On Monday November 30^th, after having our training on natural selection, two interns each showed their own presentation to the interns.

One intern, Rubi, taught us about a special part of science, public health. Rubi is now in college and taught all us interns about public health! She prepared a twenty-minute training for the interns which talked about what public health is, different aspects of public health, epidemiology (study of what is upon the people and factors affecting the health and illness of populations) and the three types of studies public health officials do.

Mark, who does research with the aquarium’s husbandry department, also taught us about the Academy’s Touch Tide pool filtration system. It seemed like just a tank and amazing animals at first, but Mark explained the many complicated and intricate components used to keep the water clean such as UV sterilizers, protein skimmers, and bioballs. UV sterilizers kill various diseases, protein skimmers take out excess food and waste, and bioballs take ammonia that is fatal to the animals and converts them to nitrites that aren’t dangerous.

This was a very unique training; it was led by interns, and included more about science applied in the public, rather than science content. It’s always very interesting to hear about all the various types of careers in the science fields as well as facts about the Academy, especially from interns themselves!  As interns, we are always learning about career choices to get a glimpse of what a career in science would be like.

By Renn