Beautiful poster, team FISH! I hope you're all very proud of this work. Great job and Happy Thanksgiving!

Susan (Dr. Bush)

Dr . Bush, I'm very upset that our experiment is coming to an end, first and foremost I would like to thank you for taking time out from work to help us and make our experiment be successful. You have helped us from the start not only did you help us by educating us about our plants but you also sent us  articles that would help us and you also responded very quickly which was very helpful! I'm sure our group (FISH) would've been totally misguided and upset when we came to see that our  Cotyledon variable was a bad decision. And without you we wouldn't have known what to do. Thank you so much for your help once again Dr.Bush! We'll make sure to upload a rough draft of our poster so that you can see our amazing work that you helped create! I hope you have happy holidays and an amazing rest of the year! 

Dr. Bush, as this project is comes to an end, I would like to thank you for helping us with our planting science experiment. In the times when we didn’t know what direction to go in, you were there to guide us. I am so grateful for all the information that you supplied, you made us think more in depth into the topic by telling us which questions to ask ourselves , like how you told us that the measurement of the plant color would be a great way to collect data on how the light has impacted the plants, which helped us so much into perfecting the experiment. You have encouraged us along the way which boosted our moral and motivating us to move forward. Again, thank you for all of the insight and providing us with your expertise within this field of science. Thank you for all of your work and for being such a great mentor through out this whole experiment. Happy Holidays :)

Dr. Bush, our project is coming to an end! :(( Before anything, I would like to thank you for welcoming me into this group after mine had fallen apart. The time that you had put in, to help us was just amazing and without it I know that we would be completely lost! From the beginning you help us by explaining more about our plants, sending over other articles that we had not yet seen or just stating what you had found. Making suggestions to our experimental design, that we ourselves had not thought of, helped us see things "outside the box". The communication that had in a large part had been me, on behalf of Team FISH, you had been very responsive and always responded within a 24 hour period, which in itself was very helpful!! Once again A BIG THANK YOU FOR ALL OF YOUR HARDWORK AND TIME PUT INTO THIS PROJECT!!! We will try to upload a rough draft of our poster, that will be presented on Tuesday. If we do not communicate again, have a happy holiday season with the upcoming holidays and a great 2018 year!

Dr. Bush, as this project comes to a close, I would like to thank you for taking time to help us with our experiment. Without you, we would have been lost! Thank you for suggesting the statistical data as well as explaining our actual mutants to us. You also suggested experimenting with the ziplock bags (even though that did not entirely work out) and I really appreciate that you were thinking of ways on how to make this project better! Whenever you asked us questions, it encouraged us to think deeper into the study and we have you to thank for that! This project went by incredibly fast; it seems as if we just started last week! I'm glad we got you as our scientist mentor and I hope that you enjoyed this experiment as much as we did :)

Nice updates to the conclusions, team. I like that you included your stats this time! 

If you were to add anything else, I would like to see you add WHY you found the results you did (with respect to white light, of course). Why is there a small p-value when considering the difference between Landsberg and phyA? Why were the phyB plants larger? Or less green? You've shared your statistics, but you can also interpret those stats - explain why. 

Really nice job!

Susan (Dr. Bush) 

Day 27 (11.14): We have been watering them and they are doing soooo well!!!!! 

Hi Team FISH, 

A shame that the far-red light plants died, but I really enjoyed your conclusions from the white light plants. And I think the idea of measuring leaf color is still the smartest :) 

Why do you think the phyB mutant plants grew the tallest? In your proposal, you said that phyB is involved in shade avoidance and is a mutation in a photoreceptor gene. Shade avoidance, as I think you know, is growing really tall to try to get out of the shade. You also told me that phyB is involved in de-etiolation, or when plants get enough light to turn green and grow normally. Does the phenotype of your mutant phyB plants make sense, given what phyB is normally doing? 

In your proposal, you mentioned plants growing "to their full potential." Do you think that the Landsberg plants or the phyB mutants grew best in the white light? Why? What does "best" even mean?? 

Thanks for sharing your conclusions! I'd love to hear about the stats if you do them. Great job!

Susan (Prof. Bush)

Good afternoon Dr. Bush!!

Day 22 (11.09): We had watered all the plants! We will do both anova and t tests!

-FISH

Hi FISH - 

I love what you did with your line graphs! That shows a really nice trend. Are these averages that are plotted? 

I think it's cool that you can see that phyB mutants are taller and less green throughout most of their development. Is that what you predicted? Why would the phyB mutants have less chlorophyll, do you suppose? 

Last question - are you planning to do any statistics on your data? It would be possible to do t-tests or anovas on each day's data to find out whether the phyB plants are different from Landsberg. 

Great work, team! I'll look forward to reading some more of your data analysis and conclusions!

Susan (Dr. Bush)

Good evening!!

Day 21 (11.08): We are no longer gathering data :(( but we are still trying to keep the plants alive, and all of them are still thriving!! What we were trying to let you know that we had finished our final data along with line and bar graphs!!

Thank you, 

FISH (Filip, Itzel, Safa, Heba)

Hi team,

Such excitement! Your plants are looking incredibly different at this point, aren't they! 

I think it's interesting that the phyB mutants are so tall, but you think they have fewer leaves, huh? It makes sense to me that if they only have so much energy, they have to choose: do we make stems or leaves? Seems like phyB chose stems, and phyA chose leaves. 

Now about your mutations: phyA-201 is a SNP mutation that causes a change from a glutamine to a STOP codon - likely a C->T change. If there's an early stop codon (it truncates about 200 amino acids early), then the phyA protein won't be able to completely do its job correctly (or at all). The phyA protein is a total of 1122 amino acids, and the mutation is at amino acid 980. 

The phyB-5 mutant is also a SNP mutation of G->A that changes a tryptophan amino acid (TGG) to a STOP codon (TAG or TGA). This mutation occurs at amino acid 522, out of 1172 amino acids. 

I got this information off the arabidopsis.org website: 

https://www.arabidopsis.org/servlets/TairObject?id=115308&type=polyallele and

https://www.arabidopsis.org/servlets/TairObject?id=115300&type=polyallele

Hope this helps, guys. Let me know how your data analysis and conclusions are going! I'm happy to give you some input :) 

Keep up the good work, 

Susan (Dr. Bush)

Happy Monday!!

How was the extra hour of sleep?

Day 17 (11.04): Mrs. Beardsley watered all the plants before we had come in, found a new independent variable (flowers), far red in white lights for about five minutes (assuming they are dead anyway) but anyway added 400 mL of water.

Day 19 (11.06): Photographed all plants, white had all data recorded, along averages which had been added for all the other days that are found in the most recent data charts, there will be no more data taken until the end of the project but they still will be watered!

Hello there!

Dr. Bush, we were wondering if you know the exact characteristics of our mutants, phyA-201 and phyB-5. We have tried looking everywhere for it but cannot find it. We know predicted results as well as the fact that they are photoreceptor genes. However, we do not know what the mutants lack/ have different than the wild type photoreceptor gene.

We were wondering if you could help us on this issue.

Thank you!

Happy Friday Eve!!

Day 16 (11.02): Today we had not done much, the thermometers were token out and the temperature in white light was 29.5 C and in far red it had been 27.5 C ( we thought it would be the other way around) and the far red we’re exposed to 25 minutes of white light.

PS: The question you had asked will be answered by one of the girls either later tonight or tomorrow! :))

Hey team, 

You have been crazy busy gathering data! Do you have any conclusions to draw from what you're seeing in the different light treatments? How is far-red light influencing the plants? I think I see genotypic differences in length/height - do you concur? 

Once you've identified some trends, do they support your hypothesis? Why or why not? I'll be excited to hear what you think is going on - how is light signaling influencing plant growth in these seedlings?? 

Good luck, 

Susan (Prof. Bush)

Happy November!!

Day 15 (11.01): Far red had been watered with 1350 mL of water and then additionally with 250 mL to have over the course of the rest of the day and night, the container with Phy B-5 white had been watered with 400 mL, the container with the Landsberg and Phy A-201 had been watered with 800 mL of water, the far red had experienced a drought :(( and the plants seemed to go down, therefore there is no data for that in day 15, the water had been low for the ones in white light, there had been thermometers placed for the time of 24 hours because we want to see if the lights have different temperature and how that might affect evaporation levels!

Happy Halloween!!

Day 14 (10.31): Phy B-5 white growth and color data was taken, Phy A-201 & Landsberg color was only taken, no far red light data was taken.

Good evening!!

Day 13(10.30): Far red had been relocated to a new more stable box, the top covers of the containers had been token off, all data was photographed, far red exposed to a minute of white light, and the Phy B-5 (white) there had been much visual growth from its last time its data was token (Day 11).

Happy Sunday!!

Day 9(10.26): Photographed all data, Far red was watered with about 1350 mL of water and about 200 mL was later poured out, all the bags had been gotten rid from the experiment (data wise) and far red had been exposed to about four of white light.

Day 11(10.28): Photographed data, measured all 72 plants along with the color charts, all white light plants been watered with 500 mL of water, prepared new box for the ones in far red light, far red had been exposed to about 30 minutes of white light! 

PS: The charts in Day 11, each have their height written in centimeters and the numbers to their right are the number that comes from the color chart that had been uploaded a few days ago! :)

We plan on analyzing the data by putting them into graphs or tables.

Hey team, 

In Connecticut we're having beautiful fall colors - I hope you're enjoying fall at GEHS!

How to get rid of the plants in the ziploc bags - a good question. Since they are carrying mutations, you're not really allowed to compost them (certainly not in a city compost or anything like that). If you have a little plot of dirt, even something outside your classroom window, I would suggest tossing the dirt and plants out there!

If you want to save the dirt, it becomes a little more challenging. You might want to open the bags with a scissors so you can expose the top of the soil and the seedlings. Then maybe using a fork, rake the seedlings out of the soil. You won't save all the dirt this way, but you will be able to save most of it, AND you'll be able to remove most of the seedlings this way. Toss the seedlings in the garbage, and next year's students can re-use the soil! 

I'm still waiting to hear more about how you'll analyze your amazing amounts of data! Good luck!

Susan (Dr. Bush)

Day 7(10.24): The only data that had been token was photo, no written data, red had been exposed to white light for about two minutes, the Phy B-5 lid had been a little open, no more than 24 hours but I don't know why it had been open, the lights had gone out for about ten seconds. 

PS: We would like to ask you on your thoughts on getting rid of the plants of in the ziplog bags, for both the white and red lights.

Happy Monday! I hope you enjoyed your weekend!

Day 4 (10.21): All trays had been watered (eyeballed amount) for only the ones in the containers and not the ones in the ziplogs, the bags had been covered, lot of growth over the 24 hour period, far red had been exposed to white lights for five minute, there had been growth in the white light ziplogs, the data for both white and red had been filled out. 

Day 6 (10.23): There had been data token for those in white light in the containers, no other data was token :(, as seen in previous pictures some of them have a tooth pick white its name; this had lead to having some fungus ("white fuzz") to start forming around it in the Lansbergs white (pod numbers 8-12) and Lansbergs red (6-12), the ziplogs in red had been exposed to about fifteen seconds of white light and the container ones had been exposed between five to ten minutes, for phy-A (pod numbers 5-8) had been really dry (why, we don't know?) so we poured some water on top to give it some moisture, we also have a data chart of how green the hypocotyls and leaves are (a chart will be found in the Data Photos 6). 

PS: We had reorganized the files and Data Photos are only for Day 2, and for the rest of days they will be under their given name. We had also made an electronic data spreadsheet that we will probably share weekly (unless you would like to see it more often). Also, if there is something that you think we are missing or don't know what we did exactly please let us know!

Hi scientists, 

This is the way all projects go - something always happens to mix things up. I'm glad you figured out the light was off (and turned it on again!). 

Your data sheets are really nice - you've definitely seen growth (by eye and by numbers), so that's exciting! How are you planning to analyze all this data you're collecting? 

Keep up the good work, 

Susan (Dr. Bush)

Day 3(10.20): There had been an error because two of the four far red light sources had been off from what we are guessing is between 7 hours and 40 minutes and 23 hours and 10 minutes, assuming it is the 23 hour one, :(, there had been little growth for the seeds that had been placed in the Ziplogs, the red light plants had been exposed to about white light (from the classroom lights) for about seven minutes, we had filled out data for both sets of data for both the ones placed in red and white lights. The data charts are rough sketches so they are not the best but they will be better organized! Have a great weekend! PS: We are expecting to have day 4 data but not day 5!

Very nice, Plant Scientists! 

It seems like you are keeping a pretty complex experiment under control here. I'm impressed! 

Are you seeing germination in both the white light and far-red light? I think those light conditions can affect a seed's willingness to germinate. 

Thanks for sharing the pictures of your set-up! Keep up the good work - I'll be excited to hear more about what you're seeing happen with the plants. Good luck!

Susan

Day 2 (10.19): The plants that had been put in white light had been watered again today (10.19) but drained right away because they were still had enough water, there was no water given to those that are placed in far red light, the ones that had been placed in the bags had then be open (for all six of them), there had been signs of germination and cotyledons, the ones in far red light had seen about two minutes of white light, the plants that are in white lights have vents on top and they had been opened so there is more air coming in.

We had planted all of our plants!!

Day 1 (10.18):  All seeds had been planted, they had been placed either white light or far red light, last watered on Monday (10.16), there had been some planted in quart sized plastic bags, also placed in either white or far red light, (the brown paper towels are triple layered and water, today (10.18), the “sunrise”for both will be 5 in the morning, central time, and “sunset” at 9 in the night, central time.

Hey Safa, Heba, Itzal, and Filip!

Hope you guys have had a nice break (we had one at school this week as well) and that your state testing wasn't TOO hard :) 

I'd love to hear how planting goes and what's up with you and your experiments. 

Susan

Hi Filip and the rest of the team! 

Very interested to read your experimental design - it sounds like a very informative experiment. I like that you're using a control genotype (Landsberg erecta) and that you're growing multiple seeds per treatment. 

My only suggestion would be that, growing the seedlings on soil could make it challenging to measure the hypocotyls! You could do a similar experiment by "planting" the seedlings on a damp paper towel inside a ziptop bag - this means the seedlings will be a little easier to manipulate at the end of the week. 

If you're already growing the plants on soil, though, no worries - I'm sure you'll be able to get some interesting results. Good luck! 

Susan (Dr. Bush)

Hello, Susan. My name is Filip, I am a sophomore and thank you for welcoming me into this group!

Hi Susan- FYI-We've had Filip added to this team because of some rearrangement needs on our end.  Karen

As you can see in our proposal, we decided to use only mutants phyB-5 and phyA-201. We will be comparing this with our wild type seed. Moreover, we chose to experiment only with white and far-red light (not red light as previously stated).

Hi team, 

I've heard you're reading and learning a ton right now. Let me know if you have questions or clarifications - I'm happy to help. 

A senior undergrad student working in lab with me is doing some reading and learning from papers this week too - she'll be summarizing her findings for some other professors and students. What you're doing is exactly what scientists at all levels do to start a new project! 

Good luck, 

Prof. Bush (Susan)

Terrific! 

It sounds like you're going to study light that gives the plant clues about how much to grow. Red light is often a signal that says, no need to grow taller. Far red light often signals, grow more! Get closer to the sun!

Knowing that, how would you expect a control plant (no mutations) to grow in red light vs far red light? Do you expect your phyA and phyB mutants to grow differently from the wildtype? 

Good luck team! Let me know if you have questions, 

Susan

Hello!

For our experiment, we plan to use white, red, and far-red light.

We know that the mutated phytochrome genes will dictate how long the hypocotyls will be and how expanded the cotyledons will be.

Hi again AP team, 

My name is Susan and I'll be your scientist mentor. I study how plants respond to stress in their lives - like weird colors of light! I also study how roots grow in soils that have extra things like metals or salts or not enough water. Plants can have a pretty stressful life bc unlike animals they can't walk away and find a new habitat - but different types of genes can help the plant deal with these stressors. My study plant is tomato and I also use Arabidopsis - I think this is what you're using, too. 

When I'm not teaching or researching, I like shoe shopping and also baking cookies. I'd love to hear more about your interests, your classes, your questions about college, anything! 

Happy October, 

Susan

Hi Safa, Heba, and Itzel, 

Hooray, I love photoreceptor mutants! Elizabeth's question is really important: what types of light will you use for your treatments?

Do you have a hypothesis about what will change when you grow the seedlings in different light colors? Will you use a non-mutant (also called a "wild type") seedling to compare to? 

I look forward to hearing more about the experiments you're doing! Let me know if you have questions that I can help answer, or ideas that you'd like to know more about. 

Susan (Dr. Bush)

Hello Safa, Itzel and Heba! Nice to meet you! Light response sounds like a very cool way to evaulate your mutants. What else do you know about how the hypocotyl and cotyledons of mutant plants are affected? What types of light will you use for your treatments and why?

We are experimenting with mutants phyB-5, phyA-201, and a combination of phyB-5 and phyA-201. We know this affects the hypocotyl and the cotyledons of the mutated plants. We plan to put the plants in different types of light to see their reactions. The photoreceptor proteins in our mutated plants are damaged.

Hi my name is Safa. I am 16 years old and I am taking AP Seminar this year and so far I am loving it! 

Hi my name is Safa. I am 16 years old and I am taking AP Seminar this year and so far I am loving it!