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!