Profile

• Time Zone

  Eastern

  
  
• Organization

  Old Dominion University

  
  
• Role

  Scientist Mentor: I will mentor teams of students online

  
  
• Research Interests (300 words)

  I am interested in studying plants in urban areas and trying to determine what we can do to best support the butterflies, bees, and other organisms that pollinate flowers. More specifically, I am interested in the plants that are used by monarch butterflies, milkweeds, and I will be taking a survey to see what areas milkweed is planted in and to make some predictions about where we could plant more.

  
  
• Profile Question 1

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

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

  For most of my experience in school when I was growing up, math was my favorite subject. I loved the challenge of being able to do the work and get a right answer. However, when I was a sophomore in high school, I took my first true Biology class, and I fell in love. Chemistry was okay, and Physics was not my favorite.

  
  
• Profile Question 2

  What is the coolest thing you have discovered or learned about plants?

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

  Plants behave in unexpectedly bizarre ways. One thing that is simple about studying plants is that they don't move around like animals do, making them easy to control and design experiments with. However, unlike humans and other animals that have two sets of chromosomes always and always have the same number of chromosomes (with some exceptions), plants can actually produce offspring that have twice as many chromosomes as their parents. They can also produce hybrids with other species more readily, which is also really neat!

  
  
• Profile Question 3

  Do you have advice for students about preparing for a science career?

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

  As someone who has spent some years next to science, but not really in science (I was a science teacher), my best advice is to be okay with whatever experiences come your way. Sometimes it will be success, and other times it will be failure. Your job is to learn from your experiences and put one foot in front of the other. This is advice that could be taken anywhere, and there is such a wide range of science careers, but if you do these things, you are living the scientific process. You are collecting data and you are solving problems, which are skills that can be used in any scientific field. If you are interested in developing skill sets, I would highly recommend learning some computer programming. It is a skill that is in demand in so many areas, even in plant science. Aside from that, talk to people in the field you are interested in to see if it is something that is a good fit for you. People love to talk about their work!

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

  2

  
  

Recent Posts

Brilliant Bonsai 2.0 Meghan Britton Mar 13 at 10:19am

Hi Team!

I love all the pictures from the last time you saw your plants. I like how you are using the meter to determine when they need water. Are you planning on updating your data table and journal today? I would love to see some measurements…

more

Hi Team!

I love all the pictures from the last time you saw your plants. I like how you are using the meter to determine when they need water. Are you planning on updating your data table and journal today? I would love to see some measurements to go with those pictures. Clearly your plants have grown a lot! Don't be afraid to include some of the information that you've shared here in your actual journal. Can't wait to see your results!

Brilliant Bonsai 2.0 Meghan Britton Mar 11 at 05:28pm

Hi Team! I've introduced myself before, but I am the liaison for this group, and I work with your teacher and all the mentors of all of her teams. It looks like you have gotten off to a great start! I just thought I'd check in with you all…

more

Hi Team! I've introduced myself before, but I am the liaison for this group, and I work with your teacher and all the mentors of all of her teams. It looks like you have gotten off to a great start! I just thought I'd check in with you all and help to guide your project along. I have a couple of questions about your data table and some of the observations you've made so far.

1. Are you planning on taking the average across your three plants receiving each treatment? If so, you might want to add a column for that on your data table.

2. You said that you have some mold growing in one of your pots. Do you think that this has something to do with the fact that it is receiving more Vitamin D than the others, or is there something else going on?

3. When you say that you are using a meter to measure the water content and pH of the soil, is that part of your data collection, or is that to make sure that the water content and pH stay within a certain range during your experiment?

Great work so far! I can't wait to see what happens with the rest of your experiment!

Luxurious Lilies Meghan Britton Feb 19 at 03:18pm

Hi Tim! I removed all the extra posts, so Ms Glevanik should have no trouble figuring out where to respond. Keep up the good work!