Project

Investigation:

I'm a person that is very passionate and interested towards math and sciences. The UH Summer Science Camp was perfect for people like me because it enabled students to expand our knowledge in the sciences. It taught students with the use of physically engaging work, including lab and field work. In addition, I'm also a person who tends to learn through experience and getting hands-on with things. Thus, everything I learned throughout the camp stayed in my brain, even until today. Although, I was specifically interested in the field of physics, the camp still managed to put me in joy with its activities and made me gain interest towards biology.

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Preparation:

Before joining and helping the lab with its work, I needed basic knowledge of bees and the current issue regarding them. In summary, the bees' population has been decreasing due to parasites and viruses. This will be extremely critical for the world as there are major pollinators of vegetables and fruits that we eat in a daily basis. Therefore, the lab had came up with ways to check the bees' health: checking their diagnosed virus through lab work, and checking the condition of their colonies through field work. With all these knowledge — regarding the specific viruses, parasites, and methods of checking their health — I was able to perform tasks that were assigned to me throughout the camp. I was specifically responsible for counting the virus cells using a microscope, and also helping the lab recording each bee colonies during field work.

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Action:

Throughout the camp, I spend most of my time in the lab, helping my lab people checking their viruses. I often helped one of the undergraduate counting virus cells of numerous bee samples that he had been collecting before the summer. Sometimes, I helped the other undergraduate detecting other viruses that involved pipetting and other lab methods. For the first week, I went through difficulties in distinguishing the virus cells from other cells in the microscope, as some looked similar. Though, I started to get hang of it as time passed. In addition, I spent my time in field work twice a week. With my bee-suit, I helped my lab people check the bee colonies. In the beginning, I had to learn multiple things about taking care of bee colonies. As it was my first encounter looking at real life bee colonies, I faced some difficulties. However with more experience, it became an easy task as time went by.

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Reflection:

There were various lab works and and field works that I experienced in the camp. It constantly amazed me throughout the 6 weeks of my summer. Waking up in the morning and heading to my lab was very joyful. I was able to learn and experience interesting things that you can't in your normal life. The camp really provided me an opportunity to spend the best summer I ever could, and also to live like a university student. Although there were times where field works were frightening as I had to check the bees' colonies directly and catch bees for more samples, sometimes without a bee-suit, the summer science camp at the UH has really been a great experience and opportunity in widening my knowledge for science.

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Demonstration:

Due to this summer science camp, my interest for biology that has never been greater than that for physical science has risen. It has provided me an extremely joyful memory and experience for my summer of 2018. I was able to present such experience through my CAS portfolios with pictures and reflections with details of what I did there and how I felt throughout the camp.