Instructions: Stepping out of your role as a research scientist for the Bill E. Clark Foundation, reflect on your experience. Reflection is an opportunity for you to think back on what you did and gather lessons that you can use moving forward. The questions below give you specific topics to consider and help you reflect in an organized way; but you should also take the time to make any notes about questions you have or lessons you have learned for future referece.

First, respond to Question 1 by noting memorable skills and tools in each of the categories listed. Then, choose one of the remaining three questions and respond in an essay. Your mentor will provide additional details on the specific deliverables you are expected to submit for your reflection.

Answer the following question.


1. For each of the following general skills that you used during this rotation, note the most memorable new skill or tool that comes to mind, and discuss why that aspect of the rotation still stands out in your mind.
   
   
   1. Working in a team
   2. Doing research
   3. Organizing notes
   4. Making an argument
   5. Writing a document alone
   6. Writing a document with a team
   7. Giving a presentation
      
      
   
   
   
Choose one of Questions 2-4 and respond in an essay.


2. You probably did not know much about earthworms when you began this project, but you learned a great deal about them through research. Specifically, you needed to find out a lot about their systems.
   
   
   1. Begin by reflecting on how you researched the earthworm. What steps did you go through to gather knowledge systematically? How was your process organized?
   2. Imagine if you had been asked to engineer an earthworm that can live in extremely moist soil—an unfavorable environment for the earthworm as it exists today. Using the steps and process you just identified, how would you go about researching the earthworm and environment to begin to answer the question? (This question is not asking you to think about where you would find information, but rather about your process. This might include steps to determine information sources, but the point is not to specify what those sources would ultimately be.)
   3. Now, imagine if you had been asked to engineer a dog with a sense of smell 100 times more sensitive than the best hunting dogs. Using the same process, how would you go about researching dogs to begin to address this challenge?
   4. How does the process you originally described help you think about researching a new problem in a new domain? Having considered these new problems, would you now suggest any improvements to your process?
      
      
3. In this rotation, you had to test the various ideas you came up with about modification of the earthworm to make sure the worm could survive and that the change would be helpful. This is often called feasibility testing. Feasibility testing can be used whenever one needs to know if a plan of action will work.
   
   
   1. Begin by reflecting on how you tested the feasibility of your earthworm modifications. What steps did you go through to test your ideas?
   2. Imagine if someone asked you to decide whether a new drug could be developed to keep people awake for days at a time, without any sleep and without any side effects. How might you apply your feasibility testing process to determine if this is a realistic goal?
   3. Now, imagine if someone comes to you with a business plan. They have an idea for a new store to open in your area that sells rare, difficult-to-find music (CDs) and movies (tapes/DVDs). How might you apply your feasibility testing process to determine whether the business plan is a good idea?
   4. After reviewing your responses to these questions, what are the similarities between the two situations—in completely different fields—that allow your feasibility testing process to be applied in both? Are there differences that suggest ways to make your process more general?
      
      
4. The most fundamental skills that any scientist must have are to develop scientific hypotheses and to develop the tests which could disprove them. You developed a number of hypotheses about the earthworm in this project. Consider the following situation: a friend who you normally speak with everyday does not answer the telephone when you call (or does not come to the door if you visit).
   
   
   1. List as many scientific hypotheses as you can that would explain why this happened, and explain how you would falsify each one. (Remember, scientific hypotheses don’t have to be about scientific topics, like biology or chemistry. What makes a hypothesis scientific is the ability to test it and falsify it. Refer back to the resource on hypotheses as necessary.)
   2. List a few unscientific hypotheses and explain why they cannot be tested.
   3. Compare your two sets of hypotheses. Which hypotheses do you consider to be more believable? What do you see as the advantages and disadvantages of proposing only scientific hypotheses vs. unscientific hypotheses?