A new year with an adjusted direction

Well here we are again. Classes have started and the smell of academia is in the air. It's taken me awhile to begin contributing to this blog again but its been a busy year thus far. I don't think its so much that the professors are handing out a lot of assignments, its more like I'm scaling an endless mountain of readings.

I began meeting with Carrie a week or so ago about the project and it would seem that the project is not as far along as we had expected it would be by this time, but that is just part of the learning experience.

I left off in the Spring with a rough storyline for the project. Carrie has said to me that she feels like she has a better understanding of where we're going to head with the project now. She has shown me rough sketches of the storyboard and its all very exciting.
We also had a meeting with Dr. Chai last week to discuss where the project is going. We discussed how the module would potentially work; The main component is an interactive concept map. We want the general public to be interested by the project and encourage them to learn more. The best way to present important information, is in a way that people can understand and find it interesting without the complicated and often confusing jargon. From the beginning I know they've been thinking about how we can make it so the viewer can CHOOSE their own story. To be more clear, we want them to be able to direct their own learning experience. We want the viewer (in whatever age group, education level or field of interest that may be) to be able to say "I'm interested in this aspect of climate change but not this" or "I want to know about specifically about circulation or fish kills" and be able extract an understandable, non-threatening explanation of it. Then, if the person wants to know more, they can click and find out more about the mechanics behind it. It was also suggested that we add in a glossary with diagrams that can be as in depth as the reader wants it to be.

On a side note, we have a few conferences coming up which is pretty exciting. The University of Maine is hosting a climate change conference called CC21 that we're submitting a poster and an abstract for. Carrie has the backbone for the poster prepared from her symposium last year, we just have to tweak it a little bit. Carrie just finish writing an abstract and now my job is to look over it and help her crunch it from 130 words to 100 words without losing any of the meaning.

Aside from this project I've got my capstone to consider this semester. I'm taking my capstone proposal class. I need to be thinking about what I want to do for it. I've been thinking about trying to incorporate this project into my capstone if there is a way to do it. I was thinking that maybe when it comes time to test out the module, I can be using the testing period and the module in my capstone thesis. We'll see. I need to discuss it with my professor to see if it will count because I'm pretty sure the capstone is suppose to be library based, lab based or... field based? So I guess it depends on your interpretation of field based. It seems like a lot of people on campus are not entirely sure what the parameters are for the capstone because it can be so broad in the SMS field. Which can be a curse or a blessing depending on the way you look at it.

My next step is the start expanding on each individual idea from the concept map, adding dialogue, explanations,videos, terms, photos, diagrams, whatever I can think of. Also, to start formulating a running glossary.

At the same time, Carrie has started a new blog for us to work on as well as our personal blogs. Carrie described it as being "a global conversation" of whats going on. The web page is http://arabianseaclimate.blogspot.com/. Before I leave today I need to decide which concept I want to work on next so we can get started on it asap.

Hopefully this semester I'm going to get to meet Annette and Joaquim and possibly a few others of the scientists which is really cool.

Its going to be an exciting and eventful semester I think!

May 2nd, 2008 -- Last day of work until the next semester!

Yes, It is my last day of work for this semester because I'm going home for the summer. I'm honestly a bit sad because we are just beginning put the project together. Carrie will probably be the one to continue on with the outline and the Power point project throughout the summer so in that respect I'm pretty excited to see what she and the summer student worker come up with!

Today I worked on expanding the current outline and adding in the citations to make it easier for whoever continues on with what I'm doing now. I am trying to decide how I want to explain climate change as a whole because it is quite a broad topic. Dr. Dastoor talked about The Gaia hypothesis today in class which makes me think I want to incorporate that type of idea. The Gaia Hypothesis was developed by James Lovelock in the early 1970's which explains that the globe's living and nonliving parts are all just part of a complex interaction between systems that make up one functioning "organism". To put in layman's terms, everything part of the world is connected and interact. So when that means that the changes happening in the Arabian sea ultimately effect the entire globe.

I will be working with Carrie and Dr. Chai again in the fall. By then we should have the early stages of the project completed and the modules in our possession. We'll likely be working on testing out the outreach project on local students.

Early on in the week when Carrie and I were talking about the outline, Carrie mentioned that we want to be able to package up our project in a way that teachers will eventually be able to use our packet and computer program in their classrooms. So at the moment, I want to be thinking of the outline in a linear storyboard way, and also in a "chose you own adventure" type way.

April 30th, 2008

Today Carrie and I edited the schematic I was working on last week and I sent it to Dr. Chai to see what he thinks of it.
There are only a few days left for studying for finals so I'm going to be pretty busy this week! Hopefully within this coming week I'll be able to start on the Powerpoint.
Yesterday in Dr. Lindsay's seminar we made outlines of mock-outreach videos on Coral bleaching. I found it helpful because Dr. Lindsay helped us develop ideas on how to make it interesting.
I've decided that I need to think of something that kids can relate to or sympathize with like a "cuddly" species. It seems to me that sometimes people can be a little numb to things or events they can't relate to. I don't know if that sounds bitter or bleak or not but to me its an observation.

April 25, 2008

Carrie is finishing up a poster based on her work with the Arabian sea project so today I worked on making a schematic for her. The original was of the winter-time snow cover in the Himalayas and how it effects the strength of the monsoon winds but it did not fit the style of her poster so I made a replicate of it on Power Point. I have to say, I am quite pleased with it.
Hopefully I'll either be beginning to put my Power point together or I'll be continuing to add to my outline.

April 24th, 2008

I did not work yesterday like I had planned because I've been so busy with tests this week. I had a Chemistry exam on Tuesday and then a Physics exam on Wednesday so I spent most of the weekend and early week studying for those.
Today Carrie and I decided it was time to start developing a preliminary outline for what the end project is going to look like. Its quite simple and linear, however its a solid start. I'll probably use the outline for the Power point which I plan on starting next week. Eventually, the outline is going to be multi directional as we begin to think about constructing the website.
Carrie showed me Google Earth today which is SUCH a cool program! Its a 3D map of the earth constructed from millions of satellite images. You can zoom in and out and pull up things like the seasonal measurements of chlorophyll or temperature or current patterns. I think I'm going to try to incorporate some of its images into my presentation. I'm positive kids will find it more interesting than a 2D map.
I've also decided that I'm going to download the program so that I can play around with it for fun!

First post in a new blog

The Maine Space Grant Consortium funds an outreach program at the University of Maine. It is based on the research done by scientists, Joaquim Goes, Helga do Rosario Gomes, Prasad Thoppil, and John Fasulo, in the Arabian Sea on how climate change effects the monsoon seasons, the surrounding countries and eventually the entire world.
I work with Dr. Fei Chai and Carrie Armbrecht on this. The project is ever changing because we are still unsure how we want it to turn out however we do know that we are aiming to educate people about this project in different demographics. I was hired as an undergraduate not only to help carry out whatever we decide to do but also to lend some perspective; We want our finished work to be interesting to college and high school aged kids in order to get them involved. Dr. Chai and Carrie are thinking that an interactive website would be a good form of education and I will eventually be making a power point presentation.
In the meantime, Carrie and I have decided to make blogs to help gauge our own discoveries and education because we are still learning too. I'm very excited about the whole thing. I took an environmental policy class last fall and one of the main points of his class was that social awareness is a huge factor in change. Climate change is a huge issue that we, of all generations will eventually have to face head on. If we give the youth the tools to make informed decisions today, the society of tomorrow will likely benefit from it in the future.