So for our most recent project in scimatics we got to learn about the matter cycles. This project was very connected to real world examples as we all leaned about each cycle and the ways we as humans have messed it up. Then we had to use our brain power to find solutions to each of the cycles. Now obviously everyone is living every cycle is a lot of work so we were put into pairs. My partner was Nik and we were given the nitrogen cycle. At first I was very bummed about this since I knew way less about this one than either the carbon or water cycle. However, after doing a debate over what cycle is most important, with the other nitrogen pair, Anika and Sam, I had definitely identified some key issues.

The two main issues were horrible algae blooms and acid rain from extra nitric oxides in the atmosphere. At first Nik and I wanted to tackle the acid rain issue but after some research we found it was pretty hard to invent something around that. So we tried to think of a way to solve the algae bloom issue, which is actually part of a much bigger problem. This big problem is farming fertilizer. Now you’re probably thinking isn’t fertilizer good. Well it is or the plants as the amount of nitrogen inn them really helps them grow, but it is messing up the nitrogen cycle a lot. So much of our nitrites and nitrates, usable nitrogen, is being overused on these fertilizers. This means that when runoff occurs in the water cycle it brings some of the chemicals form the fertilizer with it. That is how an algae bloom is made and under algae blooms are deadlines where no sea plant or animal can survive.

 

Below are some of the core competencies that I feel me and nik really did well on.

  • Make observations aimed at identifying their own questions, including increasingly complex ones, about the natural world.

So for our project nik and I asked, “How can we make a plant that can survive without  nitrogen? Now after doing some research we realized all plants need it one way or another. However we could find out what types of bacteria allowed plants to use much less, and even better how plants could take nitrogen straight from the atmosphere. We decided to make the super bacteria.

  • Communicate scientific ideas, claims, information, and perhaps a suggested course of action, for a specific purpose and audience, constructing evidence-based arguments and using appropriate scientific language, conventions, and representations

Since we are two grade 9 kids with no access to scientific bacteria or any of the right equipment we couldn’t actually make our own bacteria but we could do research and find out exactly how it would be done. For this to work we would only need 2 species of bacteria, cyanothece and a non-nitrogen fixing bacteria (we chose Synechocystis). The cyanothece bacteria is very unique since it photosynthesizes during the day but waits until nighttime for nitrogen fixation. This means if we could transfer some of those genes into non-nitrogen fixing bacteria that we could produce more usable nitrogen and we would be able to use less fertilize.

  • Use knowledge of scientific concepts to draw conclusions that are consistent with evidence

After doing some research we found that at the university of Washington a similar experiment was done using cyanothece and Synechocystis. In this experiment they took away all nitrogen stored in the Synechocystis and out 24 of cyanothece’s genes into it. After doing this it fixed oxygen at a 30% better rate. So we made an animation to demonstrate the genes transferring. The animation:

  • Consider the role of scientists in innovation

In our project scientists would be extremely important. For this to work in the real world they would have to perfect the the transfer and the whole process in general. As well as having many people constantly making these bacteria. When making this we tried to be scientists as well. We took a very serious attempt at finding a way to solving this problem and I’m proud of how deep in we went.

 

I think this project went very well and I certainly learned more about bacteria than I thought I ever would.