Profile

• Telephone

  1-513-785-3244

  
  
• Time Zone

  Eastern Standard or Daylight Savings Time (North America)

  
  
• Gender

  Male

  
  
• Organization

  Miami University

  
  
• Employment Status

  Retired / Unemployed

  
  
• Role

  Scientist Mentor: I will mentor teams of students online

  
  
• Research Interests (300 words)

  My research focuses on the effects of environmental factors on the development of root systems and stress-induced programed cell death in plants.
  I am also the Director of Miami University's botanical Conservatory.

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

  I have been an advisor of college botany majors at the undergraduate and graduate level for 29 yr. I have participated in Planting Science since 2008. I created a children's anti-plant blindness outreach program for the entire Hamilton Ohio City School district involving in classroom activities and field trips to the Miami University Conservatory that ran for a decade and served ca. 8000 children.

  
  
• Which of the following best describes your career stage?

  Emeritus/Retired

  
  
• Profile Question 1

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

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

  As an undergraduate I had a lab job assisting a doctoral student who needed to isolate DNA from the root apical meristems of pea plants. We did not have polymerase chain reaction technology to amplify small amounts of DNA in those days, so he needed very large numbers of root tips to get sufficient DNA for an experiment. Based on my classwork and some experiments some other students in our lab had done, I thought I could use elevated temperature to significantly increase the number of cells in these meristems, and therefore reduce the number of root tips we would need to collect to get enough meristem DNA. The experiment was pretty much a failure with respect to its hypothesis and objective, but it serenipitously revealed a lot of surprising effects that elevated temperature had on the development of pea roots. This ultimately led to my own doctoral dissertation research project and subsequent life's work.

  
  
• Profile Question 2

  When and why did you decide to go into a science career?

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

  When I was contemplating going back to college after 18 yr in other occupations, I discovered it was not necessarily required that one live and work in a city to do science. I wanted my children to grow up in a non-urban environment, so I decided to study agronomy and botany.

  
  
• Profile Question 3

  What is best about being a scientist?

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

  Being able to make a living discovering new things about the world and sharing those discoveries with colleagues and students.

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

  Botanical Society of America
  Japanese Society of Plant Physiologists, Scandinavian Plant Physiology Society, International Society for Plant Anaerobiosis

  
  
• How did you hear about PlantingScience?

  Partner Organization E-mail

  
  
• Preferred Student Level(s)

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

  
  
• 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)
  C-Fern in the Open (sexual reproduction, alternation of generations)
  Agronomy Feeds the World (where does food come from?)

  
  
• Challenge, ELL, Honors

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

  
  
• 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?

  3

  
  

Recent Posts

nhspandaposfall2023 project 4 Daniel K. Gladish Nov 29 at 09:59pm

Dear Project Team 4:

I wish you had interacted with me during your project.  Plant photosynthesis is the most important biological process on earth, and I think it is fun to study.

Best wishes, Dr. Dan Gladish

mhsyuhaseposfall2023 project 10 Daniel K. Gladish Nov 16 at 02:08pm

You are welcome, Dominic.  I hope you all have a good holiday season.

Stay safe, Dr. Dan

pvhsapplemanposfall2023 project 4 Daniel K. Gladish Nov 15 at 11:16pm

Dear Preslea and Team 4:

Wonderful!  Thank you for all the detailed updates.  I am intrigued by the clever method you used to show the CO₂ evolution from yeast fermentation.  You and I have to assume it is CO₂ that…

more

Dear Preslea and Team 4:

Wonderful!  Thank you for all the detailed updates.  I am intrigued by the clever method you used to show the CO₂ evolution from yeast fermentation.  You and I have to assume it is CO₂ that inflated the balloon, since scientists before us used analytical instruments determine that this is the gas that is released by yeast during their digestion of sugar, but that is what library research is for: to show us what folks have discovered in the past.  You did not say what you will measure if you use a ziplock bag, but I say go for it.  What is the difference between a glass flask and plastic bag that might change the outcome?

I think it is fun to contemplate that respiration is almost exactly the reverse of photosynthesis (the process in plants that makes sugar), so those biochemical processes are like a conveyor belt for solar energy through the Earth's surface ecosystems that drives a cycle of Earth's matter and makes food available for living things.  Yeah!  I like lunch - and so do my trees and bean plants.

What's interesting about baking soda is that it doesn't release CO₂ all at once when it is dissolved in water.  It gets into a "dynamic equilibrium" with the CO₂ already in the water.  Baking soda is Na⁺ + HCO₃^- (not H₂CO₃, but it doesn't matter because the result is the same).  In water H₂CO₃ (carbonic acid) can "dissociate" to form CO₂ and more water, just as you said, but not all at once: in water H₂CO₃ <=> CO₂ + H₂O.  It goes back and forth depending on how much carbonic acid or carbon dioxide is in the water.  There is always some CO₂ in water when it is exposed to air, but when your leaf disks started consuming CO₂ for photosynthesis it reduced the amount of CO₂ in the water.  That will cause the reaction H₂CO₃ <=> CO₂ + H₂O to go to the right, so it will keep supplying more and more CO₂ as it is used.  Soda pop makers take advantage of this reaction to "carbonate" a beverage.  After they fill the bottle with sweet beverage solution, they pressurize it with CO₂, which will add lots of CO₂ and drive the above reaction to the left, which will add carbonic acid to the beverage.  This will make the drink have a nice tart taste (to counter the ridiculous amount of sweetness) and cause it to constantly release CO₂ bubbles once the lid is removed (reaction back to the right).  Who'd have thought this chemistry would happen right in your mouth!

Best wishes, Dr. Dan