After my sophomore year I found a Research Experience for Undergraduates through the Leadership Alliance and the National Science Foundation. Both organizations strive to introduce students to the research process. I interned at Dartmouth College where I ran an independent project attempting to determine how certain pond characteristics affect their macroinvertebrate community. Before I began my project, I read several published studies. This informed me of the questions the various labs were working on. Further, I was able to delve into the current body of knowledge and come up with new and interesting questions to ask. These papers were cited in my final presentation (Info Lit 1-4 and Synth 1-4). The environmental factors for the ponds were already collected for a different project. I used this information and correlated it with macroinvertebrate that I identified to determine the relationship between certain pond characteristics and the macroinvertebrate community they house. Working closely with a graduate student I learned just how much work goes into research. While I kept a pretty regular 10-6 day, the grad student I worked with regularly showed up around 8 or 9 and stayed at least until midnight. At the end of my 8 weeks I presented my research as a poster at the Leadership Alliance National Symposium.
poster_presentation.pptx | |
File Size: | 2775 kb |
File Type: | pptx |