Fabiola Gutierrez

The Best Experience

posted August 07, 2015

These last weeks of the internship were as remarkable as the first. My partner and I finished our project and got to print our poster, which I thought looked great. It taught me a lot of new information about pH and bacteria.

Two weeks ago, we went camping at Pinnacles National Park. It was a new experience for me because I had never gone camping before. I had a lot of fun, and it was more comfortable to sleep in the tent than I had expected. We stayed up at night and did our best to shoo away the raccoons and insects that kept coming near us. We saw the stars and the Milky Way Galaxy in the night sky. In the morning, we went on a 3-hour hike to look at fossils and rocks. It was tiresome climbing up the mountain, but going back down was a lot more fun, as well as easier and faster. On the way home we stopped for treats at a local store and ate ice cream.

I am going to miss coming each day to the classroom at Geocorner. I made lots of new friends and memories. Also, I learned so much about Earth sciences that made me more aware of the world we inhabit. This was truly a great experience that I will always remember.

Intern — This is when I got to the top of the mountain during our geology hike at Pinnacles.

View — Here is the lovely view at Pinnacles National Park.

Stuffed animal — Mr. Paws needed a break from hiking, too!

The Start of Our Project

posted July 14, 2015

We are now further in the internship, and we have begun different kinds of work. The main focus of these past couple of weeks has been our project. My partner for this project is Divya and we are studying the relationship between bacterial cell size and pH, along with other factors. We have begun using R, and it is difficult, but we have always found a way to fix any issues that we've had with it.

Last Wednesday, we took a field trip to the Hopkins Marine Station. I got to see many fascinating creatures, including starfish. I learned what occurs at field stations and the cool things they have. My favorite part of the trip was exploring the tide pools and discovering all the little animals that live there.
I look forward to learning more from the project, lab meetings, and anything else that can turn into a learning experience.

Tidepool — This is at the tide pools. It is hard to see some of the little creatures, but there were some small crabs and other more visible things in the water, like shells.

Rewarding First Couple of Weeks

posted June 30, 2015

My first couple of weeks in the internship program have been rewarding. I learned about different kinds of organisms that I was not too familiar with before. Also, I studied several fossils at the lab and got to talk about them with the other interns, which I enjoyed. Last Friday, I had the great opportunity to see some of the fossils in nature: at the beach. The picture is of a rock with several shells that were fossilized into it. I found it intriguing how some fossils are very well preserved, while others have less remains. I hope to learn much more about the different fossils and about the organisms from prehistoric times because I find all of it very interesting.

One of the main projects I'm working on in the lab is data collection. This task is new to me, but I learned how informational it is. This allowed me to learn more about the bacteria I am studying and see them in a different way. I found it very beneficial to work in pairs because we can really learn much from each other and provide more insight into our research. I am eager to continue the work with the bacteria and am excited to see what we can discover.