After a week away due to the hurricane, we are back at it for the first full week of classes. We had our typical classes on Tuesday and Thursday including an economics game involving lots of candy and paper airplane flying in Andy’s class. Lunchtime for some of us means sitting on one of the porches at CSI with a beautiful view.
Though we could do a lot of schoolwork from a distance during the hurricane, capstone work relative to this region was something we had to postpone. This week we began getting into the data collection aspect for our capstone project. We had three rotations to collect data for the different aspects of our study.
One station consisted of a discussion about who we want our podcast to be directed towards, what kind of questions we want to ask in interviews and how we are going to reach out to the study participants for interviews. We practiced using the microphones and interviewing each other with funny questions that sparked controversy like “Do you sing in the shower” and “What do you think of Garden Gnomes?”
Another rotation was mining through data at the Dare County Environmental Health Office. There, we were each assigned a certain number of files to go through and record data about septic tanks and the soil and water levels in peoples’ yards.
The third rotation consisted of traveling to the different well sites to learn where they were located and then capturing some water to run nutrient and bacteria tests. Once we got back from being at those sites in Nags Head, we learned the process for running those tests.
Peter provided us with the quote of the week when reminding other groups to be sure to label their sampling containers correctly– “There is a lot of very similar-looking water.”
Outside of the academics, parts of the group explored the Secotan Farmer’s Market on Saturday morning and attended PrideFest in Manteo later that evening.
Next up for us is our first week with internships! Stay tuned for more excitements.