This year's topic in the Sisterhood of Science is "water resources". Today we learned how water flows in relation to terrain. Here Darian, Paige, and Alissa create a surface for flooding. I'm looking forward to next month's activities because we're getting into topographic maps....Mmmmm. Also, stay tuned for another S.O.S field trip at the end of February. Details to come.
In class we're learning about Kingdom Protista. Here is a great website that a teacher in Indiana put together on the topic.
Today we went through 24 stations addressing topics since the beginning of the year. Here, Miranda looks through a scope to review for tomorrow's mid-term exam.
In other news, the trout seem to still be doing OK. We have roughly 60-70 of them still alive and they are eagerly awaiting their spring release date.
Overnight we grew bacteria samples from around the room on nutrient agar plates. Samples ranged from inside the sink to door handles to classroom pets. One group first period sampled a toilet in the bathroom. Their plate didn't grow anything, proving that the bathroom does indeed get cleaned thoroughly.
Here is a sample that came from one of my sinks. I guess I'd better clean them.
Here is a bacterial plate my neighbor gave me from Cornell. He studies bacterial reproduction in a lab. This is Streptomyces spp, which give soil that unique smell. Some in this genus are also used to make antibiotics to cure some of our diseases.
Tomorrow's lab should be fun as we run some bacterial experiments. This is the nutrient agar being heated (and sterilized) before use. It is then poured into the petri dishes.
A really cool contest arrived in front of me today and I'm encouraging everyone to enter it. It's called the America's Greenest School contest. All they want is a 500 word essay about why you think Groton is the "greenest" school in the country. The winning district wins a hybrid school bus (worth $200,000) and the student wins $3000 and possibly a $5000 scholarship. We have A LOT to write about. We have an awesome recycling program, the Rot-in-Groton compost program that saves over 300 lbs of waste a week, and a student veggie garden that provides food for the cafeteria. We just need some ambitious students to write about it. Please see me for more details and/or help with the essay.
