During my time at Longwood, I have been given many opportunities to prepare and present, orally and in writing, to scientists in other disciplines and audiences outside the sciences. The first instance that comes to mind that has allowed me to do this was during my second semester of my sophomore year. During this time, my Introduction to Genetics and Cell Biology class was able to create their own experiments regarding the soil microbial diversity around Prince Edward County. We did this by first choosing the soil we would want to sample from, then taking samples and running genetic tests on them to be able to see their DNA. Finally, we created posters that we were able to present to our classmates and to other students and professors at the Spring Research Day. This was one of my first attempts at creating a scientific poster, and I was pretty proud of it. However, from this experience, I learned that I needed to target my presentations to the specific audiences that would be listening to them. This poster had too much scientific jargon and the graphics were a little juvenile. However, I enjoyed this experience and definitely learned a lot from it that I was able to apply to future projects! The link to the poster is listed below.

The second time that I have been able to prepare and present, orally and in writing, to scientists in other disciplines and audiences outside the sciences was during my senior year, when my Ecosystems Ecology class created a research project and presented it at the Fall Research Day. Our class decided to research if there was a difference in net primary production between lentic and lotic water systems. We did this by creating our methods, collecting samples of each water system’s net primary production, and composing this into an oral presentation that was presented to other students and staff. This project was much more in-depth than the one I completed during my sophomore year, but a lot of the steps remained the same. I definitely think that I did well in this project due to my learning experience in my Introduction to Genetics and Cell Biology class. The link to this presentation is listed below.

Microbiology of Soil Paper

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1JrPSOS_IvMJRGLO2aGYo_hDhzMMLWAP6/view?usp=sharing

Lentic Vs. Lotic Systems

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1Xnp1c5o9DgCJ2O1GO4FJgBSd5BbkwwoDLkTq5Hg9Etg/edit?usp=sharing