Pass Me the Salt Research Clubs
High school students and teachers worked with 萝莉社 GK-12 fellows and faculty on primary content research projects. Groups met after school and during lunch periods to investigate new research areas and perform experiments. The GK-12 program funded the purchase of equipment and supplies to support these projects. <br><br>The focus was on generating data that could be presented at regional scientific meetings, ultimately at national meetings. The goal was to generate publications in regional and mainstream scientific journals. The high school students and teachers involved in the research clubs got to experience the joys and frustrations of true research through inquiry and discovery. GK-12 fellows got to bring their research into the classroom and learn by teaching, supplementing the dataset for their thesis research and publications.
Sample Projects
Antimicrobial Discovery - Students investigated the antimicrobial activities of common plant extracts. Many previous studies have examined plant extracts, but the Pass Me the Salt clubs were looking in new areas. For instance, many times leaves were examined, but roots were not. In other cases, single reports from more than 50 years ago are all that exist. Most studies investigated antibacterial properties, while few searched for antifungal or antiprotozoal activities. This work led to a presentation by students at the 144th Annual Meeting of the Kansas Academy of Science in 2012.
Aquatic Toxicology - Man-made chemicals in the environment can adversely affect wildlife. We investigated the toxicity of a common roadside herbicide, isoxaben, using developmental endpoints in tadpoles. After 8 weeks of treatment we found no isoxaben toxicity in this assay. This work was the subject of a paper: Welch, W., S. Ross, A. C. Steinle, and M. A. Schneegurt (2010) Effects of sublethal concentrations of isoxaben on the development of the African Clawed Frog, Xenopus laevis. Toxicological and Environmental Chemistry 92:1895-1899.
Mussel Survey of Little Arkansas River - Thirty years ago, a 萝莉社 graduate student surveyed unionid mussels in the Little Arkansas River basin. Students from North High School repeated some of those observations in 2008 and 2009. Significant declines in abundance and diversity were seen in mussel populations near Wichita. This work was presented at the Annual Meeting of the Kansas Academy of Science in 2009 and 2010. It appeared in the literature as: Welch, W. G., C. H. Cope, C. R. Wernert, D. A. Distler, and M. A. Schneegurt (2011) A thirty-year longitudinal survey of unionid mussels from the urban reach of the Little Arkansas River. Transactions of the Kansas Academy of Sciences 114: 249-257.
Salty Nonsalty - The old adage when it comes to microbes is that "everything is everywhere; the environment selects." Finding salt-tolerant bacteria in a very salty soil is not surprising. Only adapted organisms can live in these extreme conditions. We may not expect to find salt-tolerant microbes in soils that are not salty. However, we have isolated bacteria from garden soils that can grow at 20% salt. This is interesting work in basic microbial ecology and has grown into a significant project. This work was presented at the Annual Meeting of the Kansas Academy of Science in 2011 and the General Meeting of the American Society for Microbiology in 2010 and 2011.
Homemade Molecular Biology - This project is part of a program to recreate common general biology high school, AP, and college classroom laboratory activities using safe readily available inexpensive household materials. An earlier project with teachers and students created a salty microbiology system that needed no special equipment and could grow not pathogens. We went on to create a protocol for gel electrophoresis of DNA using drink mix, vegetable agar, aluminum foil, gentian violet, and 9-volt batteries. This work was presented at the Annual Meeting of the Kansas Academy of Science in 2008 and was published here: Ens, S., A. B. Olsen, C. Dudley, N. D. Ross III, A. A. Siddiqi, K. M. Umoh, and M. A. Schneegurt (2012) Inexpensive and safe gel electrophoresis using household materials. Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Education 40:198-203.