Tag: environment

Today was the last day of our work experience program and the first day we actually went to the office! Finding the building was a little bit tough but the experience was well worth-it. It was nice to meet Mr. Self in-person, and we even got to meet his dog (who is older than me)! I feel like the presentation itself went really well as we were able to tie everything back to our central claim and Mr. Self even said he could use some of our research in his future work. This was a great opportunity for me to experience what a job in “research” really involves, and I hope the skills I gained stay with me.

Today we finished up our work experience by presenting our PowerPoint to Mr. Self at his office building. While heading up to the conference room, we ran into the other group working with Vector Textiles (we had to kick them out of the room). We even met Mr. Self’s dog (very cute and also very shy). The presentation went well, Mr. Self had a lot of interesting questions. He seemed to like the information though! If we had more than 8 days I feel like we definitely could’ve dug deeper and done more research on some of the questions he brought up. This work experience has been great, and I had a lot of fun researching the effects of permethrin in sub-Saharan Africa. I learned a lot of new and interesting things. I’m really grateful that I got to work with Mr. Self and his company Vector Textiles!

Today we met up in person to go over the presentation. Since the CMS conference room was full, we decided to meet up in the library. Doing a mock presentation was really helpful as we were able to clarify any miscommunications. Furthermore, we timed ourselves and made the whole presentation more concise. The day went pretty good and we’re definitely ready for our final presentation tomorrow!

Today started off with another quick check-in with Mr. Self and then we got straight to work. We started on the Powerpoint which we will use to present our research next Thursday. While working on the presentation, I found something weird in our research: two of our sources had directly conflicting information! I had to look into both sources and also use additional information to figure out which was more accurate; fortunately, the effort was well worth it and I was able to figure out the issue (one of the sources cited evidence from a study that didn’t exist).

As it was our last day of research, I decided to complete any unfinished trains of thought and do make sure everything made sense. One fun story from today was that Kyler and I met up at CA to compare our research (as we were focusing on two different parts of the topic). It was nice to compare as we both had general knowledge about each other’s parts so we could ask educated questions but it was still great for focusing on which parts of the research would be important to include in a short presentation.

Today while doing more research about the use of mosquito nets in sub-Saharan Africa I stumbled upon the heated debate between using LLUNs or LLINs. LLUN stands for long-lasting untreated nets while LLIN stands for long-lasting insecticidal nets. The main difference between the two types of mosquito nets is that LLINs are treated with insecticides while LLUNs are insecticide free. Proponents of LLUNs argue that mosquitos are becoming resistant to the chemicals used to treat LLINs, so instead of waiting for science to innovate more insecticides we should be utilizing untreated nets that offer the same protection as LLINs. The article I read made a lot of great points about the importance of implementing LLUNs that paired great with my research about the dangers of permethrin since it is a chemical that is commonly used in insecticides and to treat mosquito nets. After today, our research has mostly been finalized so now all that’s left to do is to work on the presentation!

Today started out with a quick check-in with our mentor, Mr. Self. We readjusted our schedule based on the work we had already completed and planned logistics for the upcoming days. After the meeting, I continued diving into research about the direct and indirect effects of Permethrin on humans. One of the biggest difficulties that I came across was trying to find unbiased information as most websites were either pro-permethrin (if they were trying to sell a product using it) or anti-permethrin (just general anti-pesticide sentiments). It was fun to connect research about the environmental impacts to the human impacts as it gave me ideas for our eventual presentation. Overall, I’m excited to do more research on the topic and see if I can break through the wall of bias.

Today we split up into 3 groups to do more in-depth research into specific parts of our research question. Miles and I worked together to find out more about the direct and indirect impacts of Permethrin on humans. This project is so interesting to me due to the lack of easily-accessible information about permethrin. Instead of only using the first few sources that comes up, which works for a lot of school projects, I have to build off of information I find in research papers and journals to make a case about the effects of permethrin. Trying to translate from fancy science-talk to something succinct to put in a presentation is a great skill I’ve learned today.