Profile

• Time Zone

  Eastern

  
  
• Gender

  Female

  
  
• Organization

  Botanical Society of America

  
  
• Employment Status

  Non/Not-for-Profit

  
  
• Role

  Scientist Mentor: I will mentor teams of students online
  Other (partner, advisor, curriculum developer)

  
  
• Research Interests (300 words)

  I went to graduate school to study paleoethnobotany (how people used plants in the past). I worked at a Viking Age and Medieval archaeological site in the Orkney Islands in Scotland for my main project. I collected burned seeds and other plant parts from the soil and identified them under a microscope. I could tell by how the plant parts changed over time how the farmers at the site were making choices, like which crops they chose to grow.
  
  Now I mostly do education research, where I study how students learn about plants and science. I want to know what makes students interested in studying plants, and what ideas they have about who scientists are and what they do.

  
  
• Do you have previous experience in mentorship or educational outreach? Please list here (200 words)

  (not set)

  
  
• Which of the following best describes your career stage?

  Mid-Career

  
  
• Profile Question 1

  What is your favorite plant? Why?

  
  
• Answer the question you selected for profile question 1 here (300 words):

  My favorite plant is the miracle berry (Synsepalum duclificum). It is a tropical plant that changes your taste receptors so that sour things taste sweet. After you eat one of the berries (the berry tastes kind of like a grape) you can drink straight vinegar or lemon juice and it tastes really sweet. The effect lasts for about 30 minutes or so.

  
  
• Profile Question 2

  What was the first science experiment you ever designed? How did it turn out?

  
  
• Answer the question you selected for profile question 2 here (300 words):

  The first real science experiment I designed was to try to find out whether the salt marsh periwinkle (a snail) moves up and down marsh grasses with the tide to avoid blue crabs (a main predator).
  
  I decided to collect and label about 1000 snails and superglued long or short “leashes” of fishing wire to the snails to see if more of the ones on short leashes (that couldn’t climb the grasses) would be eaten than ones on the long leashes. I collected, labelled and leashed those 1,000 snails, came back the next day…and found out that my experiment did not go well at all.
  
  Most of the snails had pulled off their leashes, some snails were kind of hanging by the tangled up long leashes, and I couldn’t find all of the labelled snails…so I didn’t know how many had been eaten vs. escaped. I learned how important it is to do small “pilot studies” where I could have leashed a few snails and observed them for a while to see if the leashes would work before going ahead and messing with 1000 snails first thing. I still feel bad about those tangled up and hanging snails…might be part of why I decided to study plants instead of animals.

  
  
• Profile Question 3

  Can you describe your attitude toward science when you were in high school?

  
  
• Answer the question you selected for profile question 3 here (300 words):

  I liked Biology in high school, but I was also interested in art and history. I think I really liked seeing things through a microscope, and how beautiful or terrifying common things can look when magnified. I decided to major in biology for college, but I got to take a lot of art and history courses too.
  
  
  I was so excited when I learned that paleoethnobotany was a thing (in my junior year of college) because I could combine my interest in plants and history/archaeology. I also got to do a lot of scientific illustration and sketching during the archaeology digs.
  
  
  
  I also was always interested in wild edibles and useful plants, so I went from making "weed soup" for my friends in high school (do not try at home) to studying useful plants in graduate school.

  
  
• Help represent the outreach efforts of your societies. Please click all those organizations you are a member of:

  (not set)

  
  
• How did you hear about PlantingScience?

  (not set)

  
  
• Availability

  I am NOT available, please temporarily remove me from the available mentor list

  
  
• Preferred Student Level(s)

  Elementary School Students (5th grade)
  Undergraduate Students
  High School Students (Grades 9,10,11,12)
  Middle School Students (Grades 6,7,8)

  
  
• Preferred Investigation Themes

  The Wonder of Seeds (seed germination and growth)
  The Power of Sunlight (photosynthesis and respiration)
  What about Pollen? (pollen and pollination)
  Celery Challenge (plant anatomy, osmosis and diffusion)
  Foundations of Genetics (traits, variation and environment in rapidly cycling Brassica)
  C-Fern in the Open (sexual reproduction, alternation of generations)
  Agronomy Feeds the World (where does food come from?)

  
  
• Challenge, ELL, Honors

  ELL - English language learners
  Honors or AP - Advanced Placement
  Academically Challenged

  
  
• In addition to English, I am comfortable communicating with students in the following languages:

  None of the Above

  
  
• Videoconference Ability

  Yes

  
  
• Capacity: How many teams at a time are you comfortable working with?

  2

  
  

Recent Posts

24fcordondhspos project 7 Catrina Adams Nov 19 at 04:48pm

Hi Team 7,

Thanks for sharing your results! Sounds like your experiment went quite well and you got results that matched your expectations...that since the chlorophyll is green, the red and blue are likely more useful for photosynthesis than the…

more

Hi Team 7,

Thanks for sharing your results! Sounds like your experiment went quite well and you got results that matched your expectations...that since the chlorophyll is green, the red and blue are likely more useful for photosynthesis than the yellow, and you predict that purple (red + blue) are likely to be even better. Sounds like the blue did better than the red, but that could have been partly due to the red cup having some issues? Normally, the yellow filters let more light through than red or blue, so your results suggest to me that the AMOUNT of light getting through the filters wasn't a big concern as I feared...so that's great. How did the white light (control) do? Did that one do what you expected?

Don't know if you will be presenting data about this to your class, but if you do, you might want to think about the real-world applications of your data...who would be excited to hear about this finding?

Something cool related to this that you might want to look up is the Purple Earth Hypothesis...it's an idea about why chlorophyll might be green in the first place, from an evolutionary perspective. I didn't hear about it until graduate school, but thought it was super interesting.

I enjoyed getting you meet you all, you are all so talented! Wish you all the best in whatever career path you decide to take!

 

24fcordondhspos project 7 Catrina Adams Nov 18 at 09:32am

Thanks for the update, Olivia. Definitely understand about the limitations of doing this in a class and not having a lot of time. I'm looking forward to hearing about the results that you get and what you think they tell you about how color…

more

Thanks for the update, Olivia. Definitely understand about the limitations of doing this in a class and not having a lot of time. I'm looking forward to hearing about the results that you get and what you think they tell you about how color impacts photosynthesis.

It's really rare for scientists to design an experiment that works perfectly the first time. Often it takes some refining to make sure you've controlled for everything. So, as you do your experiment and collect your results, you might think about ways you could improve your setup for next time.

Even if you don't actually have time to do a second experiment, it's a good way to think through the strengths and weaknesses of your approach to the question and how confident you are in your results.

Hope you had fun on Friday! Let me know what data you collected...did it match your expectations about what you thought would happen?

24fcordondhspos project 7 Catrina Adams Nov 13 at 07:20pm

Hi Kendra! Realized I didn't ask you any questions yesterday. I would love to know if there is a particular thing that made science (or math) your favorite subject(s). For me I think it was one particularly awesome science teacher I had in 10th…

more

Hi Kendra! Realized I didn't ask you any questions yesterday. I would love to know if there is a particular thing that made science (or math) your favorite subject(s). For me I think it was one particularly awesome science teacher I had in 10th grade that really got me thinking about biology as a future major. We did some genetic engineering to turn bacteria blue and I thought that was just super interesting.