Manual Labor Yay!! :D

It's late September; so it was imperative that I start gathering my duckweed before the weather becomes too cold and my precious would-be samples all form turions and sink to the bottom of the pond! So this weekend, I took a trip to my local canal, where duckweed blooms can be spotted annually, carrying in hand 3 jars, and one giant plastic Costco Fancy Almonds container (washed and rinsed thoroughly, of course.) I retrieved my samples from 3 different locations:

Fig. 1: A nice shaded spot; but good thing I wore boots here!

Fig. 2: An open but hard-to-reach spot; nearly dropped my container!

Fig. 3: Easiest place to collect duckweed

...Now I just have to figure out a way to transport my samples to school, and get them growing!

Why Duckweed is Awesome!

Here are 10 reasons why duckweed is AWESOME:

1. It is the world's smallest flowering plant.
2. It can accumulate biomass more rapidly than corn (that means more starch per acre!).
3. It is a bioremediator, meaning that it can remove pollutants from water like nitrogen, calcium, iron, and phosphorus.
4. It can be used for wastewater treatment.
5. It won't compete with land crops for space.
6. It is relatively easy to grow.
7. It is found all over the world.
8. It can reproduce sexually and asexually.
9. It has a growth doubling time of 2-7 days.
10. It can be used as low-cost feedstock for agricultural farming.

Sources: 

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/04/doubleduckweed/

http://www.mobot.org/jwcross/duckweed/duckweed.htm

http://www.isaaa.org/kc/cropbiotechupdate/article/default.asp?ID=4250

www.mdpi.com/journal/energies; article, Improving Production of Bioethanol from Duckweed (Landoltia punctata) by Pectinase Treatment

Twin Tasks to Tango With

After a couple of weeks of research, two objectives congealed right off the bat (well, three, but two immediate ones):

1. I would have to find a way to reliably grow the duckweed... to last throughout the winter.
2. I would have to assay the duckweed populations for d-glucose levels in order to determine which populations to cultivate.
3. Then there was physically inducing sexual reproduction in the plants.

Both John Cross's website, The Charms of Duckweed (http://www.mobot.org/jwcross/duckweed/growing-duckweed.htm) as well as Rutgers Duckweed Stock Cooperative's FAQ page have been incredibly helpful in addressing the first issue - I ended up ordering  Sigma Aldrich's SCHENK AND HILDEBRANDT BASAL SALT mixture (S6765) which could be reconstituted to make 10L of growth media. 

Number 2 posed a bit more of a challenge. I needed a legitimate starch assay kit - a simple Benedict's test would not be enough, because in order to determine percent starch in each sample, I would need something a bit more quantitative. The best deal I could find in the United States was Sigma Aldrich's Starch Assay Kit (STA20), which cost $129.50 per kit!

Luckily, my high school's Science Department Supervisor, Mrs. McLelland-Crawley, was there to the rescue!!! 

She helped me big time; she applied for a grant and I wound up receiving an amount that would cover the cost of two of these kits! It was amazing. Now, I can finally order the necessary materials, and get started! 

First Steps

When I was talking with my guidance counselor, Mrs. Fregosi (who is fabulous!), back in the Spring of 2013 to discuss my senior year schedule, I knew I wanted to spend my culminating year of high school pursuing an original inquiry; I was not new to scientific research. Since I was a freshman, I've participated in my school's chapter of Rutgers' University's Waksman Student Scholars Program, where, in analyzing the genome of duckweed, I first learned of its enticing potential; and in the summer of my junior year, I worked in a Team Project at New Jersey's Governor's School of the Sciences, using the facilities of Drew University to study the behavior of oculomotor behavior during reading. Both experiences have been thrilling and made me realize just how much I enjoy doing lab work. And, it is my firm, personal belief that doing hands-on research projects - going out there, in the undiluted spirit of scientific questioning - make for the best learning experiences; experiences, that tests or lectures wholly  cannot offer.

So, in order to do my much sought-after Independent Study course, I had to first meet with Dr. B to hash out the general backbone of the course, and then I submitted my proposal to my principal, Mr. Lepold. Needless to say, happily, it was approved; and then I got started on my preliminary research: browsing through scientific journals, looking at published academic papers on this subject, to see what other scientists were doing and in turn, get a better grasp of background concepts, what my project would entail, and what I could expect to encounter.

This meant lots of trips to the library - but I stumbled across cool research endeavors being carried out in the rest of the world. For example researchers at Arkansas State University (Ge, Zhang, et. al.) grew duckweed in agricultural wastewater and manipulated growth conditions through nutrient starvation and cultivation in the dark with the addition of glucose. And, halfway across the world, researchers Chen, Jin, et. al. increased glucose yield of their L. punctata samples through treatment with pectinase.

My approach is slightly different - I will be employing the concepts behind evolution I learned two years ago in AP Bio in my artificial selection of duckweed.

We'll see where that takes me this year! 

Hello! Welcome to my Research Project!

Hi there! My name is Celena Chen and I am a High School South senior who is currently doing a Research in the Sciences Independent Study this year on duckweed (aka Lemnaceae). 
Everyone knows that environmental sustainability and renewable sources of energy are major concerns that face our current and future generations. We need new, reliable sources of fuel, fast, to power our cities, populations, world; but at the same time, it is imperative that we look to minimize our ecological footprints by looking to environmentally-friendly sources of fuel.
This is where duckweed come in. Duckweed have gained recent headway for their potential as viable biofuel sources. They have two remarkable characteristics  that lend them well to being used as such: their rapid growth rate, and ability to accumulate high densities of starch (Xu, Zhao, Stomp, et. al., Biofuels Future Science Group Review, 2012) .What I am interested in is its latter quality. For my project, I am working with my mentor, AP Biology instructor Dr. Meenakshi Bhattacharya, who was also my Honors Bio teacher, in attempting to artificially select duckweed for higher starch content, as elevated D-glucose levels is a viable trait for large-scale production of ethanol. My hope is that the research I do this year at my high school will be relevant to the ongoing global hunt for better, smarter biofuels.