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Conclusion: Although no mosquitoes were found, this process has helped me understand the methodology of making an experiment and having to deal with hardships and setbacks. There were many potential sources of error both within the system of the experiment and with outside forces. Systematic errors could have stemmed from the trap design or location. The weather was a factor of random...

I decided to test the impacts of fertilizer on mosquito breeding habitats. Background: I live in the Tampa Bay Area in Florida, and a major issue facing our ecosystems is fertilizer entering our waterways from runoff after people fertilize their lawns before it rains. This can lead to major algae blooms, like red tide, which are harmful to the rest of our marine organisms. Just last year,...

NYC is very hot and stuffy in the summer, but also has a lot of shade. A large part of this shade comes from large buildings, but most blocks have trees and there are some notable parks with a lot of tree cover as well. I get bitten all the time in the park when not in direct sunlight, but not so much when I'm downtown with the same level of shade.  I wondered if there was something to...

Background: I live in a suburban area around 30 miles south of San Francisco in the West Bay, near the wetlands/the bay. Our county regularly treats the wetland trails for mosquitoes, and they also do aerial treatment, especially in the spring when mosquitoes like to breed. Many previous literature papers concluded that mosquitoes prefer to oviposit in slightly alkaline water; as such, I...

Selecting the right satellite images and products can be challenging! In this blog, I am sharing my learning and experience of working with satellite images for image classification and visualization. The use of remote sensing satellite images to measure water qualities is a viable option to predict and control vector-borne diseases. Space agencies, such as NASA and ESA, provide open access to...

I currently have four traps in operational order. Two at one of my AOIs and two in backyard that were prototypes that I've left up because they seem to be performing admirably. I My traps have been up for about a week, the prototypes were deployed a day before the other two, and I haven't seen any mosquitos or mosquito larvae. I did take care to note that I used dog food in my trap,...

Have you ever wondered why NASA has chosen to follow water? NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has captured the distinct signature of water outside our solar system. NASA's Artemis program is examining the presence of water on the Moon in advance of sending and establishing a sustainable human presence there.  The answer is simple - water is key to life as we know it, including on planet...

What motivated you to volunteer as a NASA citizen scientist? How did you learn about NASA citizen science? Well ,I learned about NASA citizen science when I participated in the 2020 (STEM). Due to my experiences with mosquitoes and mosquito-borne disease as a Sri Lankan, I decided to join the Mosquito Mappers team, where part of the was collecting and analyzing GLOBE Mosquito Habitat Mapper...

I thought October 5, 2021, would be a normal day. I sat in a diner with my family after school, scrolling through my email and sipping a mint chocolate chip milkshake. It had been two months since my NASA STEM Enhancement in Earth Science (SEES) internship ended– or so I thought. Suddenly, I received an intriguing email. The subject line read, “AGU Fall Meeting 2021 Abstract Status...

During the SEES internship, I got the opportunity to do data collection fieldwork. This required me to go around my neighborhood and take pictures of specific points that had been calculated using a Python notebook. Some of these points were in parts of my neighborhood that I’d never been to, despite being in my fourteenth year of living there. I even saw a pack of wild javelinas in a...