During this co-op, I worked in the Oceanography Lab at Oregon State’s College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences as a lab tech where my duties ranged from making chemicals to running samples and data entry. It was my responsibility to become proficient with the various instruments we used for analysis, and in some instances teach graduate students how to use them for their own research.
I’ve learned that running and working in a lab involves much more than the research itself. I assisted my boss with countless organizational projects, packed and unpacked for research cruises, and washed thousands of dishes.  Throughout this time, I paid notice to the sounds and movements of both people and things with regard to the places I frequented. My all-encompassing conclusions highlight awareness and the key to experiencing sound and movement within a place in a meaningful way. It’s too easy sometimes, walk through the world immune and unaware of the sounds and movements in one’s surroundings. However, there’s a wealth of knowledge that can be obtained by the observed world of silent and noisy interactions and relationships within a place. Thus, I would define place as the immediate surroundings of the observed. This could be a large as the sea beneath, beside, and rolling onto a ship out at sea. It could be as small as an interaction between molecules within a flask. Place container the observed.
Photo credit: https://ceoas.oregonstate.edu/
