by 7/18/16
Let me being by saying – wow. The whole experience has been an incredible one. I have met some amazing people who all share the same interest in science, the learning environment on the ship has been phenomenal. The guidance from Steve and Kaatje has been incredible and they have made sure everyone feels welcome and caught up with all the science happening on board. I greatly advise any undergraduate students to apply for STEMSEAS as it is something you will have no regrets about, besides maybe a little sea sickness at the start!
The first day on the ship, unfortunately I did not have my sea legs yet so it resulted in me and the restroom becoming well acquainted. But the days that followed have been much better, although today some of the waves have picked up and definitely began to rock the boat a lot more. Being out at sea is incredibly humbling, you get a true sense of how small you really are; and you are in fact at the mercy of the sea.
The science that occurs here on the boat is beautiful, there is still much to learn from the crew members as they are incredibly wise. Luckily much of the work we do has been hands on and I have been able to grasp the concepts much better than simply observing it in a classroom environment. Being able to freely examine the cores and making smear samples to observe some of the foraminifera from the cores has been great. It’s an extremely delicate process and I learned that the hard way by unfortunately crushing a few of them in the sieve and then getting an acronym specifically for me from Steve – RIS. I cannot exactly recall what the I and S stand for, but R was for ruining! Ha.
Me and Rick have been working on a project on the correlation between barometric pressure and air temperature around the endeavor, and to see if some of the squalls we ventured by or through had any effect on our data. The data is coming straight off the endeavor and our specific cruise. We are excited to see our results and present them to the crew.
The expedition is unfortunately nearing its end but I plan to gain as much as I can from this experience, and fully utilize these last few days to truly learn.
Thank you, STEMSEAS!
-David Guel-Cisneros – Undergraduate student from El Paso Community College.
