The Breeze Vol. 9, Issue 9

THE BREEZE

Vol. Vol. 29 29 Iss. Iss. 99

Defying the typical internship experience, the program gave Sharabyani the opportunity to write a 24 page report for the Journal of Economic Entomology.

Nasser’s interest in molecular work is of both personal and occupational.

He describes his work with genetic material as being beneficial to him as both a biology major and someone interested in the medical field.

Contents 3. Contents

22. Archaeology Alive

4. Directing Science

24. Fossils and Clay

6. Shifting Exposure at Chaffey

26. Skeletons of the Past

7. Improving Environmental Standards

28. Info Graphic

8. Dings and Dents

32. Challenging Computations

10. Mystery in the Adventure 12. Defying Odds 14. Parasitic Science 16. From Intern to Published Researcher 18. When Worlds Collide

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30. Changing Physics

34. Passion for Conservation 36. Streams of the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory

Welcome back to Chaffey College! My name is Emmanuel Vargas, the new Editor-in-Chief of The Breeze. I’m excited to start off this year with a fresh vision, staff, and audience to help create a newspaper magazine.

We are ready to start off this year with a special edition of The Breeze. This issue is focused around Chaffey students who completed Chaffey’s STEM internship during the summer.

A big shout out to the four journalists that committed to reporting the truths of Chaffey College and the team that works behind the curtains.

“Magazines are about trust and partnership: We, the editors, will strive always to keep engaged; you, the readers, are free to engage with us or to reject us.”- Stefano Tonchi

Editor-In-Chief Emmanuel Vargas @NirVarize Managing Editor (Print) Raylene Camerano @Shaeleneaugst Managing Editor (Online) Ryan Gibson @RyGibSports Online Editor-In-Chief Brody S. Salazar @Brody_Salazar Photo Editor Josh Gutierrez @joshgut1098 Features Editor Kyle Smith @_Kyol News Editor Sonia Sexton @SextonSonyat Sports Editor Charles Okpala @CharlesOkpala12

A&E Editor Kris Tashjian @Krisdapper Opinion Editor Nadine Hautea @NadineHaleUSA Life & Style Editor Tori Maley @ciara_mist97 C.C.O Katie Priest @mxkatie Baseline Editor-In-Chief Chris Sainz @ChrisSainz_ Baseline Managing Editor Austin Smedley @AustinSmedley1 Copy Editor Christopher J. Rochon News Letter Kenya Stanley @Kenya Stanley

Multimedia Producer Ciara De Alba @CiaraDealba Social Media Editor Kiara Jerez @araxkia Journalism Staff Students of Journalism 30 & 31 General Manager Emmanuel Vargas @nirvarize Lab Techs Katie Priest Christopher Rochon Brody Salazar Giselle Garcia Ocampo Faculty Adviser Michelle Dowd @michelledowd2 Journalism Coordinator Neil Watkins @Neilwatkjns Journalism Program Asst.

Hector Solorzano Castillo @Hectoriaaa

The Breeze is published up to eight times a semester by the journalism students at Chaffey Community College, 5885 Haven Ave., Rancho Cucamonga, CA 91737. Telephone: 652-6934/6936. Opinions expressed in this publication are the responsibility of the student newspaper staff and should not be interpreted as the position of the Chaffey College District, the college or any officer or employee thereof. Letters and guest columns for or against any position are welcome. Letters should be kept as brief as possible and are subject to non-substantive editing according to guidelines established by the Associated Press. The Chaffey Breeze is a member of the Journalism Association of Community Colleges and the California Newspaper Publishers Association.

Cover by: Alaast Kamalabadi

Directing Science

By Brody Salazar @Brody_Salazar Linda Lamp speaking to an intern. Photo by Brody Salazar.

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rom 3D printers to summer internships, Chaffey College Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) Grant Director Linda Lamp has brought waves of change in her 12 months leading the department.

Although she has spent a year leading the department, eight of those months were being spent as an interim director before she applied for the permanent position.

As grant director, Lamp used a budget of $3.875 million to establish a “Makerspace,” expand the “living lab” curriculum, incorporate predictive analytics and organize the summer STEM internship.

According to Chaffey College Dean of Math and Science Theodore Younglove, Lamp often does not “give herself the credit she deserves” despite being a large part of the program. He goes on to describe her as being “critical” to the process of realizing how to accomplish their goals.

“Her contribution is huge,” Younglove states.

“She’s making a gigantic difference on the grant, and in math and science. She prefers to work in the background and not say anything, but I think she deserves some credit.”

Lamp has been a part of the science department for 13 years, and in that time she has built up many connections at Chaffey. Although she

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did not know it, these connections would later come to serve her when she became the STEM grant director. Lamp cites the bonds she formed as some of the many reasons for her accomplishments in her new position.

One such accomplishment includes establishing the Makerspace, which contains 3D printers, robotics, virtual reality and various “kits” to be used for testing different projects. Although the Makerspace provides many services for Chaffey students, it was difficult to find an area that was capable of supporting it.

In addition, there was difficulty with staffing the Makerspace, as there would not be enough money in the budget. However, Lamp discovered there was an empty space in Chaffey’s Rancho campus Math Success Center and used the area for the Makerspace.

“We had an instruction specialist that was running the Math Success Center,” Lamp explains.

“And when we were looking for a space for the Makerspace, he said, ‘Why don’t you put it inside in one of our rooms in there? Because hopefully it will draw students into the Makerspace, and they’ll have to walk through the Math Success Center.’”

Another achievement of Lamp’s includes expanding Chaffey’s living lab curriculum. Living lab refers to science activities that involve participation, such as the Burrowing Owls Festival hosted

by Chaffey College’s Chino campus. These types of activities often prove useful to more kinesthetic learners, as it provides a hands-on experience that you otherwise would not receive.

According to Lamp, the experience has even been enough to change the course of some students’ paths. She claims one student decided to dedicate themselves to wildlife conservation because of their brief time with the burrowing owls.

“There’s data that shows,” says Lamp, “if you’re in a classroom, and you have a professor, they’re lecturing... To support that learning, if you take the students outside and actually show them what they’re teaching you in real life, it really supports that learning.”

Encouragement to living lab curriculum extends beyond the activities themselves. There is an annual “Living Lab Symposium,” which Lamp describes as a place for the professor and faculty to share the different activities they have held, and how it has helped the students.

Although Younglove had more of a hand in its creation, Lamp also shares some credit for the incorporation of predictive analytics with the Math and Science department. Lamp describes it as an assessment created by a research analyst working with faculty to create a way to determine which students might need more help. Lamp claims this will help students earn their degree or transfer.

“The sooner you get to students who are struggling, the better their chances at success are,” says Lamp.

Lastly, the STEM internship required the most work, as it involved coordinating with different locations to allow Chaffey students to conduct their research. Lamp emphasizes how important the team working beneath her was in this

process. According to Younglove, each essential member of the team was picked by Lamp.

Each site had different needs to be met, and some were more difficult to meet them than others. The most common difficulty faced was getting all of the locations to agree despite host liability.

In addition to coordinating with the locations, Lamp also handles the distribution of funds in ways other intern programs might overlook.

Lamp, recognizing that many Chaffey students need to support themselves, did not want to leave the students with only the experience of research. As a result, she ensured that intern involved with the program would be paid minimum wage.

To determine who was accepted into the internship, Lamp and her team created a scoring rubric loosely based off of one Mt. San Antonio College uses for their program. After being selected, students would be ranked and choose their top three locations they would like to visit.

Lamp emphasized the impact the internship has had on some students, citing how some interns have changed the course of their education based on their experiences.

One student, Samantha Negrete, got a paper published and was invited to speak at the 87th Annual Conference of Mosquito and Vector Control in San Francisco after her internship at the Orange County Mosquito and Vector Control District last year.

One of the reasons Lamp applied for the permanent position was because she wanted to make sure she could continue seeing the programs she worked on grow and positively affect students.

“I’m really hoping that our college will institutionalize, meaning that they’ll continue these programs, even though the grant will end in 2021,” states Lamp.

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Shifting Kenya Staley @kenyastaley Exposure Behind every project are the people who help put it together and for the past three years Ted Younglove has assisted in spearheading the STEM internship program.

Younglove’s vision for the program has grown significantly since it started three years ago.

He stated that his role in the internship has not been at the forefront, “I helped start it by selecting a few places to put interns. My role in the grant is more of the statistical and predictive modeling, which is a different component.

With the internships I do want to get more involved next summer because one of the harder areas to find internships is math.” He mentioned that it’s vital for him to find math centered internships next year because they’re usually only offered to post-grad or ph.D students.

However, he expressed the importance of adding a statistical surveying group internship rather than a math internship focused on teaching because not everyone is interested in curriculum.

Younglove was inspired to partner with the journalism program by his own history with writing.

As a former journalism major at the University of California, Riverside he

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understood the importance of allowing the two programs to work closely together - not to mention, the exposure the students would get for their hard work.

“What we wanted was experiential learning where you make scientists by making them do science. The internships are very extensive, so you can completely change someone's life or they might discover they don’t even enjoy what they’re doing.”

Through personal experience, Younglove recognizes the potential importance of internships. He expressed his gratitude for the sites that have gone above and beyond for the interns. Rancho Santa Ana Botanical Garden offered Tiffany Larrabee and Jocelyn Gonzalez additional hours this summer so they could really immerse themselves in botany. This is the ideal internship experience Linda Lamp and Ted Younglove set out for. Prior to the summer program, Chaffey College faculty took the extra steps to screen potential internship sites for any red flags that pointed to an unsuccessful internship. It was vital interns were not subjected to solely running errands, getting coffee or doing anything that didn’t fall underneath

experiential learning. It’s clear that everyone behind the program is passionate about seeing Chaffey students evolving through their careers.

“Being able to provide our students a worthwhile experience is what we set out for so we’re happy that’s what we’ve gotten.”

Younglove concluded.

Improving Environmental Standards Story By Ryan Gibson @RyGibSports

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errick Varnes is a twenty-two-year-old electrical engineering major with the intent to transfer to Cal Poly Pomona’s engineering program in the spring of 2020. Alongside him, Daniel Soto is a twentyyear-old civil engineering major that expressed interest in entering the field of structural engineering.

Soto wants to work for a city government before utilizing his degree in engineering in the private sector.

Soto plans on transferring to either the University of California, Los Angeles or the University of California, San Diego after spending one more year at Chaffey College. These two Chaffey College interns have worked side by side throughout the entirety of the UCR Bourns/ CE-CERT internship program this summer.

Every vehicle and every engine is put through an emissions test before hitting the road. These tests are analyzed, compiled and used to evaluate the environmental impact that subject will have. These tests are conducted at places similar to UCR Bourns/C-Cert. The Bourns College of Engineering, Center for Environmental Research and Tech-

nology (CE-CERT) is the largest research facility at the University of California Riverside. According to their mission statement, the facility’s goal is “to be a leader in environmental education, a collaborator with industry and government to improve the technical basis for regulations and policy, a creative source of new technology, and a contributor to a better understanding of the environment.”

The group works to

“address society’s most pressing environmental challenges in air quality, climate change, energy and transportation.”

Vehicles are placed on a dynamometer, more commonly known as a dyno. The dynamometer is essentially a vehicle treadmill used to keep the subject in place while testing equipment is

hooked up to the tailpipes. dynamometers are hooked up to their own supercomputer that reads, records and summarizes the emissions of the subject vehicle. The emissions test records the output levels of oxides, carbon, and other emissions that each vehicle emits during a period of time.

“The oxide output and the carbon output goes into this whole graph that shows the entirety of the different oxide and carbon outputs and all the different percentages of the various emissions from whichever engine or vehicle,” said Varnes, “They are also testing the RPM output of each subject and the horsepower of the subject to compare and contrast.” The researchers at Ce-Cert use this data in a report every year to analyze each producer’s environmental impact and compare it to that of their past products. In doing this, the facility is able to regulate the emissions of different vehicles in order to ensure our environmental standards continue to improve alongside our technological advances as a society.

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Dings and Dents

Ryan Molina speaking of the use of the waterjet. Photos by Brody Salazar.

By Brody Salazar @Brody_Salazar

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hile the noise of machinery and cutting metal fills the area of one building, the interns of Aeronautics and Commercial Tooling have a much more quiet and detail-oriented environment. Aeronautics and Commercial Tooling is focused on creating reproduction tools, but are shifting their focus on creating parts because of the consistent work they provide.

As interns, Ryan Molina and Stephen Adilukido is assigned work in the detailing building, where they work with the tools.

They are not tasked with operating heavy machinery or running the waterjet, but he does manufacture several small parts for planes. Because of their size, the job calls for an extreme attention to detail.

“There’s just an expectation of quality, and they just trust that it will be done,” says Molina.

Even the smallest dent can lead to the whole part being scrapped. This is because

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every part is “supposed to go up in the sky” according to Molina. They have to check every side of every piece, for dents, cuts that are too deep and other abnormalities. If there are, hundreds of dollars worth of products could go to waste.

Parts made by Molina and Adilukido.

Some of the larger parts come in bins full of dry ice to make them easier to shape.

However, this also means they have to work quickly.

A lot of the work they do is more analog, requiring the use of a hammer or mallet, but occasionally they have to use a power sander. Molina claims the work is more of a focused environment, not one involving a lot of stressful, fast-paced work, despite how “important a lot of the work is.”

However, Molina and Adilukido do not always have something to do. These lulls are what Molina describes as his least favorite part of the internship.

Because the employees are often busy with work the interns are not ready for, they sometimes do not have time to direct the interns and tell them what else needs to be done.

According to Adilukido, although the employees might have a lot of work to do, if there is a question or a mistake, they will gladly help the interns and show them how to whatever they are having difficulty with.

Adilukido showing a dent in a part.

“They’re all nice,” says Adilukido. “Like I said, they’re all willing to lend me a listening ear. When I ask questions, they reply back with sincerity, and they reply back with knowledge that I haven’t remembered before. If I make a mistake...like someone did make a mistake on their end, so I listen in and glean on how I can improve myself.”

Both Molina and Adilukido feel like they have learned a lot from the Aeronautics and Commercial Tooling and will look to bring the skills learned there to their lives outside and future careers.

Although Molina plans to make prosthetics, he believes what he has learned in detailing will be very helpful. However, this skillset is directly applicable to Adilukido, who is currently studying to enter the field of aircraft maintenance.

Stephen Adilukido examining parts for any damage.

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Mystery in the Adventure

Kiara Jerez @araxkia

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rom climbing inside attics to exploring in their workplace finding taxidermy animals, there was always something new to explore for the students at the San Bernardino County Museum. The students worked in Exploration center in which they took live animals into their own hands and cared for them. From snakes, roaches, to turtles and a bunny, they were surrounded by animals in the workplace.

During the first few weeks as interns, they found old boxes that were preserved and old filled with bird nests, they had to organize them with labels and store them in a safe keeping environment. They used marble seal to keep oxygen out of the boxes. The bird nests were for research and kept in an old condition in the past, so storing the nests in boxes will keep them in better condition after being decomposed after a century.

Students Benji Jose Aguilar and Mimi Karen Billiones crawled their way into the attic of

the museum to locate taxidermy animals (or mounted specimen) . Taxidermy animals were hunted for pleasure, and then donated over the course of several years. The two were protected by using tavik suits to prevent the dust and fight against the cold in the attic. In the attic, the taxidermy animals were stacked, the condition they were in weren’t the best to help preserve them.

“It was like an adventure, because I don’t think anyone has been up there really, in decades,” says Aguilar.

All of the students worked together to locate all of the taxidermy heads in the attic by using a ladder which measured approximately 10-12ft high. The students had to retrieve each head and move them to the proper environment in which they were safely stored.

The heads come from sizes of large and extra large, from rhino heads to an african buffalo’s head.

“I was hesitate to pick them up because for a moment I thought they were going to reach out and bite me because they looked very real. The heads are half my size, so I couldn’t imagine how they would look with their body and how they were even killed,” says intern Billiones.

The museum is no longer accepting donations of taxidermy heads because they can be donated from trophy hunters and it will be illegal to accept the heads without paperwork. Taxidermy heads are still being kept at the museum’s warehouse in mold from the land where they came from.

Despite how small the San Bernardino County Museum is, there is a lot of valuables to discover.

“There’s so much money that gets

put into a museum. It’s good to be exposed to that, especially if you’re going to work in the field,” says intern Melissa Suthar.

“When you come to a museum, you’re all like oh this is interesting, but nothing that it makes you really surprised or in awe, but you’re in the back and below you’re doing things that’s keeping the museum up and running it’s interesting because it’s something people can’t see only you and a few certain other people get to know more in deeper information,” Billiones explains her experience being an intern at the museum.

“I like going to the museum a lot so it let’s you appreciate it more, it’s not just set up it allows you to see everything behind the scenes,” says Jose Aguilar.

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DEFYING ODDS KENYA STALEY |

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@KENYASTALEY

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idden in the corner of what seemed to be a makeshift research center, Paul Ruiz and Reginald Sauls worked diligently on their project at the University of California, Riverside. The pair excitedly dove into the purpose of their work at UCR, studying six-million year-old tropical oysters with the help of their supervisor, Bridget Kelly.

Kelly, a third year PhD candidate at UCR, spoke highly of her two interns, citing she could not be luckier to have two students who are independent and driven. “The endgame is to understand the paleoecology of this ancient shoreline which represents the Gulf of California when it extended as far north as Riverside County, about 6 million years ago. We are ultimately interested in the growth of the species, one of our interests is conservation paleobiology, which is a way paleontologists can inform or predict any modern or future crises in biodiversity,” explained Kelly.

Kelly, Sauls and Ruiz all explained the vast importance of paleontology, and how research findings about the past could ultimately affect our future. The oysters hold a significant amount of information about the Gulf of California. Moreover, they hold the potential to give researchers a glimpse into the past and future of our climate, for example, evidence of significant long term changes in weather patterns in a specific region. Sauls and Ruiz both described how tedious and complex it is to detect these patterns. However, the work of paleontologists is vital to the work of other environmental scientists Both Ruiz and Sauls both admitted they were quite nervous about the internship.

They yearned to acquire as much knowledge as possible. Everyone on the team

exuded an immense amount of pride in the work they do. Sauls, who plans on becoming a middle school science teacher, said the internship has been great for networking and finding out what specific work they enjoy. “Bridget’s been great because if we show an interest in something she’ll show us exactly what we need to do and who to speak to to get further into that field and that’s exactly what you want from an internship - someone who’s there to support you and guide you to your own version of success.” added Sauls.

While praising the faculty in the science department, Ruiz confessed he was not always sure of his career path. Ruiz endded up in Chaffey’s STEM internship program after years of debate about which career path he wanted to take. Years after enrolling in Chaffey, Paul has finally found his niche as well. “I just had great professors at Chaffey, my faculty advisor was Anna Foutz and she was amazing. I sat with her over the course of a few days and I had so many questions but when you see a professor who loves teaching and what they do for a living it makes you think ‘Oh maybe I can do this too,” said Paul, who jokingly added that he would like to have summers off too.

Paul spoke openly about the struggles of being an earth science major. “The science field is rough because you have to take a lot of math. That’s kind of the hump for most students, getting over the difficult general education course. Unless you’re a math sauvant, these high-level mathematics courses.

Unless are going to possess some sort of difficulty or frustration.”

This narrative is all too common for STEM majors, but Ruiz and Sauls are dedicated to defying the odds and overcoming their obstacles.

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Parasitic Science

By Brody Salazar @Brody_Salazar

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lthough parasitoid wasps are multicellular organisms, there is one species so small, that some bacteria are larger than it. University of California, Riverside’s Department of Entomology currently researches this species and attempting to classify them. Chaffey College student Houssam Nassser is an intern at the program and assists in the molecular work concerning the wasps so they may be further studied and classified.

Currently, the lab is studying Chalcidoidea wasps, which lay their parasites in other wasps. The wasp that lays parasites smaller than single cellular organisms is known as mymaridae. It can be as small as 0.013 millimeters.

Krissy Dominguez showing DNA sequences.

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Houssam Nasser using a centrifuge. Photos by Brody Salazar.

When the topic of entomology is brought up,

many people do not think of molecular intonation as being closely related to the topic, however, most of the lab is focused on it at the moment. This is because molecular intonation is the isolation and examination of gene regions and is used to properly understand and identify the insects, especially in relation to others. Although the program works on both molecular intonation and morphology, Nasser’s supervisor Krissy Dominguez stated the emphasis for the internship was on the former rather than the latter because it would apply more to Nasser.

“We’re taking specific gene regions,” says Dominguez, “and… we do PCR, we also do next generation sequencing techniques, and we build phylogenetic trees, so like trees of life. We learn how these really important biological control wasps are related to one another. And that gives us a heads up on their evolution and an understanding host associations, behavior, all of which are critically important to agriculture in California and releasing natural enemies to go after pest insects.”

A large parasitoid wasp.

“You use a bunch of different chemicals, I would say, or reagents, and one of them is polymerase,” says Nasser. “You have the original DNA template, right? So, what you do through this process is you make copies of this one single DNA...the reason why you do that is, when we do the sequencing they have to be amplified so the machine can handle them.”

Once the DNA sequences have been duplicated via PCR, it is sent to a different lab where it goes through the process of sequencing, which is used to identify what nucleotides are in the DNA. When the process is finished, the information is sent back, and the lab analyzes the genes of other insects for comparison.

Nasser describes the whole internship as being enjoyable, in part because he was given tasks that he enjoyed, but he finds PCR to be his favorite. He appreciates that he is learning new skills that he can use later in life both in university and his desired career.

“In general, overall, the internship is not difficult at all. It’s fun,” says Nasser.

Nasser’s interest in molecular work is of both personal and occupational. He describes his work with genetic material as being beneficial to him as both a biology major and someone interested in the medical field.

“We are made of cells, and our cells have DNA, right,” says Nasser. “So, I have to get familiar with how to use this DNA because there is a part of medicine called pathology…They look at the different cells, and they use DNA sometimes to diagnose either new diseases or a normal disease, but you can’t detect it unless you studied DNA. So DNA is everywhere in the medical field.”

Nasser’s work in the lab involves DNA extraction, cleaning and polymerase chain reaction, or PCR. PCR is a method of duplicating a segment of DNA and is a necessary step in examining DNA, as it helps the machines process the data.

Nasser incubating specimens.

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From Intern to

Published Researcher Ainaz Sharabyani, a bio-chem major at Chaffey College found herself in the quintessential college experience this summer - juggling summer school, two internships and a personal life.

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By: Kenya Staley @kenyastaley

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inaz Sharabyani, a biochemistry major at Chaffey College, found herself in the quintessential college experience this summer: juggling summer school, two internships and a personal life. As an intern at the West Valley Mosquito Control District, Sharabyani participated in several different projects all focused on the susceptibility of the southern house mosquito, Culex quinquefasciatus, in the field as compared to laboratory colonies, also known as southern house mosquito, from the field to the laboratory reference colony of the same species.

According to their website, the West Valley Mosquito and Vector Control District is a public health district dedicated to the management of disease-causing insects and animals.

This is where Ainaz spent her summer studying pyrethroid resistance in the southern house mosquito from different ecological niches. Pyrethroids are man made Mosquitoes are widely known for their ability to spread contagious diseases such as the West Nile virus, malaria and yellow fever. Thus, the West Valley Mosquito and Vector Control District’s mission is to manage and survey animals and insects that spread disease.

“The mosquito either makes mutations or creates a new enzyme to breakdown the permethrin, so they won’t be responding to it. Therefore, if any resis-

tance develops we want to know how, when and what’s the dosage level. So, we started setting traps in different four eco zones: an urban, suburban, agriculture, and riparian area,” Sharabyani shared. “Pregnant mosquitoes are attracted to infusion water, which is just rabbit food and water. Once we placed the infusion water in a plastic tub, we’d wait a day to then collect the eggs and take them back to the lab in order to watch them hatch and become adults,” she continued.

Their project hypothesized that the mosquitoes would have least susceptibility to the pesticide for the riparian area. Once back in the lab, they worked tirelessly to conclude their findings.

Defying the typical internship experience, the program gave Sharabyani the opportunity to write a 24 page report for the Journal of Economic Entomology.

While studying with the West Valley Mosquito and Vector Control District and her mentor, Dr. T. Steven Su, it was clear Sharabyani gained an abundance of knowledge.

Despite a busy schedule, Sharabyani executed what most interns only dream of. After weeks of rigorous work in the field, Sharbyani felt she had an exceptional learning experience this summer. Although she had no prior expertise in mosquitoes before her internship, she displayed the opposite through her research and findings.

Sharabyani was invited to present her findings at the Annual State of California Mosquito and Vector Control Association of California Conference in January in San Diego. She emphasized that none of her success would have been possible without the support of her mentors at West Valley Mosquito Control District.

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WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE

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A KIARA JEREZ |

@ARAXKIA

geology major and a pre med major cross paths to take upon an experience they never thought they would encounter before. Working at The San Bernardino County Museum, opened the eyes for two students Tyler Tillmon and Albino Esparza.

For the first few weeks, it was difficult to know what was expected from the museum and what to do with the comparative collections. A comparative collection makes it useful to locate artifacts in the museum​. Right off the bat, the students learn museum practices. One important factor the students avoided is having sulfide mixed in with the Paleo collections would cause pyrite rock onto the specimen.

“By us organizing more in a better fashion would help to preserve the museum collection in the long run,” Esparza explains.

The key factor to organizing the collections were to have other researchers take a look at the specimen in a more well ordered fashion. It will also maintain an efficient environment to better preserve and consolidate the collections and fit more collections in the near future. ​The usage of the google spreadsheet came in handy when inputting important data about the collections.

Throughout their journey as interns at the museum, they learned about important key factors for real life situations. One of the most factors the students learned from the museum is the importance of networking.

Esparza had the opportunity to volunteer at a geology convention The North America Paleontological Convention (NAPC) at The University of California, Riverside.

Esparza met with paleontologists

and he was introduced to conventions. Esparza was invited to attend the Geological Society of America (GSA) convention in September through STEM research program. Held in Phoenix, Arizona, the GSA is hosting an annual Geology convention.

The convention features 28 courses and workshops and will allow people from different parts of the world come together and network and learn more about Geology in the real world. Esparza shares his experience being an intern at the museum as the “highlight of his summer”.

Out of his comfort zone being a medical student and introduced to Geology for the first time during this internship, Tillmon explains how it is important to be acknowledged on many different subjects outside of the medical field.

“It was cool to be introduced to a different world of something I would probably would have never been introduced to, unless I took this summer opportunity. When I first got into it, I told myself to have a good attitude about it, and then I had a good attitude about it and I thoroughly enjoyed it” as Tillmon describes his thankfulness.

With the help of their museum curator, Crystal Cortez, the students cultivated life skills to use in the real world.

Things like how to write a curriculum vitae, organization and communication skills.

Cortez helped the students become comfortable and engaged in the learning mate-

rial. She guided the students towards achieving their goals and teaching the information they needed to pursue their journey as interns.

“I did learn a lot of things about minerals, fossils and comparative, but I did learn a lot of different skills mainly. The biggest thing was organizing and critical thinking because Crystal was asking for help a lot of the time. We would bounce ideas off of each other and learned good communication skills. Like it was just really cool like how she wasn’t demanding and she kind of let us be independent,” expresses Tillmon.

When two worlds collide, a brand new experience opened many doors and new opportunities for Tillmon and Esparza. With their passion, this was an unforgettable learning experience for both.

“There is a lot of fossils there, that is a part of the experience there and to show the public that the museum has a lot to offer than just the exhibits at the museum,” shares Esparza.

PHOTOS COURTESY OF LINDA LAMP Tyler Tillmon and Albino Esparza showing off the collections at the The San Bernadino County Mueseum

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Chaffey College proudly presents

Zine-centered

workshops & events: Zines 101

September 25, 2019, 1230-2pm Wignall Museum of Contemporary Art Project Space What is a ‘zine? Learn about the history of zines and their rising popularity in academia, followed by a hands-on zine making workshop. Learn how zines encourage activism; provide space for self-published art, writing, and poetry; and the role of zines as an educational tool. Perfect for students, faculty, staff, and community members interested in self-publishing. Leave with your own zine!

Zines 101 will be facilitated by Annette Young, Chaffey College Librarian.

Materials will be provided but space is limited.

These Creatures Zine Workshop with Carolina Hicks

October 2, 2019, 1230-2pm Wignall Museum of Contemporary Art Project Space Explore personal narrative in zines and learn strategies for creating your own zines. Join These Creatures artist and zinester Carolina Hicks in this hands-on workshop. Materials will be provided but space is limited.

Zines: How to Execute a Mock-Up of Your Zine

February 19, 2020, 1-230pm CAC-105, Rancho Campus Join Graphic Design Professor Cabrina Alviar to learn how to mock-up your zine and configure difference physical ways to execute it. Perfect for individuals, artists, and student clubs that are creating zines for the upcoming zine fest. Learn how to layout, finish, print, and publish your zines.

Free to Chaffey College students but space is limited.

Zine Fest!

March 4, 2020, 1230-2pm Wignall Museum of Contemporary Art Patio Join the Chaffey College Library, the Wignall Museum of Contemporary Art, and One Book-One College for their 3rd annual Zine Fest! Zinesters from the region will be present to share and sell their zines, the Library will share it’s Zine Collection, make your own zine at the zine making table, enjoy music and light refreshments. Zines are for sale, but the event is free and open to the public.

Write, draw, self-publish, and resist.

Brought to you by the Schools of Visual and Performing Arts,

Language Arts, the Chaffey College Library, One Book/One College, & the Wignall Museum of Contemporary Art.

For more info, visit: https://www.chaffey.edu/wignall or http://libguides.chaffey.edu/zines & Contact: wignall.staff@chaffey.edu, (909) 652-6492

photos by: Raylene Camerano Josh Gutierrez Isaiah Goltara Tiffany Larrabee

Want to write for the Breeze?

Enroll in Journalism 30 The Breeze is a student-run news magazine looking for motivated students to tell stories and further their multimedia repertoire. For more info, contact us at thebreeze@chaffey.edu or 909.652.6934.

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Los Angeles Natural History Museum: Archaeology Comes To Life Ryan Gibson @RyGibSports

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ancy Granados is an intern at the LA Natural History Museum. During my visit, she was preparing a sauropod fossil inside the museum. Using a mini jackhammer, she carved the fossil from its jackets and excess aggregate.

Granados is a biology major with the intent to change her major to either anthropology or archeology. She is doing this internship to gain direction for what she wants to do with her degree. Gueorgui Gueorguiev, an astronomy professor at Chaffey College, is the faculty facilitator for the interns at the Los Angeles County Natural History Museum.

At the Los Angeles Natural History Museum, the paleontology department is led

by Maureen Walsh. The LA Natural History Museum explores three main sites: the Gnatalie Quarry in Utah (Late Jurassic), Beasty Wild, NM (Late Cretaceous), and the Augusta Mountains of Nevada (Mid Triassic). During extraction, the archeologists hammer out space around the fossil, which creates room to form a cast around the fossil called a “jacket.�

The jacket is composed of plaster and aggregate to increase its strength, they then flip the fossil over to safely remove the fossil from the earth. Upon extraction, the fossil is brought back to the LA Natural History Museum where its logged, mapped and prepared for curation.

Preparation is the extraction of the actual fossil from the jacket it was extracted in. After this, fossils are identified, dated and curated into the collection.

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“They spent the first week working with the Illustration and Digitalization Specialist, Stephanie Ramowitz,” said Gueorguiv, “They had to identify the bones from the newly excavated site the museum has been working on for many years.”

The project required them to record the exact placement and position that the bones were found in at the field site. Nancy and the other intern created an accurate image of the subject using Adobe Illustrator, then placed the graphic onto a “master map” of the excavation site.

The master map is a log of the sizing, discovery location and placement of each bone at the site. The map is not only indicative of discoveries on site, but an in-depth analysis of its topography and discovery history.

The interns were tasked with taking the paperwork that the excavated bones come with and determining how and where to position the graphic on the master map. The newest project the team at the Los Angeles Natural History Museum is taking on takes place in Antarctica. The dig team spent a number of weeks in Antarctica, recovering unique jackets to excavate, research, curate and map over the years.

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Fossils and Clay

The Western Science Center. Photos by Brody Salazar.

By:Brody Salazar @Brody_Salazar

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rom rolling clay to gluing fossils back together, Arturo Fuerte and Kimberly Ibarra, the interns of the Western Science Center, have a variety of tasks to perform. Fuerte and Ibarra often alternate between the two tasks, depending on how busy the museum is. Much of what the interns do often involves what they describe as “floor work,” a daily activity for them.

Floor work refers to work done in the museum and often requires rolling clay, speaking to guests and helping children find casts of fossils that are buried in small pits of sand.

Although Ibarra is not fond of the time spent there, Fuerte claims he views the floor work as “putting in your dues.”

He claims to “understand” floor work

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must be done in order for them to do lab work.

“They’re a nonprofit,” says Fuerte, “and not as many people are interested in working on the floor… It would be a lot better working in the lab, but like I said, I understand.”

When the interns are not busy with floor work, they spend their time in the lab going through the process of piecing together fossils.

They receive fossils that are numbered based on the number of fossils there are.

The interns do paperwork before, during and after piecing them back together.

They must then clean them as best they can while remaining gentle, often using a brush and water for dirt that is close to the fossil.

Arturo Fuerte.

After the fossils have been cleaned, the are pieced back together. They use a glue to put the fossils back together.

Fuerte states: “It’s like the hardest puzzle you’ve probably ever done.”

Arturo describes it as something they get to regularly do, provided there are little to no guests. If there are a small amount of guests, the interns can prepare a fossil but have to go back on the floor around every 15 minutes and clean up the mess children made.

“As you can imagine,” says Fuerte, “you know, you might not have all the pieces [of fossil] there, or some pieces might be really small. You’ll never be able to--I don’t know about never because there are some very talented

people--in my case, at least, I would never be able to put something like that together.”

Although Fuerte is a geology major, he finds there are certain aspects of the internship that will help him in his chosen field. For instance, identifying the age of a fossil found in a layer of rock can be a faster method than counting strata.

“My major’s geology… I never really had an interest in paleontology.

I wouldn’t do it as a career, but I definitely have more of an appreciation for what they do because it’s really difficult.”

Kimberly Ibarra.

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SKELETONS OF THE PAST KIARA JEREZ |

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@ARAXKIA

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ver the course of several years, the museum received boxes filled with artifacts from the earliest B.C. and A.D.. As students locate the packages, they work with artifacts that are wrapped in plastic bubble wrap. Bubble wrap contains air pockets and an acidic environment. Acid in the artifacts deteriorates and leave them in an unstable condition. When archaeologists discovered the artifacts in the 1970’s, they couldn’t figure out a system in which to preserve the pieces. The students are responsible for maintaining a better condition and preservation for them.

“So what we do is we take those boxes, and we’ll take them out. Recording the number, photographing them, take four different pictures at different angles, scale to see how big they are too and we’ll record them, put them on a sheet of paper, upload them online to a site called Argus. We wrap them back up in paper that are acid free and place them in an acid free box. Once it’s in inventory, we make sure that’s ok, and we’ll start the process again on another box,” Tyler Case mentions.

Some of the artifacts were displayed onto a piece of paper, the students then needed to clean the glue off the artifacts to conserve them. Argus is a website which authorizes anyone to store photographs and inventory. Some artifacts photographs haven’t been updated in the past 50 years. The photographs will help other individuals see the artifacts in a better quality.

One discovery the students found working in the museum are bones embedded in some of the artifacts.

“Sometimes we get bones, and we don’t know if their human or funnel. So we have a skeleton expert come in and tell us if it’s human remains or funnel,” says intern, Patricia Garcia. With the help of the skeleton expert, will further the students progress in storing the information about the artifacts more accurately and up to date.

The anticipation and the surprise on the findings in the boxes, is what keeps the students engaged and motivated to learn more. “It’s definitely been a cool experience, it’s awesome. All the stuff we get to handle everyday, the stuff we get to see. You pull a box and you don’t know what is going to be in that box. There can be arrowhead, sorts of different bones, I like rocks so it’s cool to see some cool rocks in there. So you really never know what you’ll find in the box, it’s cool,” Case shares being an intern at the museum.

PHOTOS BY KIARA JEREZ

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25 graphics by Alaast Kamalabadi

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CHANGING PHYSICS KIARA JEREZ |

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@ARAXKIA

S

urrounded by steel machinery, dedicated students, Audrey Vasquez and Miriam Conteras at UCR’s Department of Physics and Astronomy work on experiments that can create an impact in physics.

In the laboratory, a scientific procedure that was worked on in the UCR laboratory are the 1s and 2s experiments.

“This is aimed at hopefully shedding light on one of the biggest problems in physics, called the proton radius puzzle.

Turns out we don’t really know the size of a proton which is defined by its charge radius.

We thought we did but in experiments in the mid 2000’s, there was a discrepancy found.

So something funny is going on in physics right now, it’s a little broken so we don’t know what’s going on. A lot of people are trying to figure it out and this experiment will hopefully shed light on it and solve the proton radius puzzle which would be a huge discovery,” explains curator Marcus Asaro.

The laboratory is entirely surrounded by steel machinery.

A lot of the machinery is being used for the 1s and 2s experiments. With the help of their magnetic field, it is useful to the experiments that are currently being tested on and for future research.

One of the projects the students worked on is they maintained a power supply for a tellurium chamber. “The power supply is being used to heat up heating elements which are designed to evaporate the tellurium metalloid inside a sealed glass cell. At that point we use

lasers to perform spectroscopy on the gas,” says intern, Vasquez. The data will be collected from the interactivity between matter and the electromagnetic waves.

Inspired after visiting Northern California and different universities, Contreras explains her experience from the trip.

It motivated her to become more experienced in work and research. Keeping her options open, she hopes the STEM program can open opportunities for her and know what major she’s interested in.

“I know I would like to do something in the science field, but I don’t know if bioengineering like I want to know that’s exactly what I want to do. When I saw the different positions they had in the program, this is the one that interested me. Hopefully with this program, I will know if I like this research thing or not,” explains Contreras.

The main goal the students have is learning more about the different processes in physics.

Becoming more aware about the material and applying it to hands on research is their goal during this internship.

“There’s been class I’ve taken at Chaffey and I’m already seeing how some of the information I’ve learned is already applicable here. It’s given me a little more background on the topic,” explains Vasquez.

Vasquez and Contreras enjoyed the STEM research program brought them together to perform research, become more familiar with physics and help construct their future careers.

PHOTOS BY KIARA JEREZ Miriam Contreras, Audrey Vazquez, and Marcus Asaro pose in front of the steel machineray in the lbaoratory at UCR.

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Challenging Computations

By Brody Salazar @Brody_Salazar

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t UCR’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Teddy Calderon and Blessing Nwogu have gone from working with microprocessors to designing cases to be built by a 3D printer. The case, the current project the two interns are working on, being designed is for a device that measures the wavelength of light. When it is finished, it will be used to determine the health of avocado trees by reading the light they emit.

Because of the nature of the project, all of their time working is spent on a computer, something that proves helpful to them, as they both work to majors involving computers. Calderon is a Math and Computer Science major, and Nwu-

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Blessing Nwugo. Photos by Brody Salazar.

go is a Computer Information Systems major.

Calderon and Nwogu describe the internship as a challenge, but one that came without any bad experiences.

Whenever the two have difficulty with something, others in the department would help with their problem. Calderon describes the people they have worked with as being “amazing people” from a professional standpoint.

The interns are not given answers when they have questions. Instead they have to solve the problem themselves, but they are shown how they can solve the problem. According to Nwugo, the department members “take time to explain on the white board.” They lead

Not everything they were asked to do was something they expected. Sometimes the interns would be given a task that involves subjects they were not taught yet.

One such example of a time when they faced difficulty was when Calderon had to learn to light an LED light bulb.

“As simple as it sounds, I didn’t know how to do that, besides a physics class I had taken before where I have a regular circuit board. I was told, ‘Hey make this light work using your computer.’ So things like that, just small little things, would surprise me.”

Another task that proved challenging is building the case itself. Nwogu describes building the case as challenging because of how accurate the measurements had to be, as well as inexperience

with the design program.

“I’d used one before, but it was my first time using a different one,” says Nwogu. “The first time using it, I really did not go so in depth… I just, like, brushed through it, but it’s like my first time actually building a case. I would say it’s something that’s challenging, but not something that’s impossible.”

Both Nwogu and Calderon describe the internship as something they can learn from, with Nwogu claiming the most valuable thing she learned being how to analyze problems.

“From the beginning of the project,” says Nwugo, “we’ve been given problems to solve, and, to me, that’s the major thing about the internship for me…finding the problem and getting a solution from it.”

Teddy Calderon.

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A Passion for Conservation Kenya Staley @KenyaStaley

Photos by Tiffany Larrabee

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W

ith a summer like California’s, it can be difficult to imagine anyone who wants to spend the entirety of their days in the heat but that’s exactly how Chaffey College students Tiffany Larrabee and Joselyn Gonzalez have spent their summer at the Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden, also known as RSABG. Located in the hills of Claremont, California, Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden is home to over 22,000 plants over 86 acres .

Although it is open to the public seven days a week, there are a variety of behind-the-scenes actions that most members are unaware of. Fortunately, Gonzalez and Larrabee were able to dive headfirst into the enchantment of RSABG. “Every day of the week we do something different, some days we’ll be in the herbarium and other days we’ll be out in the field collecting specimens for research. The herbarium is really special because it holds so much information that can later

be used to study things like climate change,” says Larrabee. The herbarium is filled with over 1,200,000 specimens and approximately 7,000 species that get imaged and added to an online database where botanists around the world can access their information for further research, thus playing an important role in the garden’s function. The herbarium is mainly home to California native plants; however, the collection is also home to plants from Mexico, Australia and other dry regions.

Through conversations with employees and interns at RSABG, it remained clear with everyone at RSABG that research and conservation play an enormous role in their mission. According to their website, “staff, students, resident scientists and postdoctoral fellows contribute directly to the overall research program at Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden.” At the core of their work is constant learning and understanding through the likes of several different resources. Through inventory, monitoring, re-

search, horticulture, restoration and seed bank programs RSABG is diligently working to conserve California flora.

Gonzalez expressed her gratitude for RSABG’s commitment to providing interns with a thorough experience. The RSABG management gave them priority by ensuring they were always working in areas they showed interest in.

There is also a nursery on-site, whose main function is to grow plants for the botanic garden.

Botanists continuously collect seeds, cuttings and other necessities to bring back to the nursery to propagate and grow. Once they are ready to be planted, typically in the fall or winter, the plants are transferred to their designated spot. Phytophthora prevention, also known as RSABG’s best management practices is vital for the success of the nursery. Phytophthora is essentially a garden’s worst nightmare. Invisible to the naked eye, this plant disease causes weakness and slow collapse in a once-healthy plant. If a plant is infected with

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Streams of the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory Ryan Gibson @RyGibSports

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naiz Ruiz spent ten months living on a small commune in the Rocky Mountains that houses staff members at the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory (RMBL). The laboratory is located in an abandoned mining town called Gothic, Colorado. In 1924, Dr. John Johnson visited Gothic, Colorado and witnessed a rare amount of diversity in the local ecosystems. Johnson began returning to Gothic with students to study its ecology.

In 1928, RMBL was officially founded and has been heavily researched ever since.

Ruiz worked for RMBL as an intern over the summer.

She was housed in a cabin in the woods with over ten other girls and no indoor plumbing. Her least favorite part of the experience was “not being able to shower every day.” While Ruiz’s least favorite part of her time at RMBL was not being able to bathe on a daily basis, the most challenging adjustment she had to make was to the elevation. The laboratory is located at 9,500 feet in elevation and the research the team conducts takes place anywhere from 8,000 to 12,000 feet in elevation.

Chaffey College is elevated at 1745 feet above sea level.

Ruiz cited the roughly 8,000 foot difference in elevation as her most difficult experience in transitioning from living in suburban California to the RMBL.

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“Every day I got to wake up inside of nature. You walk outside and you see so many different types of wildlife” stated Ruiz. “When we would go into town, you would see deer walking through the streets.”

The future ecologist worked along local streams at collecting samples of water containing different species of caddisfly. As caddisflies are collected, they are documented and reinserted into the habitat. After that they are observed and analyzed along with the other species

of caddisfly. Scientists are looking for the ways in which the different species interact with each other.

They want to see if the different species will lift one another up or if one will tear the other down and the ways in which each group responds to cohabitating with the other. Ruiz and her team at Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory found that one species of caddisfly migrated to a deeper level within the streams. While there is less oxygen for the caddisfly, the

caddisfly species living directly above them are unable and unwilling to go after them that deep in the stream. They found that the species living above began to hunt the other species of caddisfly, so those caddisfly moved to where the dominant species could not get to them. They found that these particular subjects did not coexist, but instead one dominated the other while the other adapted to avoid its new predator.

“I would never have been able to do this if it weren’t for Linda Lamp,” stated Ruiz. “Without her, none of this would have been possible. I would recommend this internship to any student at Chaffey that has the opportunity to.” After ten weeks, Anaiz returned from her internship the Saturday before the 2019 Fall semester began.

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