Community Engagement 

Welcome back! The week of the 4th was business as usual with some sampling in the field and time off for the holiday.

The next week, we went over to Pratt’s Falls to give a guest presentation at the 4-H camp there. It was great talking with the kids and answering all their questions about ticks and Lyme disease! They all ran to the microscope to look at the ticks up close and pulled up their socks when we talked about wearing protective clothes. Then, we took the campers outside so they could experience tick dragging. They loved looking at all the different insects we encountered and using our equipment.

On Tuesday, we went to Baltimore Woods Nature Center in Marcellus to assist with a focus group Joellen was hosting for her research. Participants were asked about their experiences with tick prevention and their thoughts on various methods of protection. We took diligent notes throughout the two-hour session and transcribed them for further analysis later. It was really impactful hearing all these personal stories about people’s experiences with Lyme. It really puts our research efforts into perspective.

The rest of the week, we did some lab work sorting through our tick samples and inputting data. If another year of baseline data collection is required for the study, we made sure to note important details like the first appearance of poison ivy at certain sites or how many ticks we found there. After a meeting with everyone on Friday, we are curious about how the study is progressing in different regions and whether other teams are encountering the same challenges as ours. Moving forward, our course of action will depend heavily on whether we continue to find nymphs and on how people respond to our recruitment efforts.