Garret's Recap - Week 5

Another week is done and over with, and the internship is flying by faster than I ever expected it to. This week was a bit of a change of pace, since we got to work with a new batch of high school students and were tasked with working on an extension project instead of our research. While I am anxious about making sure our research is finished in time, I appreciated this small break from thinking about our project as much.

Focusing on extension has given me an opportunity to explore how to communicate a scientific message to people unfamiliar with the field, and I’ve learned that it can be very difficult. I’ve given many speeches and/or presentations in both high school and college, and I like to believe that I’m good at it. However, targeting an audience unfamiliar with the science behind your presentation can be very difficult, and I’ve found that I struggle with doing it effectively. Developing a game for children is especially difficult for me, as it requires even more simplification and I am prone to over-complicating things instead of simplifying them. Despite my struggles, I believe this project has been an important exercise in communicating with the public about natural resources and has helped me develop some skills that will prove useful in the future.

Although I’ve appreciated this mental break from our research projects, I’m ready to begin work on our research projects once again this upcoming week. With only a few weeks left, I am hoping we can finish as much of this research project as we can before the REEU internship ends. We have a lot left to do, but I’m confident we can reach a satisfying finish to our research and that there is real potential to learn valuable things from this project’s results.

Here's my submission for the contest: