By Anders, Colette, and Julia

**Broadcasting from Team Mako…

The first day and we’ve hit the ground running! After some brief introductions, we dove straight into a virtual scavenger hunt; collecting a series of random pictures that did more than just earn our team points but introduced our homes, families, and furry friends to each other. The competitive spirit was on! After tallying up team Mako’s incredible score, which hopefully knocked the other team out of the water, we braced for the long lecture ahead of us. Expecting it to be very tiring, we were pleasantly surprised by the awesome information provided by the inspiring Sasha Seroy! Not only did she teach us about her morphological research on Bryozoans (a colonizing invertebrate) and Lacuna Vincta, (a small snail species), she also taught us about how to make our scientific work more universally accessible: through cartoons! Although none of our artwork matched the quality of her work in “Interviews With Invertebrates” (https://interviewswithinvertebrates.com/ or @IWIcomics on Instagram or Twitter) we had a great time and learned a ton! 

Much of what we learned today was centered around the theme of Scientific Communication. We practiced how to simplify our jargon and discovered how to effectively approach varying audiences with critical concepts. We can not wait to continue this journey with these incredible people who share similar passions to us. Despite our geographical distance, we sure are starting to feel like a team!