Agricultural CSI, Land judgers, Problem Solvers, and Safety Officers

Our Animal and Plant Biotechnology students have been learning how to write protocols in their lab notebooks.  The procedure they performed was harvesting DNA from kiwi fruit seen here on immediate right.  Next, as seen right below, they are preparing electrophoresis gels to practicing micopippetting and loading their harvested kiwi DNA.   

We are also preparing for our state CDE's  Shown here on the left it may appear that students are performing a line dance of sorts; but, they are determining land slope as one of the tasks to do for the land judging event.  Photographing this procedure was a challenge since once I tried taking the photo many of the arms students were using to estimate the elevation change went down: almost like ground hogs disappearing back in a hole once you get close!

In NJ state level Landjudging, if a four student team does well and has at least 60% proficiency they may be invited to participate in the national landjuding event.

Plant Science students have been learning leaf morphology and leaf functions this week.  Here on the right students pressed leaf pigments into filter paper and subjected the filter and pigment to alcohol to separate the pigments and make pigment inferences based on observations.

A two weeks ago we renovated our turfgrass plots.  I did a post a couple weeks ago showing and explaining what students were doing to help.  We have been irrigating three times a day for roughly 10 minutes to germinate the grasses.  We will be using this area to help prepare for the Turfgrass Management FFA competition where students could earn a scholarship to Rutgers Turfgrass bachelor degree program.  In 2011 and 2012, Frank Merrill placed 2nd and 1st earning scholarship money.  Students will also use this are to learn mowing practices.


Our Agricultural Research and Development students (fourth year students) are working on developing their year project problem statements.  They have narrowed their topic down to marine oil pollution.  Aspects they are learning to include in the problem statement are: 1) What is the problem, 2) When did the begin, 3) Who has the problem, 4) Where does the problem exist, 5) Is the problem prevalent.

Our FANR (Food, Agriculture, and Natural Resources) students have completed lessons on use and identifying lab equipment, location and use of safety equipment and materials, and making classroom laboratory safety rules today.  We used a lesson from two weeks ago, parliamentary procedures, to decide which rules to publish.  It was fun and exciting!