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.  

Serious Science

Serious Science

Animal & Plant Biotech

The Biotech Students began an animal science unit this week.  In the picture to the left and below, students are performing an Enzyme Linked Immunosorbant Assay (ELISA) to detect presence of disease.  The cells in the microwell strip which tuned blue indicate the presence of the "disease".  

Research & Development

The Research and Development students are running a pilot study to trial the ability to quantify microbes.  These students are working to answer a question with Oil Eating Microbes (OEM's) on controlling oil spills in water. One of the ways we hope to measure the OEM's preference to variable conditions is to count the number of OEM colonies growing on a media plate.  Pictured below, students are testing a serial dilution procedure so the we can count the OEM colonies and estimate the preference.                                                          

Plant Science

Plant Science students are working through a unit where they learn about environmental conditions that support plant growth: water, nutrients, temperature, and light.  In the photo to the right, students are gathering data from an experiment on how light impacts plant growth or phototropism.

Investigations, Communication, and Open House

Investigations, Communication, and Open House

Open House

Both morning and afternoon students have been busy transplanting roughly 350 lettuce plants in preparation for Open House.  Once the lettuce is ready for harvest, we will cut it and share with Culinary Arts here at SCVTHS. A good rule that the Culinary Arts Instructor shared with us is that each one gallon sized zip top bag contains enough lettuce for ten small salads.  We will record how much lettuce we harvest and share and hope to meet, or go beyond, prior years in harvesting.  

Investigations - FANR, Plant Science, Research & Development

Intro to Food, Agriculture, and Natural Resources students performed an investigation to determine how wind impacts plant cell hydration and the plant's ability to maintain upright structure.  Students set up the experiment on a Friday, collected plant height data (measured height with a ruler) for the first 20 minutes, and then one last collection 72 hours later.  Students then wrote a lab report and used the lab report info to produce what we call a mini-poster.  The Mini-poster is a tool I am using to get students familiar with the process of presenting and communicating their findings with others. I hope to have all student posters displayed for Open House.  

Plant Science students recently performed an experiment to test impacts environment has on a plants use of water to maintain itself.  They used a more powerful tool to measure the water use: a gas pressure sensor.  When water exits the leaf, it creates a vacuum pressure which students could measure with this sensor and data was recorded on a data logging device.  After the experiment was complete, students used the data logger to process the data (math operation) and determine an equation for a linear regression and line slope.  The line slope value was then used to compare the rate of water loss with a control.

Communication

In the photo below, a student is creating a mini-poster using info created in the lab report.

Animal & Plant Biotech

Animal and Plant Biotech students are currently learning the processes for introducing novel DNA into a plant using genetic transformation.  One the of the processes they are also working on sterile plant tissue culture.  In the photo below students have cultured a fern.  Biotech students are establishing sterile carrot cultures in class this week.  The hope will be for students to turn a small carrot piece into a whole plant again. 

Agriculture Research and Development

Students in the R&D class have chosen to explore methods of controlling oil spills in water using microbes to clean the water by converting the oil to less harmful hydrocarbons, such as methane.  In the photo below, a student in is preparing to culture the oil eating microbes.  After culturing students will then count the number of microbe colonies and determine which condition the microbes thrive and reproduce in.  This is a pilot study that they will use to amplify the experiment.

The Micro World

The Micro World

FANR

Our Year One, Intro to Food, Agriculture, and Natural Resources (FANR) students learned proper wet mount slide creation procedures and microscope operation.  Materials they used were thread and onion skin.  Their goal was to illustrate and identify an onion cell nucleus.  In the photo to the lower right, I was able to snap a photo of one student slide pointing at a nucleus.

In another activity, FANR student learned how to extract DNA from strawberry fruit.  They also learned what the physical and chemical methods  are for separating DNA from other cellular contents.  All students were able successfully extract DNA from their fruit.  You may have noticed they brought a tube home containing the DNA.

Animal & Plant Biotechnology

Biotech students learned how to use their previously learned sterile culture skills and added new skills to this set to include sterile culture of plant tissues: Plant Tissue Culture.  This is a valuable and powerful way to grow and rapidly multiply plant tissues to create whole plants.  Its also a technique that is essential for improving plant genetics involving the introduction of novel traits.  Pictured to the left is a fern plant the was divided/cut with a scalpel and cultured on new growth media to include fresh nutrients.  This fern tissue has been in culture for approximately 4 years.

 Research & Development 

Our students in this class have been working hard learning how to effectively locate published information and write a literature review for their project.  They plan to investigate natural breakdown of oils and dispersal agents to help answer questions about controlling oil spills.

FFA Career Development Event Prep

Students are seen here learning external animal anatomy in preparation for the NJ FFA Veterinary Science competition.  Students visited several posters to learn common features and concluded the lesson with a game / quiz testing their new skills.

Open House 2018

Please come visit the Agricultural Science program on February 3rd during our school wide Open House event.  This event is sued to recruit new students from 8th grade for our upcoming fall classes. Follow this link to learn more and register online.

Scientific Wreaths

Scientific Wreaths?  Well almost.

Students decorated wreaths as a fundraiser this past December and we even made a couple from scratch.  And yes, some of use have a hard time taking off our lab coat after our in class lab is complete.  We thank all those that supported our Somerset FFA Chapter in making a purchase.

Agriculture teachers are becoming harder to find.  There is a shortage of trained agriculture teachers in the U.S. and across the globe.  in 2016 there were roughly 57 ag teacher positions to fill in the northeast region according to NAAE's Teach Ag Campaign.

Two Students from Somerset Ag Science attended the NJ FFA Teach Ag Event held at Rutgers on a snowy Saturday in December. Students learned about the shortage of ag teachers, what the job requirements are, where to get the training, and some expert advice from current and past ag teachers.  Students attending also brought home some "Teach Ag Swag" a kit with t-shirt, portfolio, and other items to inspire students to pursue a degree in Agriculture Education. 

Our Biotech students recently completed a gene insertion project.  Students inserted a gene for bioluminescence taken from jellyfish and they inserted into a bacteria.  They then cultured the bacteria to produce the bioluminescent protein, extracted the protein from the bacteria, and purified the protein as is shown below.

We also used some sidewalk chalk to review the steps and procedures of this long process.

Recruiting new students is an important part of maintaining a program.  Bottom line is, the best way to recruit is to have great support and have students do the talking for you.  Very simple, but very, very true!  Thank you everyone!

Our first year students in our Intro to Food, Agriculture, and Natural Resources (FANR) class, completed a unit where they learned about water quality and maintaining the quality.  Seen below here the students are performing an activity exploring point source and non-point source pollution and how topography impacts pollutant movement.

One the goals of our ambitious FFA chapter this year is to reach a goal of logging 200 hours of community service through planned events.  So far about five students have participated and logged about 70 hours.  Once the goal of 200 hours is met, by March 30th, our chapter can apply for and earn recognition for dedicating our time, service, and talents to others that need support.  Please watch for announcements of future community service activities and help us reach our goal! Below are several students participating in an Operation Shoebox event in December.

Great Job!

Our Animal & Plant Plant Biotechnology Students have a lab activity where they need to identify a culprit using DNA samples.  This multi-day activity provides students DNA samples from a "crime scene" and from five suspects.  Students are asked to use procedures from a prior lab to complete the investigation in an attempt to properly identify which culprit puppy chewed the show.

This year I decided to invite the Law & Public Safety program to participate with this.  It provided a great opportunity for my Animal & Plant Biotech Students to teach others what they have learned so far this year.  My students loved this opportunity and they appeared to thrive.

The Law and Public Safety Students learned basic biotech skills that are used in a CSI type lab: micropipetting, centrifuging, electrophoresis, and keeping a lab notebook.  They seemed to enjoy the multi-day lesson and we concluded with reviewing the steps completed by listing steps for performing this complex procedure.

Above you can see Agricultural Science students in white lab coats leading teams composed of Law and Public Safety Students.  Here they are preparing their DNA samples for a separation technique called electrophoresis.

Seen above here, Law and Public Safety Students are loading thier DNA samples into electrophorsis chambers like CSI investigators would.  Here they are attempting to answer the question of "which puppy chewed the shoe?"

After DNA was run through an agarose gel in the electrophoresis process, the DNA fragments separated and created a "DNA fingerprint".  Can you tell which puppy chewed the shoe?

After they analyzed their gels, and recorded their procedures and documented results, they then reviewed all the major steps completed from start to finish by doing some "floor graffiti" as we call it.

All students greatly benefited from the four day activity and we look forward to hosting another 

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!