Today we reported for our first day as volunteers for Widecast. We didn’t know what to expect, but we were very excited to work with the turtles. Pictured is the sheet we filled out for each turtle. It seemed very overwhelming because it was written in both English and Spanish, but after the first few turtles, filling out the information became second nature.

One thing that was interesting was that because the volunteers come from different countries, the dates can be written and read differently. In America, we typically write the dates in mm/dd/yy format, whereas some of the other Widecast volunteers may write their dates in dd/mm/yy format. To avoid confusion we were asked to write out the month, followed by the day and the year.

Because this was the equivalent to a medical record, it was very important to write clearly and as accurate as possible. We all worked as a team and would call out the information on the turtle so that the record keeper could jot it down quickly. Efficiency was key because we wanted to return the turtle to the water as soon as possible.