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Wendy Semski

Profile

  • Time Zone
    Central

  • Organization
    University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee

  • Role
    Scientist Mentor: I will mentor teams of students online

  • Research Interests (300 words)
    I am interested in how within and among population variation in flowering patterns influences pollinator interactions and plant reproduction.

  • Profile Question 1
    When and why did you decide to go into a science career?

  • Answer the question you selected for profile question 1 here (300 words):
    Growing up, I spent a lot of time with my grandmother, who was very interested in art and science. Whenever I visited her house (which was quite often since she only lived two blocks away!) she always had a new science-related book or TV program to show me, she bought me my first telescope/microscope kit, and she taught me the names of plants and animals as we walked through the park. She taught me to always be curious, to never stop asking questions, and to love learning. I am positive that without my grandma's influence, I would never have considered a career in science.

  • Profile Question 2
    What is best about being a scientist?

  • Answer the question you selected for profile question 2 here (300 words):
    What I love best about being a scientist is planning experiments. When you have an interesting question you want to answer, such as whether plants grow best in light or in dark, it is important to design an experiment so that your results can only be interpreted in one way because you've ruled out or tested for other factors that might be important, such as the amount of water they receive, or fertilizer, or soil type, or temperature. Designing an experiment is like solving a puzzle, because you have to consider every piece in front of you and then put them together to form a picture, which is the answer to your question. I love puzzles!

  • Profile Question 3
    What is the coolest thing you have discovered or learned about plants?

  • Answer the question you selected for profile question 3 here (300 words):
    The first plant I learned about that really made me stop and think "Wow, plants are so cool!!" is called skunk cabbage (scientific name Symplocarpus foetidus), native to moist habitats in the Midwest, including woodlands near my home. Skunk cabbage flowers do not have petals, but instead consist of a reddish, fleshy hood structure called a spathe which surrounds the reproductive parts, called the spadix. Very early in spring, when the ground is still covered with snow, the skunk cabbage spathe emerges out of the soil and then using a process called thermogenesis, it heats itself up in order to melt a hole in the snow surrounding it! Then, by producing a smell like dead meat, skunk cabbage attracts early visitors such as flies, which enter the hood-like spathe searching for food but end up getting pollen all over themselves as they climb around on the spadix. When they leave and find another skunk cabbage flower, they bring the pollen with them, allowing the plants to mate. This reproductive strategy was unlike anything I had heard previously, and I have been fascinated by plants ever since!

  • Capacity: How many teams at a time are you comfortable working with?
    2

Recent Posts

Ready, Set, Grow!!!! Wendy Semski

Also, a quick note: I noticed your graph doesn't say what unit the y-axis (plant height) uses, which makes the graph hard to interpret. Usually we put the unit in parentheses, like "Plant Height (mm)".

Ready, Set, Grow!!!! Wendy Semski

Wow, these are cool results! It looks like the seeds manipulated with tweezers grew the best, then gloves, then dirty hands, then washed.

Interestingly, although your final results show that dirty hands grew better than washed hands, dirty hands…

more
Ready, Set, Grow!!!! Wendy Semski

Great photos! One thing I want to bring up is that "person" is a potential source of variation in your experiment, and with each of you having your own petri dish, your treatments are really a combination of "handling method"…

more

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NSF_Logo.jpg This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant #2010556 and #1502892. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

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