Profile

• Time Zone

  Eastern

  
  
• Organization

  Harvard University

  
  
• Role

  Scientist Mentor: I will mentor teams of students online

  
  
• Research Interests (300 words)

  I study the relationship between plants and people and how that relationship has changed throughout history. using a combination of historical, field, lab, and museum research.

  
  
• 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 Scarlet Oak! It is a large tree that grows in the Eastern United States and has beautiful, glossy green leaves that turn bright red in the fall.

  
  
• Profile Question 2

  What lessons have you learned in your career about how science works?

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

  Science is all about asking questions! No matter where you are (from forests to the middle of a city), there is always a story behind how and why plants grow in different areas. Even if you can't come up with all of the answers, start thinking about what might be going on and ask questions about what you are seeing.

  
  
• Profile Question 3

  What is best about being a scientist?

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

  My favorite part about being a scientist is being able to ask a question and take the time to figure out an answer, whether it is just reading about a subject or making new discoveries myself.

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

  (not set)

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

  1

  
  

Recent Posts

mhsyuhaseposfall2023 project 5 Ryan James Schmidt Nov 20, 2023

Hi Lilibeth and Jose!

 

I am so happy to hear that your experiment was a success and I am even happier to see your suggestions for what you would do next! As you have seen here, sometimes your hypotheses are supported by your data and…

more

Hi Lilibeth and Jose!

 

I am so happy to hear that your experiment was a success and I am even happier to see your suggestions for what you would do next! As you have seen here, sometimes your hypotheses are supported by your data and sometimes things surprise you (like the blue disks not floating!). It is often tempting to say that these surprises are really meaningful but we can't really know without replication so your suggestion of repeating the blue test is amazing (and what I would do here too)!

I hope you enjoyed this project and that you will continue to explore plants both in and out of school!

 

Best and stay well!
Ryan

 

 

mhsyuhaseposfall2023 project 5 Ryan James Schmidt Nov 3, 2023

Hi Lilibeth, great question! Let's try to take a step back and pull this question apart a little bit. 

I think you have probably talked about this in class, but when we think about what is going on inside the plant during…

more

Hi Lilibeth, great question! Let's try to take a step back and pull this question apart a little bit. 

I think you have probably talked about this in class, but when we think about what is going on inside the plant during photosynthesis, one of the first things we should be thinking about is chlorophyll. Chlorophyll is a pigment that absorbs/captures light energy that can later be fixed into sugars during photosynthesis.

Although chlorophyll can capture some colors of light, it also reflects other, specifically green light. This green light is what gets reflected back to our eyes so we see these plants as green! 

Take a look at the chart in the link below (don't worry about the text on the website) and just look at the sections under the chlorophyll line. The colors underneath each of these curves represent the colors that the pigments can absorb. Since plants capture light energy for photosynthesis from the colors of light that they absorb (the y-axis), which colors of light do you think are the best for photosynthesis with chlorophyll? What about the worst colors? 

 

https://socratic.org/questions/how-does-the-visible-light-spectrum-relate-to-photosynthesis

 

I hope this helps, please let me know if there is anything I can clarify for this!

 

Ryan

mhsyuhaseposfall2023 project 5 Ryan James Schmidt Oct 31, 2023

Hola Jose, mucho gusto! Me alegra que estés pensando en cόmo los colores de la luz affectan fotosίntesis. Estoy emocionado a trabajar contigo en las proximas semanas!