be sorted by Katie who sorts them into the different subspecies that they are.. also whether they are male or female as well. When i first got started on doing this I messed up a couple times with the different species because they all look so similar under the microscope! All the same color and same size too! But I have become a professional with working on this the last couple days this week.

What university did you go too?
When did you first start to find an interest in vernal pools?
What projects have you worked on prior to the projects having to do with the restoration of the vernal pools?
How did you get started working at USD?
When did you know you wanted to be a teacher as well as a researcher?
How do you manage your time between teaching and working on your research projects?