UNIVERSITY OF PUERTO RICO AT PONCE

ENGLISH DEPARTMENT
ENGL 4021 M03

MEMORANDUM

DATE: September 30, 2022

TO: Pier A. Le Compte, Professor
FROM: Miguel A. Torres Sáez, Biology Department Student
SUBJECT: Trip Report to Webinar Economic Impacts of Natural Disasters and the Pandemic: The
Case of Puerto Rico

ABSTRACT
On September 25, 2022, I completed the asynchronous webinar Economic Impacts of Natural
Disasters and the Pandemic: The Case of Puerto Rico through the UPR-IPERT program which lasted sixth
hours. José Caraballo Cueto, Professor in the University of Puerto Rico at Cayey, was the presenter of the
investigation. The purpose of this report is to explain the data collection methods used in this webinar to
compare the impact on the economy of La Luna in Guánica and the Martín Peña Channel because of natural
disasters and the pandemic.

METHODOLOGY
To obtain a great investigation with good results, we must consider the best possible resources for
data validation. The researcher used some strategies to get reliable data and to compare it with older studies.

Systematic Sampling
José Caraballo used systematic sampling, because we do not know how many people live in the
communities La Luna and Martín Peña Channel. This type of sampling is performed selecting, in this case,
one house randomly and the other houses every two units, because La Luna had a lot of uninhabited houses
because of the earthquakes.

Surveys
The professor mentioned that the questions in the survey need to be few and related to the economic
impacts of natural disasters. For that, you need to present an application for research involving human
subjects to the Committee for the Protection of Human Subjects or to the Institutional Review Board (IRB)
and have their approval. Also, you need to do a pilot survey to verify that the questions are understandable
to the audience. Professor Caraballo used Google Forms platform to do his survey with the advantage of
obtaining graphics of the answers. It is important to have knowledge of the communities and to have met
the communities’ leaders before doing the survey.

OTHER METHODS
The researcher used ethnography and quantitative methods that helped him measure the magnitudes
on accelerated aging because of the natural disaster. Also, he used the internet and Public Transportation
information.

CLOSING
This webinar helps me understand how the pandemic and natural disasters impacted life at La Luna
and Martín Peña Channel. I learned the steps to submit or create a survey for my future investigations. This
data can be used to start or continue studies into this topic. The action that I recommend is to continue the
investigation with all municipalities of Puerto Rico to know the real economic situation in our country.

ENCLOSURE
Certificate attendance’s evidence.