1. STEM Program Introduction: Week 4: Math Week 2: Biology
Marty Brown, Hospitality and Tourism Management| Student, Utah State University
Introduction:
To be honest, I really thought that the STEM Program was going to be just about science, engineering, technology and math, but it wasn’t. This experience has been eye opening for everyone who is part of the STEM Program. The STEM Program is a program that shows students all that is available at the USU campus in Logan. What I was hoping to gain from this program was more exposure to new fields of study. This program will really help us learn what majors are available, and what we need to do to get our bachelor’s degree. This program really pushed us to discover what is out there and what awaits us.
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Week 1 introduction: During our tour on the Logan campus we went to every department in the STEM field. For example, we went to colleges such as, Natural Resources, Agriculture, Engineering, Anthropology, and even the art museum. Going on this tour we were able to see how many opportunities that were available to us. Essentially, this STEM Program is about trying new things and finding your interests.
Week 2: Biology
Week 4: Math
Don’t you want to know why your plant is dying off? Well, in the lab that I was working in, the Ramirez Lab, I found that spider mites are a common cause of plant death. The spider mites are like tiny vampires, they suck the liquids from a plant’s cell, which causes the plant to turn brown and harden. The spider mite lives on plant leaves, where there is no sun light, but serves as a safe place where they can lay their eggs. They can spread fast when it is hot and warm.
During my time in this lab, I found that the spider mite isn’t the only one to cause problems for your planets. It allies, the clover and alfalfa weevils. They kill the planet from the outside and cause it to die fast. The clover weevils eat the roots of the plant, where the plants get their nutrients, and vitamins. They also impact the stem. With out all of these components the plant becomes weak and dies fast. The alfalfa weevils eat the leaves which damage the plant, and this causes it to die a painfully slow death. Without the leaves, the plants will die. No leaves is bad for the plant, because it can not make or store their food.
This is also bad news for us, because both insects are destroying our source of oxygen, foods, and environment. Right now, the lab group is trying to find a way to target pest insects, but not other beneficial insects. Plant loss damages crops and our environment.
For the last week, in math class, I thought we would be sitting listening to a professor talk about math. Which we did, but in this math program, their was something different about the department. It is not about the cool things in the lab, it is about freedom. They can do anything they want in the math department along it is related to math. They even discover new math problems.
To be in the mathematics program, you have to be inspired by something that speaks to you. For example, one professor was drawn to dots on a paper generated by a printer. Then he kept printing more sheets, because each time he prints the dots would move sideways or upwards. They even form lines, spirals, or waves. Another professor was drawn to iteration numbers, which plot out the technical computation of the Golden Ratio. He wanted to know why the loop holds keeps repeating the same number (1.6180) and why the Fibonacci number helped keep the number same(1.6180), why doesn’t it change?
Did you know that plants grow their leaf and branch at an obtuse angel to each other, because they follow the Fibonacci number and Golden Ratio to develop? Because each of leaves or branches want to be far enough away from each other to make it easier for the plant to survive.
“Math isn’t about solve X, is about whY?”
Week 3: Nutrition
I really thought that working in a nutrition lab would be a certain way, but it was not. The one thing that was surprising, was there is lot of preparing before the experiments. In our lab it would take about 3 hours to finish one experiment. We would take a sample to the machine, measure the volume of the liquid quickly before it goes to solid. We repeated every few minutes. The cool and amazing part about the nutrition lab is that you meet different graduate students, who are from different countries. They like to study oil and body fat in order to find a better way to be healthy while cooking with oil, or consuming oil-based products. They take measurements on the liquid and solid after they add chemicals, or change the temperate, and record if anything changes. They even make a chart to see if the measurements really show a change or not. In the lab I was working in, the researcher were all women, which I did not expect. Did you know that our body fat and the oil we use to cook look like shining diamonds? Many of the oils and body fats have different colors, such as blue, light blue, green, greenish yellow, and other cool colors. They look so pretty when you look through the microscope, because in person they look white or clear. That is the part I enjoyed the most, because every time I looked in the microscope it is like looking through a telescope and seeing space for the first time.
In conclusion, I really want to thank the mentors for the opportunity to work in their labs. I learned more then I expected during my time in the STEM Program.