February and March 2018

February and March 2018

NJ FFA gives students an opportunity to learn career skills and leadership. NJ FFA organizes an event to coincide with National FFA Week each year.  This event is called Advocacy and Legislative Leadership Day.  Students walked through a job and college fair while grabbing breakfast snack and coffee, they then listened to a panel of agriculture industry experts explaining the breadth, far reaching tentacles, and technology immersion, they participated in two leadership breakout sessions, and finally several student attendees volunteered to speak in front of all attendees and report on their group's learning activities. Our FFA Vice President Abby Podejko shared her story with the crowd.

A Certified Veterinary Technician from Zoetis visited our program on March 6th. She provided lessons in dog (canine) history and taxonomy, parasitology, and how to perform parasite identification of animal fecal material.  She brought enthusiasm and delivered the lessons in an entertaining way.  Thank you so much Mrs. Abel!

Clean up crew, 5 students spent an hour cleaning up garbage from SCVTHS grounds. It sleeted on us for about half the time, and it was cold.  But it was good for building character. We gathered three large bags and one old spare car wheel. It was about 50 lbs of garbage collected.

Bacterial ID 

A student has been working on learning sterile technique for establishing and maintaining cultures. She has also taught peers how to perform sterile culture. She is now working on working on a science fair project to categorize bacterial cultures using a staining procedure. Here she is flaming a microscope slide to prior to applying the stain. She hopes to enter her work in the NJ State FFA Agriscience Fair competition. 

Oil Eating Microbes

Oil eating microbes are bacteria which digest and breakdown oils to become less harmful substances such as methane gas. Oils are released naturally from various sources and these oil eating microbes recycle oil.  Oils are also sometimes released from human activity and a variety of methods are used to control the oil from doing damage to wildlife, microbes, and their environment as well. Oil eating microbes can also be commercially engineered and produced to combat accidental oil spills. Two seniors are working to answer a question of when naturally occurring oil eating microbes can catch the population of commercially produced oil eating microbes. These students have completed their first trial and will complete a second trial after spring break. They are working with a mathematics professor from William Paterson University to analyze their data. They will communicate their findings in a research paper, a poster, and share their new knowledge with stakeholders.