Monday the 30th of November marked the start of two exciting new externship projects in the lab. All three undergraduate students are from Carleton College. Belle Kinder is taking inventory and creating a database for bee specimens. Audrey Lothspeich and Jackie Culotta are working on quantifying and analyzing the seed sets from various remnant populations.
On the first day, the externs were oriented to the lab and the Plant Science Building’s facilities. They learned the basics of Echinacea reproduction from an orientation lesson with Stuart. After listening to a presentation by a community biologist about the relative importance of intraspecies variation and species turnover in accounting for total population change (and eating lunch) they got right to work.
All externs discussed with their associated long-term interns (Belle with Amy, and Danny with Audrey and Jackie) about the the specifics of their projects, and their desired outcomes. After that, Belle set about deciding what needed adjustment with the current collection of specimens. Having an action plan is always important! Audrey and Jackie got right into dissecting and cleaning their first seed heads.
Stay tuned for 3 more exciting weeks of externship!
