Mae's Recap - Week 6

This week was a mixture of extension work and research work for the Herps group. On Monday, Maggie and I put our extension game into effect. We had a station at the PALS event. The kids really enjoyed our “Edge Escape” game; moreover, they LOVED the wax frogs we gave out as prizes. By the end of the event, Maggie and I were pros at giving elevator pitches for our project. This Saturday we will have another extension booth at Riverfest. Maggie and I had to change our “Edge Escape” game because we felt it would not work well at Riverfest. Therefore, we will be playing a game of hide & seek with our model frogs. I am looking forward to Riverfest, it seems like it will be a really cool event.

For our research, we deployed another round of frogs. It was a little disappointing because we did not get as high of an attack rate that we usually do. I think it may have had something to do with the heavy rain we had this week. We also started conducting our data analysis. It was a pain trying to get the program we needed downloaded onto our laptops. However, with Nigel’s help we were able to get it working! Next week we will have our last deployment. We will also continue to work on our “presentables”. Maggie and I are about half-way finished with our manuscript, but our poster and power point still need a lot of work.

For our social events this week, we got to go to Chicago on Saturday! I had a lot of fun walking around the city with everyone. My favorite part had to be the deep-dish pizza we had at Connie’s. It was exceptional. In addition, I took Jenny down to the Monon Trail on Sunday, so she could experience a REAL biking trail. I think she fell in love with it :) This weekend we are going to the Indiana Dunes and I am pumped. I love beaches and I can’t wait to go swimming.

Overall, I cannot believe we only have two weeks left of this program. This has been one of the coolest experiences of my life. I am excited to see our finished project, but I’ll be really sadwhen the program ends and we all a have to go back home