Blog 15: E. Coli Background Info

Background information about E. coli. Describe the basic biology of E. coli. Review some key information about this model organism. 

Escherichia Coli, or E. Coli are a bacteria that are found inside intestines of warm-blooded animals. The bacteria are rod shaped. Most E. Coli are completely harmless as well as essential. They help with digestion by releasing B and K vitamins through a process in which the E. Coli helps break down food into usable, digestible nutrients. A couple of bad strains of E. Coli is called O157:H7, E. Coli 0121 and E. Coli 0104:H21. These strains comes from the runoff of fecal matter of other animals. It can leak into water sources, which are then used to supplement animals, and vegetables. If we ingest the meat of such animals or vegetables then we can get E. Coli poisoning which includes symptoms of vomiting and abdominal cramps, and long term effects of kidney failure. E. Coli poisoning occurs when the E. Coli from another organism get into your stomach. A common E. Coli breakout that comes from factory farms is E. Coli from the intestines of cows. In many cases when young children or elderly adults are infected with E. Coli, the poisoning can eventually lead to death because their immune systems are not as strong as an average, healthy adult. 

Blog 14

Lessons Learned From My First Experiment

          What was the favorite part of your experiment?

My favorite part of the experiment was checking the plants everyday. It was fun to see the changes that they went through and how rapidly they grew. Everyday, the plants would look completely different because they grew so rapidly. 

           What did you find challenging?

The most challenging part of this experiment for me was keeping track of our data. It was hard to make sure that we measured each plant like the last. Another thing that was challenging in this experiment was just overall remembering everything that had to be done with the plants everyday because we always needed to water, measure, and take pictures of them.

          What could you have personally done to improve your work?

To improve my work, I personally could have paid better attention to making sure that everything was executed correctly. Since this was our first experiment in the class, and having no experience, it was difficult to make sure that everything was done correctly. For example, in many of our photo's of our experiment, we forgot to put in some sort of unit of measure like a penny or a ruler.

          Is there anything about your experience that I should be aware of?

Overall, I really enjoyed this experience. I have never designed my own science experiment and it was interesting to learn about the process of how one plans, and executes a full science experiment. 

Blog 11

What was your working hypothesis, and what was your prediction?

My groups working hypothesis was that the plants that we watered with light rain pressure would grow taller and faster than the plants that were being watered with heavy rain pressure. Our prediction was that the plants that received heavy rain pressure would either not grow at all, or at least be much shorter than the plants watered with light rain pressure. As it came to turn out, the plants with the heavy rain pressure did grow quite tall, and grew flowers, but they were slightly more crushed down than the plants that were watered lightly. The plants that were watered with light rain pressure grew very slightly taller than the plants that were watered with heavy rain pressure, and their height varied more than the others. 

Graph - Blog 10

Figure 1: This graph shows how rain pressure, either heavy or light, effects the growth in height of the fast plants. The data indicates that the plants that were watered through light water pressure grew taller (5cm), than plants that were watered with heavy rain (4cm). Because the results differ, there are two different groups,  

Experimental Hypothesis and Predictions

My group has hypothesized that the plant that is "rained" on at a slower rate will grow better because steady and gradual is a better condition than fast and abrupt. I, myself, am predicting that the plant that is "rained" on at a slower rate will grow faster than the other. In nature, a slower, plentiful rain always has a far better effect on plants, etc. whereas a sudden rain could lead to washing out plants and animals, causing danger in the ecosystem. I am a little worried that by doing such a sudden rainfall that some plants in that group may not grow, but I think that as long as my group is careful about how much water we add each day (150 mL per plant) that everything should go smoothly. I am not as worried about the condition of the plants that will be "rained" on lightly because the rain will not be so rough as to destroy them when they are just seedlings. I cannot wait to begin this experiment because I am anxious to find what is going to happen, and if my hypothesis in the first sentence is right.

What Will You Measure?

My group will be measuring the effect that a light rain versus a heavy rain has on a plant. Essentially to measure our plants progress, we will be looking at the height of the plants as well as the plants are growing. We will be looking at how fast the opposing plants will be growing, how big they grow, how healthy they look (full vs thin, etc.), etc. Regarding plant measurements, my group will be testing with a total of 12 pots. We are starting off with each pot having 3 seeds in it, so that there is a high chance that we will end up with 12 plants rather than anything lower.

Watering Schedule:

Everyday at 11:25:

Mon - Caroline

Tues - Shivani

Wed - Kennedy

Thurs - Sophie

Fri - Sophie

Sat - Shivani

Sun - Caroline

Experiment Accomplishments So Far

So far in my groups experiment on fast plants, we have gathered out materials and prepared the space for our experiment to take place. We found some buckets and poked holes of different sizes into two of them, then tested each to make sure that they would work. From one streamed a small rain which was very light, from another streamed a heavy rain. After that we found two ring-stands and attached the buckets to them so that we had our structure to water the plants with. Then we prepped the living spaces for the plants. We filled 12 small pots with dirt and put 6 in one box and the other 6 in another box. One box will be the group of plants that we water lightly whereas the other will be the group of plants that we water heavily. Our group still has to plant the fast plants and decide upon how much water we will pour on each plant. So far the experiment is going pretty smoothly though. Below are some pictures of our progress...

The set up so far; to the left is the watering structure.

The buckets of dirt

A watering structure up close

Fast Plants

Fast plants have a 28-40 day life cycle so they are easy to use for fast experiments in biology. Factors that regulate growth which include temperature, light, humidity, and nutrients in the soil. We intend to examine how the distribution of water, light or heavy rain, affects the growth of fast plants.

Scientific Method

So I did some research on the scientific method and this is what I came up with...
The scientific method is a way to ask and answer scientific questions by doing an experiment and making observations.

Step 1
Ask a question.

Step 2
Do background research.

Step 3
Construct a hypothesis.

Step 4
Test with an experiment.

Step 5
Analyze results.

Step 6
Draw conclusion.
If the hypothesis is true, report the results.
If the hypothesis is false or partially true, go back to step 3.

So, now we just have to discuss the DNA example as a group.

Adventures With Tobias

Observations Taken From the Location of the Biome:

-Surrounded by trees
-Dead leaves cover most of the ground
-Moss
-Not a lot of sunlight --> shady
-Soil with a lot of rocks
-Hard ground
-Pine tree nearby
-Dead trees in area

Everything Found In the Biome Bucket:

-1 Live Oak Leaf

-6 Twigs

-A Large Amount of Moss

-A Large Amount of Dirt

-1 Small woody plant

-2 Acorns

-Roots (Attached to Moss)

-6 Pine Needles

-1 Ant (His name is Tobias)

Overall, I would say that we were successful in finding a variety of different elements of nature, including one living organism. Below are some pictures of different things that were in our biome bucket, however there is not photo of Tobias because he was too small to photograph. 

Some of the Roots

Everything We Found

Live Plants 

(ignore the golden rod...we picked it up on the walk back.)

Abiotic Factors Experiment Idea

One abiotic factor that one could experiment with is temperature. To start off a small experiment that one could do with temperature, one could have two of the same kind of flowers that haven't completely matured yet. The first could be put into an isolated cool space and the second could be put into an isolated warm space. Each plant would have the same amount of light, water, and soil. The temperature would be the dependent variable. The goal would be to see the effect that the different temperatures had on the plants. Another abiotic factor that one could experiment with is light. Again, one could have two of the same kind of flowers that haven't fully matured yet. This time the dependent variable would be light, so the plants would be put into two spaces, each with the same temperature, soil, and amount of water, etc. The only difference would be that one space would have a lot of access to sunlight, and artificial lamps, whereas the second space would have no access to sunlight. The goal in this case would be to see the effect that different amounts of light have on the same plants. These are two simple experiment plans that test abiotic factors.

What I Learned On The Nature Walk

On the nature walk, our class visited a temperate, deciduous forest. We could tell that the ecosystem was deciduous because, since we are approaching autumn, we saw the leaves beginning to change color. This is a sign, during the fall season that the leaves are about to drop from the tress. The only exceptions in the forest were the conifer trees. One example of this is white pine, whose needles do not all drop depending on the season. We could also understand that the forest was temperate because when the temperature rises or drops, it is not extreme. The weather in this region of New York is very moderate. Some abiotic factors that my group noticed, which are important to the compositions and activity of the ecosystem was sunlight, precipitation, change in seasons, and elevation. Sunlight was particularly important because the growth in the lower level of the forest depends on how much sunlight is let through the trees above. In this particular forest that we visited, I noticed that there was not a lot of lower level growth because the taller trees were very close together. Over all, it was a very enjoyable, informative nature walk.