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Final Project Reflection | Karan Pol

Final Project Reflection

Karan Pol

BIOL 2103H

  1. In conjunction with many other students in the class, we went to Clarke Central High to work with the students the AP Environmental Sciences class on an extension of one of our own projects regarding bacterial growth in water and its resistance to various antibiotics, known as the PARE Project. In this project, we were testing for the number of colony forming units per gram of water.
  2. At the high school, along with a partner, I guided the AP students in looking at petri dishes that were showing incubated bacterial colonies and counting each that was present, so as to determine the number of colony forming units. This data was then transcribed online via an excel spreadsheet and the PARE website, much like our own data.
  3. The topic was regarding bacterial growth in waters and how the resistant the bacteria is to antibiotic. Using various dilutions and strengths of tetracycline, we tested the presence of colonies to determine bacterial resistance. This information was gathered directly through visual observation, knowledge of the antibiotic used in each petri dish, along with calculations that were both presented in the excel spreadsheet and in class. In presenting, I was able to more concretely understand the process as I was forced to communicate it.
  4. Three characteristics of effective information delivery.
    1. Intellectually stimulating: We made sure to explain the nature of the work we were doing and why it mattered in regards to viruses and the nature of antibiotic resistance
    2. Relevant to the audience: we discussed various diseases and in the spread of flu season and school beings hubs of disease, the project was highly relevant.
    3. Creative: It was difficult to incorporate this into the activity as the guidelines were rather strict -only a certain set of actions could be followed to complete the activity.
  5. Discoveries
    1. Two Discoveries Made:
      1. High schoolers are much less fun to be around in retrospect.
      2. High schoolers are louder and have shorter attention spans than I remember.
    2. I learned that I was not that great at leading a group of students that were only a few years younger than me. It shows the difficulty of the jobs TAs have.
  6. The audience, high schoolers, was extremely inattentive -at least my specific group was. They were more interested in talking to each other with little investment in the activity at hand. As such, in the future, it’s necessary to consider each audience’s preferences and interests and tailor a presentation to fit these. This can be seen in people using more videos in educating high schoolers where this may not be necessary in a past generation.
  7. I would spend more time establishing the importance of the project and going through the meaning of what was being done, also explaining in advance to us (the college students) what the instructions were for a smoother process.
  8. We had the benefit of basically redoing the assignment to cement the understanding of the process that goes behind determining bacterial resistance through this specific form of testing.
  9. While I will not be working in a related field, this presentation solidified the idea that practice makes perfect, as doing it with the high schoolers clarified any misunderstandings that I had.
  10. I don’t know that I came off as knowledgeable about the subject as I would have liked, considering I am by no means an expert. I would hope that we would go through some sort of briefing in class before going to the high school to ensure that everybody is on the same page.
  11. I feel that there wasn’t really a call to action or emotional argument made in the project that would force one to truly consider the dire situation of water quality globally. This is due to the scientific, unfeeling nature of data to the average consumer of information. Editorial is necessary.

Final Reflection- Ashley Compton

1.Describe the topic that you worked on.

I went to Rooker Hall to present information about composting in the dorms to RAs and answer their questions about it.

2. Include a description of what did you do for the project. Please specifically include the research you did for the project and discuss how the research you did may be similar to research you will do in the future.

For this project I helped create the powerpoint that we were supposed to use.  Initially I did research on the permissions that we would need to get from the university, but that was taken care of, so I ended up working on common questions to answer at the meeting and a basic list of things not to compost.

3. List your main points and write out what you now know about each of the points. How did you gain information about your topic? What did you learn about your topic through this project? Did presenting on the topic cause you to get to know the subject matter better?

My main points included what not to compost.  I know a lot more about how composting works now, so I understand that you can compost anything that is biodegradable (so no metals, plastics, styrofoam, etc.).  However, in common questions I wrote about the smell, so it’s recommended that you don’t compost animal products (meat, dairy, bones, etc) to keep animals and bad smells away.  I also learned about disease and bad bacteria in compost, which is the reason that feces shouldn’t be composted.  One part that was surprising about this was not composting glossy paper even though normal paper and newspapers can be composted.  I gained all of this information by looking through my classmates’ infographic posts and doing searches for articles and tutorials on composting.  Presenting on this topic did cause me to get to know the subject matter way better to get not only what you can and can’t compost but the mechanisms behind it.

4. Three (3) characteristics of effective informative delivery have been identified: intellectually stimulating, relevant to the audience, and creative. How did you incorporate these three (3) characteristics in your presentation?

The information in and of itself is both intellectually stimulating and relevant.  When we presented we made a point of explaining first why composting is important and how it impacts our lives, which made the RAs become more engaged, so they asked us questions about the process.  As far as creativity, we brought props to show them and there were pictures in the slideshow that we were supposed to show.

5. Identify 2 discoveries you made. What did you learn about yourself? Did you employ a new creative skill, do you see yourself as more confident? Did you become aware of assumptions you held—perhaps about the audience? Did you learn something new about delivering a presentation using technology?

I learned about how interesting biology can be to me when it seems relevant to my life.  This was a theme throughout the whole class for me, but especially in this presentation being interested in the environment made wanting to understand and share information about composting and how it can make a difference was way more interesting than other biology I’ve learned in the past.  I also did realize that I held assumptions about the audience.  I really didn’t expect them to care about the science at all and just want to know about what they needed to explain to their residents, but some of the questions really surprised me- one was about why you can compost something but it won’t decompose in a landfill (I think it was about meat).

6. How did you analyze your audience? How did your analysis affect your planning for your presentation? How can you apply what you learned about adapting to the audience in your future communication efforts?

I thought back to my RA and the hall meetings that we would have and the information that she would pass on to us.  That made me think how much more important having flyers and written information to help them would be.  While I wasn’t completely correct in gauging how interested they would be, taking that into consideration and being prepared for anything are takeaways that I have for the future.

7. In less than three lines of text describe what you would do differently. For example, would you prepare introductory remarks differently?

I would be more prepared ahead of time.  We had a plan based on who did which parts of the powerpoint, but didn’t realize that not everyone was there to present their parts, so having all of the details, including who would do an introduction could have helped a lot.

8. How did the experience better help you understand what you are learning in the course? Please address audience analysis, content development, organizing your speech, delivery, and incorporating feedback.

This really helped me understand the section on composting mostly in planning the content to talk about.  Doing that research and putting a presentation together helped me memorize and understand the facts and processes, but more than that I’ve learned this semester how important being able to explain how applicable science is to everyday life is, so giving the presentation and hearing feedback and questions from the RAs was really helpful in learning to do that.  Along with that, learning better communication skills are a part of any course like this, so thinking so much about our audience ahead of time gave me better skills.

9. Please describe how you can use what you learned from this experience in your future.

As I’ve already touched on this experience mainly helped me learn new skills for presentations, like thinking more about the audience ahead of time.  I also am able to more confidently explain how science relates to important things in life, like when we talk about global warming and things that are becoming more and more important every day.

10. Did you come across the way you wanted to? What elements would you want to work on in the future?

For the most part it went well.  I think not being able to use the projector made it seem more disorganized than I would’ve liked, so being prepared for that would have been really helpful, but aside from that the only thing that didn’t go smoothly was not being able to answer certain questions; however, it’s really hard to prepare for that knowing all of the research that we could.

11. This assignment has the elements of students addressing a real-world issue (water quality), receiving feedback from the community partner, and delivering a presentation using technology. Was this assignment effective for you? Why or why not? Was the feedback you received helpful?

Yes, this assignment and feedback were effective for me.  I really like being able to hear about real-world issues and becoming more prepared to talk about them to other people.

Final Project Reflection — Sahir Shahryar

For my community outreach, I went with many of my classmates to Clarke Central High School to do soil samples. In preparation for the visit, we had our own lab in class in which we prepared dilutions of a soil sample. My group took a sample from the “front side” of the Science Learning Center near one of the trees. We had a lot of fun with the lab equipment and with preparing the agar dishes. Counting the colonies on the dishes later on was a challenge in and of itself, but I think it was necessary in order to adequately prepare us for the visit to Clarke Central.

On the day of the visit, I took the Milledge Avenue bus route to Clarke Central and met with the other students. Our role in the classroom was more that of assistants than it was of presenters. As such, while I do feel that the information we provided to the students was intellectually stimulating and relevant to the audience, I don’t think that I made my interactions with the students particularly creative. The assignment itself, however, was pretty creative — after all, it’s not every day that you get to count bacteria colonies on a dish! I think that having an outreach project to begin with was important, as it gave me some perspective on why we even do science in the first place. If not to spread awareness of the good and bad things that we discover through the scientific process, then why?

When talking to the students, I did my best to help them by answering any questions they had. I tried my best not to make assumptions about the students’ capabilities; after all, I’m not a biology major, so the gap in understanding is not as big as one might expect between a high-schooler and a college student. Given the opportunity to do the visit again, I think I would spend a bit more time reading about the finer details of the experiment. That way, I wouldn’t be as dependent on Blake and Dr. Brickman as I was the first time around. I definitely feel that helping students in a lab makes you understand the material better yourself. As a student in biology addressing other students in biology, I don’t think I had to spend too much effort analyzing my audience, as much of what we were covering included things that the students were already familiar with. I also didn’t have much time to incorporate feedback into the way I was addressing questions.

In the future, I’d like to perhaps spend more time being active with the students, asking them questions as they do their work instead of just when they raise their hands. I’d also like to spend more time walking around instead of spending as much time talking to my classmates (from BIOL 2103H). At the moment, I am just wrapping up my first semester as a peer learning assistant (PLA, or undergraduate TA) for CSCI 1301, where I oversee a lab and have to walk around and answer questions. I think that I can incorporate what I’ve learned from this experience into my PLA experience as well when I do it next semester.

Overall, I enjoyed the visit, as it was not only a break in pace, but also a reminder about the responsibility scientists have as teachers to the greater community.

Greg Gruschow – Final Project Reflection

For my final project, a few of my classmates and I went to East Campus Village and did a presentation on the importance of composting. In preparation, we made a PowerPoint based on our research of what to compost, what not to compost, the benefits of composting, and similar ideas. I was in charge of researching materials that are able to be composted. The process of looking up and summarizing information is something I may use in the future. Our research showed that only biodegradable things, such as food scraps, can be composted. Metals and plastics should not be composted under any circumstances. While it is possible to compost meat, it is not recommended since it can attract animals. Composting helps the environment by improving the quality of water and crops. Composting also decreases the total amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. My research and creation of the presentation greatly improved my knowledge of composting. Our presentation is intellectually stimulating because it forced the audience to consider how the world would be different if more people composted. It is relevant since composting can greatly impact the near future for the better. The images my classmates used on each of the slides could also be considered creative. My research led me to discover that it is a bad idea to compost meat and composting can reduce the carbon dioxide levels in the air. I analyzed the audience and noticed that there were a few individuals who seemed uninterested, as they were not making eye contact with us while we were presenting. In the future, I may want to create presentations with a few jokes or other aspects that would grab the audience’s attention. In the future, I will make sure to prepare better for questions the audience may have after I finish presenting a slide. The experience allowed me to better understand the aspect of the course focused on composting and improving the environment. The prior research was the factor that contributed the most to this understanding. I can use the information I learned to create my own compost pile at home and grow high quality crops. I tried to come off as an informed individual to the audience, which I believe I succeeded at. I would like to try and get better at answering questions in the future. This assignment was effective for me, because it allowed me to learn much about real world issues and a solution I can use in my own time. I thought the feedback on being better prepared for questions was very helpful.