S-STEM/TRAIN Scholar Kimberly Merrill's Blog

It is almost turkey times, friends! I cannot wait for some stuffing (it's my favorite). First, I'd like to say I am having issues commenting on my own blog. I have seen your comments and appreciate the support, encouragement, and advice. Hopefully, I will have these technical issues resolved soon so that I can respond and send my warm regards.  I have done a little statistics in some of my science classes, but have not taken the class, yet. I believe it's on my schedule for one of the upcoming semesters. Therefore, I don't fully know about the types of statistical comparisons.  My week has been organizing my data into neat little tables that make sense. Also, I have had to collect some more climate data for one of my regions. I need to have a meeting with a mentor to help me understand statistically and graphically. I love math, but my least favorite part is making the graphs. Well, just complicated ones are challenging. Really my goal is to have the data really clearly...

  Belated Happy Veteran's Day to everyone and thank you for your service to any vets in the program. My paper didn't turn out as plan. The more research I've done, the farther down the rabbit hole I've gone. As I've mentioned before, my research question involves two variables, which are temperature and Plague cases.  However, in the grand scheme of things, which I touched on in my last post, temperature does affect incidence of Plague and in many ways. It was very easy to go down many paths of the how's, but it made it extremely hard to express any results and specifically answer the question. For example, host activity and breeding differs in different climate. Flea reproduction varies at changing temperatures and increased rainfall. I could go on, but it is really not necessary because although it contributes to my topic it does not pertain directly to my research question.  As I was writing my paper, I was racking my brain and thinking, "how the heck do...

There isn't as much to report this week considering the rough draft of the papers are due. I read within the assignment details that it mentioned to submit it whether it is complete or not. I've constructed the outline and have it mostly filled, but there is a lot of information and citations that I want/need to add to my results. In fact, I think my results will be many pages once completed. I have all the articles annotated and data organized finally. It's just incorporating them into the results section that is gonna take awhile. There is so much data out there that it is taking a long to comprise a paper that represents all of it. All of the background, abstract is done, just results and conclusion need many, many more pages.  Here's a sneak peek into my results, though. Temperature does have a part to play in transmission, but not as many would think. People often associate getting sick with winter and cold temperatures. However, it really depends on a multitude of...