Expedition 2: Who Does Science?

January 4, 2016 Expedition 2

Welcome to 4-H Follow a Researcher™ at the University of Maine! During the expedition, we will be posting a new video and write-up at the beginning of each week. These materials are meant to provide you with more information about our researcher and how he or she engages in practices common to all scientists and engineers.

We hope that using the materials will help inspire some great questions and ideas that you will share with us!

Who Does Science?

Thanks to popular culture today, we often associate scientists with men in white lab coats surrounded by bubbling flasks and Bunsen burners. While this is certainly an accurate picture of the work that some scientists do, it is a limited representation of the many different people who practice science in many different places.

Meet Kit Hamley, a graduate student and research scientist at the University of Maine conducting a research expedition to the Falkland Islands. Kit is a paleoecologist and archaeologist from Montana. She is studying an extinct species of fox that lived in what are now the Falkland Islands. We will be joining Kit on her adventure to these islands off the southern tip of South America. Learn more about Kit.

Kit and the 4-H Follow a Researcher® team are excited to have you take part in cutting-edge research being done by student scientists right here at the University of Maine!

https://youtu.be/w4-PMaKP9MY

What do you think?

Here are some questions to discuss with your class, or to investigate on your own!

  • What is Kit hoping to figure out?
  • After watching this video, how did your views of scientists and science change?
  • Did this change how you felt about your ability to do science? (How does this relate to me?)

Have more questions?