Throughout the semester students in the learning community have worked on explaining their research using short elevator speeches, and slightly longer interview segments. All of the videos as they become available are posted on our YouTube Channel. Click here to visit the channel and see some of the students’ work.
The fire has given these herbaceous flowers a chance to breathe and they’re really taking advantage of the little bit of rain we got over winter break.
Yesterday I went out to Long Grade and used a soil core, with the help of my family, to take samples of the creekbed at four sites (2, 4, 6, 8). With the soil I will be able to identify any stratification among the soil samples that may indicate erosion or deposition during rain events in the channel.
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On March 24th,2015 we performed a DI water flush of the portable Bio-SWIPE filter. Our Hypothesis was that Ammonium and Nitrate would decrease over time because micro-organisms inside the filter would no longer be reacting and releasing nitrogen. A common phenomenon that takes place in Bio-filters that utilize organic materials as the filtration medium is that there is a release of nitrogen compounds. This process is called Nitrification. Inorganic nitrogen compounds that are released include: NH4+, NH3, No3 and N02. Basically when micro-organisms consume a pollutant such as a metal entering the filter, they also use oxygen. As a result, the by product of this reaction is the release of organic nitrogen compounds. This has been observed in numerous other studies involving bio-filters. One example I found includes a year long study on a Full size Bio-filter in Barcelona, Spain. One of the findings in this study was “the accumulation of nitrogen in the bio-filter”. The effluent water was probe tested for Ammonium (NH4+) and Nitrate (NO3-) three times per 5 gallon bucket of DI water flushed. The end results indicated a decrease in both Ammonium and Nitrate. The initial Ammonium concentration during trial 1 was 3.37 mg/l and in the final trial it was 0.89 mg/l. The initial NO3 concentration was 93.33 mg/l and in the final trial it was 62.48 mg/l. Results are that Ammonium decreased 76.3%, and Nitrate decreased 33% during the test. 
Here I am trying my best to empty a 5 gallon bucket at a rate of 100 gallons per hour. This was done so by emptying the buckets for 3 minutes at a steady, even rate. Most of our tests (except for the first one) have been tested at this flow rate.
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My experience in New Orleans went above and beyond my expectations had before the trip. As I sit here in the library on a Thursday night frantically working on unfinished work mini flashbacks pop into my head as if I was back in New Orleans. These flashback are of course with friends, friends that share the exact memories, friends that helped me rally when energy levels were low, and more importantly friends that I have stronger connections with now than ever before. I relish in the random memories that uncover throughout the day these memories will surely aid me in the next couple weeks of school work. Although memories gained from the trip will fade in time the people I met and interviewed are burned into my soul and will forever change my view on New Orleans.
The most memorable part of the trip was hacking my way through blackberry bush with two of my fellow colleagues. Equipped with a machete, 100 meter transect tape, clipboard, and data sheets we successfully gathered important vegetation data that could one day aid the response in wetland recovery. I am proud to be a part of the 2015 NOLA Service Learning trip and would highly recommend it to future students no matter what discipline you study.
Thank you for the enlightening trip
Cheer,
Alex Greene
“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”
Thomas Edison said it best when describing the role of failure in research. Failure is not the end of your research as you will see after trying and trying again to achieve something significant. Failure only means that what you tried before does not work, but something new and different might work. The failure of one experiment will allow you to question and experiment new and thought provoking ideas that you may or may not have thought of previously. I believe that admitting failure is step 1 after a failed procedure. Then, step 2, must be working on a new procedure that may achieve the results you are looking for. Failure in the field of chemistry or biology can be seen anywhere. Is it bad to say that failure can be seen all over science and medical research? I don’t think it is. Failure has allowed new vaccinations, medicines and even cures for particular diseases to emerge. Human life has been prolonged dramatically over the past 150 years due to “failure” and one outstanding example is that of penicillin. Alexander Fleming was studying bacteria in his own messy way, with no intention of discovering the 20th century’s most vital antibiotic. Some of the accidental fungus had been tossed away, but looking more closely, Fleming noticed that bacteria wouldn’t grow near some of the stuff. It took the work of other researchers and scientists to refine and mass produce the extracted antibiotic substance, but if Fleming kept a neater shop, we may never have found it to begin with. The finding of penicillins helped treat many known bacterial maladies and to this day is used in some way.
So failure, after all, might just help shape the world and better mankind. Or it might just allow you to rethink what it is you are doing and improve yourself. Either way, improvement and success in some way proceeds failure.
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