Internship #11

This week was really good. It went by really fast considering it was a shorter week.. I worked on something new this week!! I worked on cleaning out the samples from the vernal pools and sorting all them by species. It was kind of hard to sort them when I first started because they all looked so similar! I was given pictures of the 4 different species that I was pulling out of the sample.. and even though I had the pictures of them, it was still really difficult t distinguish which ones were which. On Thursday my mentor did not want any of us to come in to work because she didn't want us driving in the rain on the freeways because it was supposed to be one of the worst days with the weather. I stayed at home and worked on my powerpoint for my POL. The day before my mentor went over the overall project with me and showed me a powerpoint on the entire project that we're working on and explained to me all of the importance of each of the individual parts of the project we are working on. Wednesday was also the day that Darren came to visit me. It went pretty well and I enjoyed showing off what I've been working on while I've been there. On Friday I made my very own hydration system!!!! I was flipping out I was so excited! Basically the previous projects that my mentor has been working on includes collecting core samples and sometimes there are endangered species in the samples so we cant throw them away. So with the left over core samples we make hydration systems out of them.. which means filling a tank up with about 3 inches of water and pouring the dirt in. It then gets incubated to try and hatch the species that are in there. I wasnt allowed to use a samples that had any endangered species in it.. so I wont have any fairy shrimp in mine.. But I should have other crustaceans that will hatch. Hopefully!!