Tuesday, June 23

Today we talked about epidemiology and population modeling. We got to break up into groups and do an "investigation" of a disease outbreak as though we were the epidemiologists called in to address the problem. It was interesting, and also felt very similar to a condensed version of a tutor case. We got a little information initially--about island foxes and sea lions that were found dead on Santa Catalina Island off the coast of L.A.--and had to talk through what steps we would take and what we would do. The instructors acted as the "fox biologist" and the "lab," and as we asked them certain questions, they would give us little bits and pieces of information. In the end, we formed a working hypothesis--the foxes were dying of canine distemper virus, which was brought to the island by sick dogs adopted from the mainland and not vaccinated.

Thinking about it, I'd much prefer to be out in the field actually sampling, seeing animals, and assessing health and disease status and doing treatments. Running population models on a computer--while certainly important--doesn't totally appeal to me.

We also had time tonight to work on our group project, and heard from Jackie Ogden, from Disney, about corporate environmental responsibility.