hvchsluccispring2020 project 2
- Project reviewer
Joined 18 Feb 2020
Project by group hvchsluccispring2020
Info
| Explore |
Work on this next! What do we know about plants from our experiences outside of school? What have we discovered in class and background research? What questions about plants interest us? |
|---|---|
| Research Question | What do we want to test or study? How did we come up with the question(s). How does the question fit what we know about the topic? |
| Predictions | What are the possible outcomes of our study given the variables we are working with? What is our explanation for why and how we think this will happen? |
| Experimental Design | What is our plan? Be sure to include enough detail that another group can replicate our experiment. What variables will we test? What variables will we measure and observe? What variables will we keep constant? How will we record our data? |
| Conclusion | What claim can we make from our experiment? What are possible explanations for our results? How do the data we collected and our reasoning with scientific ideas support our claim? What future experiments could be done to expand on the results of this experiment? |
| About this Project |
Though the Spring 2020 session was cut short for the Forest Rascals, this team had a strong beginning and I'm sure would've completed their project on the same note. They were highly motivated and interested by the C-Fern investigation theme. By brainstorming new experimental design options to... |
Updates
Farewell and Best Wishes!
As this research project is now in the final stages of wrapping-up, we wish to thank everyone who participated in this inquiry; the students, mentors, teachers and others behind the scenes. We appreciate all of your efforts and contributions to this online learning community.
Scientific exploration is a process of discovery that can be fun! There are many unanswered questions about plants just waiting for new scientists to consider, investigate, and share.
After the end of the session, we will be updating the platform and archiving groups and projects, after which time new updates/posts will not be able to be added to projects or groups. Please come back and visit the https://plantingscience.org/projects/browse”>PlantingScience Project Gallery anytime to view this project in the future. You can search the Gallery by keyword, team name, topic, or school name.
Good bye for now & warm regards,
The PlantingScience team
Hello team,
Thank you so much for continuing your PlantingScience work during the pandemic. You've all done some amazing work! We have made it to the final week of our session so it is time to start wrapping up your projects. Please share your final reports or conclusions with your mentor this week. They are excited to see how your experiments turned out! Don't forget to thank your mentors as well for their help!
Stay healthy and thank you again,
The PlantingScience Team
Hi team!
In order to maintain student privacy, please DO NOT post last names, links to Google or Sharepoint documents, or social media handles.
Mentor, please do not request access to the link to the Google presentation.
To make things easier for everyone, we will upload a PowerPoint file of this presentation in the "files" tab.
Thank you for your cooperation!
Final Project: link removed
Hi Vicky! We just finished our experiment with the normal, sweet red, and sweet white potatoes. After everything, we looked at slides of our potato slices. The normal potatoes were very rotten and we were able to observe the bacteria moving in the slides we made. However, there was virtually no rot in the red or white sweet potatoes. We are hypothesizing that the sugar content in the potatoes might explain this, but we aren't sure if this is valid, since the bacteria should have been able to feed on a higher sugar content. Let us know what you think about the results and why we didn't see much rot in the sweet potatoes.
Thanks!
Hi Catherine! That’s a fantastic update and I’m so happy you got to observe the results of your potato infection so well! It sounds like the team has made some interesting conclusions and I really like your interpretation of what you saw. I think this definitely sets you up for future investigations that could help you sort out the root cause. From what I can tell, Erwinia is infectious to all the potatoes you tested however the specific strain you used may have a preference (who knows!). It also could be that the potatoes you had, which come with their own bacterial communities may have had been able to resist if your inoculated bacteria couldn’t quite overgrow the other bacteria and take over. It looks like there is still a lot of work going on that looks at the diseases associated with Erwinia and potato varieties so definitely stay tuned (https://www.agric.wa.gov.au/potatoes/soft-rot-diseases-potatoes, https://www.aphis.usda.gov/aphis/ourfocus/planthealth/plant-pest-and-disease-programs/pests-and-diseases/nematode/potato/ct_dickeya, note: it looks like it has a new name now)! The team did amazing work and it’s always a good sign when you’re left with lots of questions. Congratulations and I wish you and the whole team the best in your last semester!
Take care,
Vicky
Hi Vicky! We are working on our independent experminent now and it’s Day Five after the inital innoculation. We've seen significant rot in the normal potato, however the orange sweet potatoes and white sweet potatoes both seem to have little to no rot. We will take final oberservations on Thursday. Thank you so much for your feedback.
That’s fantastic team! I can’t wait to hear how it goes. It will be fun thinking through your results together. Maybe there is something about the bacterial strain you are using that is specific to certain potatoes or maybe it’s the potatoes themselves that can resist infection somehow. Either way, I’m sure it’ll be an interesting topic to research! All the best!
Hi Vicky, we are still brainstorming what our own question will be. For now, we are infecting 3 potatoes with Erwinia bacteria by poking them in 4 places each with a toothpick dipped in culture. We wrap the potatoes in most paper towels and keep them in Ziploc bags in our classroom at room temperature.
Today we saw some discoloration and soft areas! Our potatoes finally seem to be rotting, and we're very excited.
For our individual experiment, we are thinking about infecting white sweet potatoes and orange sweet potatoes to see how sugar content affects the rate of rotting. We will likely have a similar setup to the regular potatoes we are infecting now.
Hi Priya! Thank you very much for the excellent description of your methods. It's so cool to hear how your setup is going. And as for your observations? I've never congratulated someone on their rotting potatoes before but that is fantastic and very exciting news! I really like the thought process going into designing your questions and I think you will be able to find some good information on Erwinia to help you support your findings. I also think you might be able to find some good nutritional information on white vs. orange sweet potatoes for their sugar content so that is a really great idea. Many potatoes to pick from. Keep in mind as you design your experiment how many types of potato you will look at (i.e. 2 kinds), replicates you will do (i.e. tests on the same type of potato,, maybe 3 per type of potato?), what you might want to use as a 'control', and the type of results you would like to collect (i.e. visual observations of colour, shape, size, or maybe you want to do some measurements...like estimating what percentage of the potato is covered in infection, if the mass has changed, etc.). Sorry for throwing so much at you but these kinds of experiments are really cool to think through so I hope you have fun making some decisions with the team!
Take care,
Vicky
Hey Vicky, we did not see any changes after infecting the potatoes with a bacteria, there was no rot seen or softness, so we are slightly concerned about that. Is it unlikely that we would see no change after three days?
Hi Emmy! Sounds like a very interesting setup. And don't worry, most of the time when you do an experiment for the first time things are not going to go smoothly and end up as you expect. I guess I have a few questions first so maybe I can understand the experiment a bit better. What questions will you be testing? Can you describe your experimental setup a bit more (where the potatoes are kept, what type of bacteria you are using, the conditions that the potatoes are kept in, etc.)? That might help me picture it better. I would say 3 days is still pretty early so don't worry! I'm sure something funky will happen with the potatoes soon.
Keep up the great work team!
Vicky
Hi Vicky! Thank you so much for mentoring us! I'm looking forward to the next few weeks!
Hi Vicky! I look forward to working with you
Hi Emmy and Priya! Nice to meet you. I'm Victory but most people call me Vicky. I study restoration, plants, soils, and how they all interact. Really happy to be working with you this semester!
Hello! I'm Priya. I am a senior planning to study neuroscience. Looking forward to working with you!
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