Today consisted of a visit from Ms. Follet, finishing TKN samples, playing with a research sandbox, and transferring fecal coliform. The TKN samples caused a few issues: the samples needed to be diluted, but the base wouldn’t properly set, and settings had to be adjusted. Fortunately, by ~3 everything was fixed, and the report was completed.
Dr. Reed set up an augmented reality sandbox (originally designed by someone at UC Davis) that projects a topographical map over the sand. He let me play around with it for a few minutes and described the overall concept and its uses. The sand was a bit sparkly and created super pretty islands with lots of colors! I think this was one of the highlights of my experience and I had a fun time playing around with it.
The day ended with helping Ms. Mackenzie count and transfer fecal coliform colonies. Since yesterday the colonies grew and made little blue dots on the dish. We scraped those off with a small hook and put them in test tubes. Tomorrow Ms. Mackenzie will see if the bacteria is actually fecal coliform or something else by seeing if the tubes produced a gas.
It was sad to leave the CAAE because I thoroughly enjoyed my time there. Everyone was so welcoming and willing to share their knowledge with me! Ms. Mackenzie treated me to lunch and they gave me a cute water bottle!
