In Marine Evolution and Ecology, there was a project that was assigned about half way through the semester to small groups, and were given a broad topic and a presentation date. For the project, we had to find a peer reviewed article on the topic, and to make a 20 minute presentation on it. My partner and I were assigned evolution of marine species, and given free reign from there to find whatever we wanted to in that subject area. The article we ended up with was called “Octopuses in Wild and Domestic Relationships,” and was focused on how octopuses were able to form complex relationships with other organisms around them.
This project was important to me because, not only was it relevant to the topic of the class, but it is very close to what I want to study as a career. This project gave me the opportunity to start looking more into the things that interest me as a career, and it even heightened my interest in the subject. As not much is currently known about the full capability of these cephalopodes, and these types of papers are few and far between, it was a good opportunity for me and for the other students in the class, and it gave me an extra insight into work that I could do in the future.
