Marie's Thoughts On Our Little Baby Seeds Now

I interviewed Marie to get her final thoughts on our Story of The Seed project:

Q: What have you learned?

A: I learned how to plant a plant without killing it. Normally, I would fail at planting because I don’t know how to take care of them necessarily. I also learned how to work with a group because normally I work alone. Overall, I have learned to take care of plants and more, and work with a group.

Q:What surprised or amazed you?

A:I did not actually expect the plants to grow due to past failures. I thought that I was probably going to do something wrong and kill it or that they would all just be duds. It also amazed me that the people in this group accepted me even though they didn’t know me because normally, during projects, the only reason to talk is for the project and they aren’t really inviting. Their helpfulness and inviting gestures also helped me get used to this school since none of my friends from my old school came here.

Q: What made you laugh?

A: My teammates made a lot of funny jokes. Their zany expressions are amazing! It’s one of the many reasons why I appreciate my team.

Q: What made me pause and think deeper?

A: Blog posts 5 through seven made me pause and think deeper because when I write, I normally think more about what to write which makes me pop up with questions. Then, I feel obligated to write more about the subject. Sometimes, I feel like I don’t write a lot, I have not explained the topic thoroughly, so that is the reason why I write a lot.

Elysa's Collard Adventure

After this semester's experiment with the collards, I interviewed Elysa Domboro about her experience with the team and the experiment.

Q: What have you learned?
A: I learned a lot about growing plants, specifically with a group of people in a school setting. I have planted plants before with my family, but planting stuff with other kids was sort of weird because I didn’t know what to expect. Basically, I learned that kids my age are willing to plant and it is not that different to plant with my classmates rather than my family.

Q: What surprised or amazed you?
A: Honestly what surprised me the most was that our plants actually grew big. I don’t know what I was really expecting, maybe for them to get ruined by other kids or bugs, but they actually survived. And each time I see them, they are even bigger.

Q: What made you laugh?
A: My team made me laugh. I didn’t really know any of them before this project, but now I feel like I do. I think I get a little too serious sometimes, and having my group to keep the feel of the project happy and fun was truly a blessing. Also finding the butterfly poop. That was funny.

Q: What made you pause and think a little deeper?
A: When we tried and failed at least three different methods of the carbon dioxide lab. each time I thought I had found the solution, only to have a problem and think again. Our beginning experiment took a lot of late night brainstorming, and I really had to think about what would work.

Q: What questions do you have about things you saw or experienced in the garden?
A: What mostly intrigued me was the holes in our plants from the butterflies. I would love to know if there was anything we could do to prevent that. Also, what caused the great population of butterflies.

A talk with Matt on the TSOTS team

Teo: So, Matt, how did you like the Story of the Seed project?

Matt: I liked it, I enjoyed it, yeah.

Teo: So what would you say that you learned from this experience?

Matt: I learned that science can be really fun, and I worked with a great group of people that made it better than previous experiences.

Teo: Were there any memorable events that happened?

Matt: Just, um...being part of an experiment that was actually successful, you know.

Teo: What parts of the project were your favorite?

Matt: Well, Teo, my favorite part of the project was when we first were putting the plants in the ground because it made me feel good that at some point, they will be food for someone.”

Teo: Alright Matt, thanks for your time.

Matt: Sure.

Our Seed Story ft. Teo Martinez

Matt:  So Teo, what have you learned from this experiment?

Teo: I learned that experiments don't always go the way they expected them to, and         sometimes huge changes need to be made just before the experiment is conducted.

Matt: What memorable moments did you have while during this experiment?

Teo: Since memorable moments don't really have a positive or a negative connotation, I would say the most memorable moment was during our first trial and none of our plants grew, and I totally freaked out.

Matt: What made you laugh while working on this experiment?

Teo: The biggest laugh I had during this experiment was when we were working with the dry ice. Yeah, that was fun. I got so nervous hahaha. 

Matt: Last question Teo. What moment in this experiment made you stop and think a little deeper about collards?

Teo: Like, when we looked at them after locking them in the dry ice, and realizing how much carbon dioxide actually affects plants.

Matt: Thanks for your time, Teo.

Teo: No problem, Matt. It is an honor.

Elysa Dombro Meiosis Presentation

Jonathan and Elysa Dombro's Meiosis Slideshow Presentation:
Elysa's Meiosis Presntation

Meiosis Demonstration Video

Meiosis Demonstration Video

Here's the video on meiosos Nathan, Sam, and I made. Enjoy!

Meiosis Presentation

Meiosis Presentation

Meiosis Project

Here is the Meiosis Project Helen and I did together! Meiosis Project with Play Dough

-Marie Coates

One of a Kind: The Wonders of Biodiversity

Our group experimented with collards. They are almost two feet tall and have little holes because of pests like caterpillars.The leaves are really big in size, like a big piece of spinach expect thicker. The leaves take up about 80% of the white stems. It is pretty much a plant that is related to and sort of looks like cabbage.

It is not really easy to see what the parent plant was like, but from phenotypes we can determine some information about the parent plant. I can tell that the parent plants had large leaves it was a recessive trait that appeared twice from both parents. The parent plants were probably average plants because they seem to look the same as most collards I have seen. To predict the collards offspring you would have to know the characteristics of the plants that will be bred together. Punnett Squares are used to compare the parents’ traits to see the different possible traits for the offspring. For the baby plants to acquire these traits, they would have to obtain their parents’ sex cells. In meiosis, the sex cells exchange chromosomes through random assortment. This is exactly how these plants and their descendants will pass traits to their offspring. The offspring could look exactly or partially like their parents because of random assortment (they randomly exchange parts of themselves [chromosomes]). The collards are in the same species of plants, but they look different because of the numerous allele combinations and how they develop differently. The collards are in the Acepahala group in the brassica oleracea species because they have been categorized by development of the plants. The development depends on genetics and genetics depend on the parents’ sex cell’s genetics and random assortment.

For example, wild cabbage (the ancestral species) and collards are the same species. The reason why there are so many variations between collards and wild cabbage is because of environmental factors and cross breeding. This can cause an infinite number of possibilities. They all came from the same origin, but outer forces and cross breeding is basically why they all look so different. The possibilities are endless, but not always highly probable because of the laws of nature. That’s all for now!

One of a Kind: The Wonders of Biodiversity

The plant we have is of the Brassica olercea species, and is more specifically collards. Our collards are pretty big, with our biggest at almost two feet tall. They have thick green leaves and are very smooth. They also have thick white-ish stalks running through the long and wide leaves. To the average person, it resembles the outer leaves of cabbage.  All of our plants have been unfortunately nibbled on by bugs, and are riddled with holes.

It is difficult to determine anything about the parent plants before these. How am I supposed to know if some traits that our plants have our genetic, or if they are really just reactions to their environment? For example, our plants vary greatly in size. One of our plants is almost two feet tall, while another is a modest 17 inches. I could infer that there was one very large plant and one small as the parent plants, but I don’t have much to put behind that idea. Their sizing differences could just as easily be related to the competitors and their environment. My best guess is that the parent plants looked very similar to our plants, and had very slight variation.

I could predict the traits of my plants’ offspring by using punnett squares if I knew the parent plants’ genes. Punnett squares would basically compare each parent plants dominant and recessive traits and then show the resulting chance of which traits (genotypes)  the offspring would have. The baby plants would acquire these traits from the parents’ sex cells. The parents’ sex cells contain chromosomes that have genetic information. During meiosis, the sex cells duplicate and split, eventually creating more sex cells (gametes) with a “blend” of traits from each parent’s cells. My plant will then pass its genetic information on to its offspring in the same way. It will give its traits and other plants traits to create a new seed.  My plant’s offspring will not look just like it, because its offspring will be a mix of its traits and the other parent plant’s traits. Some of my plant’s traits will be recessive, leading it be not exactly like either of its parent, are its sister plants.

Even though the the plants of Brassica olercea are closely related, many look very different. This due to several reasons. One is that they have grown in different places. The ancestral plant was probably taken to places over the world, which would lead each plant to adapt in its own way to survive in the environment it was in. The ancestral plant was native to western and southern coastal Europe, but is now grown in many different places. Another reason is that early genetic mutations may have caused differences in the original plant, which would then be passed down to all the plants after it. This also shows how all of our plants came from the same species. 

One of a Kind: The Wonders of Biodiversity

The plant my group experimented with were collards, of the species brassica oleracea.  Our plants have grown to incredible size, some being as tall as twenty-two inches tall.  Their leaves are almost as long as their stems, but there are many holes in their leaves, indicating pests that may be using our plants as food.

We can see from the appearances of our biggest plants that their parents were very large, or that perhaps one of their parents was large, and both had recessive genes that created the few huge plants in our garden.  Ways that we could predict our plants’ offspring would be to see the genotypes that two mating plants have, then create a Punnett square to predict the genotypes of their offspring.  The offspring would get these genotype mixes because of the mixing of genes in their sex cells, which happens during meiosis (which differs from mitosis because meiosis purposefully assorts paternal and maternal genes in a random way, instead of an exact copy of genes).  Of course, this means that the baby plants will not look exactly like their parents, although such an occurrence is technically possible.

Even though every single team’s plants are the exact same species, they all look incredibly different.  This is because of the many, many possible alleles for the genes of each plant.  Unlike our genes, whose possible alleles are relatively limited, species like brassica oleracea have so many possible genetic combinations, that the phenotypes of these variations make it appear like the plants aren’t related at all!

The ancestor plant, wild brassica oleraceadoes not look anything like our team’s plants, or like the other teams’ plants, yet they are all related to this plant.  The original plant’s changes may have been due to breeding with plants of the same species that may have had recessive genes that appeared in its offspring.  The two plants’ offspring would have phenotypes that were a mix of their parents’ phenotypes, and through generations, the qualities of the brassica oleracea would become harder to see in its children plants.

One of a Kind: The Wonders of Biodiversity

The plant that we have been experimenting with are the collard greens of the brassica oleracea family. It has a short, dark purple stem with dark green leaves branching off in a few strands. I can easily tell that my plant’s parent had the same colors, and were roughly the same size. With a punnet square, I could predict that the offspring of my plant will have very similar qualities to my plant because there is only one parent. They would acquire these traits when the information is stored in chromosomes inside the gametes. The information is then inside the seed and will show in the offspring. Even though the next generation from my plant will be very similar, it will not carry every characteristic. Because there is no competing parent like with animals, the plants will carry many of the hereditary traits. The cabbage looks so different from other species of brassica oleracea because traits were farther and farther spread apart until all of the species looked different. Short side- chain glucosinolates affect how diverse families of plants are. The brassica oleracea have a high concentration of this causing them to be very diverse. In turn, this is why the b. oleracea differ so much from their ancestors.

Collard Greens

Ornamental Kale 'Glamour Red'