S-STEM/TRAIN Scholar Jasmine Patricio

About a week more until I reach only having one more month left to finish up my first semester at ASU. It’s crazy how time flies especially this college year around. I feel like time flew faster at ASU than my two years at Phoenix College. I also feel like I’ve had less relaxation time at ASU than my time at P.C. My first semester at ASU so far has been kind of drowning because this is the time where I feel like I have to start planning my career path and looking into what medical schools and licensing careers I want to try and get into. This semester has been a lot of just trying to keep up with all the homework assignment and exams and quizzes that some professors will throw at the students as a surprise. I have definitely made new friends who in my calculus class have helped me a lot and always make class a little more tolerable. I do miss a couple of things from P.C like my past professors and especially Dr. Cotter who made class always a delight to come to. I am still currently w...

Hey everyone I hope you are all doing well and have been having a good semester so far. I miss Phoenix college so much and everyone who was involved in the stem program. University and Community College are the without  a doubt such different environments. As midterms are just days away the stress and anxiety are all coming in at once and the pressure to graduate within my goal are coming to a reality. My day starts of with going to Tempe Campus to taking the shuttle, which I have to admit has been my best- friend during this semester and will continue being my best friend for the following two years. I go from Tempe Campus to West Campus to Downtown Campus to finally head home. My biggest achievement while being a ASU has been able to keep up with my professors and being able to stay on track, regarding being in a whole different environment. I am currently interning with Dr. Beth who also Daisy is a part of. Everyone in the lab was extremely welcoming and helped me distinguis...

CONGRATS to Samantha & Ibrahim for winning the Arizona- Nevada state conference. The Trip was really fun yet really exhausting. It was my first time ever traveling to Nevada and it couldn't have been any better. I hope to do this experience once more. Thank You Josh and Matt who have been nothing but a great mentors and have been opening up doors for each individual and have been amazing role models.

This week in the Lab room each intern went to ASU West Campus for poster presentations. Though I was pretty upset that the wrong poster was printed out cause I had worked so much on my new and improved poster. But no matter which poster or not was printed "the show must go on". So I presented what I had on my poster as if it was my new one. I got the opportunity to talk to Beth who has a project on micro plastics at ASU West, and share my ideas with her. With the help of Amanda Chapman I will find ways to reach out to Beth and see if there are any opportunities left in her lab . 

This week in lab I finally finished transferring all Plastics 1-6 that were exposed to Tempe Town Water Lake on PIA media and TSA plates to detect any growth. Some plastics had just black mold growing on the PIA plate which I am still not sure if there was any Pseudomonas growing on the plates. The media had a weird smell to it, almost like a strong really smelly wet mold smell to it. The nexts steps would be to run a Gram stain identification to first figure out if they are Gram- Negative or Gram- positive bacteria.

    This week in lab I have done my first test of the microplastic and the Tempe Town Lake water. Huge shoutout to Ibrahim for helping me and showing me the steps of how to set up PIA plate. We only did SPI 1 as a sample run on the plate to see if any pseudonus would grow on the plate. We also did a TSA plate to see if any bacteria would grow and what we could determine from it. This week what I have also done is a TSA plate on the Tempe Town Lake water. I did the lawn method and streaking method on the TSA plates which then will be inoculated in a 36 C. I will be doing the PIA and TSA run for all 1-6 plastics and see if any of them show any growth. Also what I will be doing is doing gram stains and see how the bacteria may be shaped all.

March 26, 2018 ( Day 21). This is the last week that the tea pods will be in the light incubator, and this will be the first month completion of the teapods. So far what has happened is that the water has drastically changed color. It went from a clear water color to a dusty brown color. What has also happened is that the tea pods first were all hanging on from the chain and had rust growing on them, then after a week the chains broke and all the tea pods sinked to the bottom, where they continued to grow rust on the surface of the teapods. What also started growing on the teapods is what seems like maybe fungus growing on top of the rust or the teapods still. I will start writing a protocol for this project and figuring out the next steps that will be needing to be run by this experiment as well.

(March 19, 2018) Hey everyone welcome back! Hope everyone had a great Spring Break and got the rest that we all needed. The second I got into lab today I went to check on the the microplastic that have been sitting in the light incubator with the Tempe Water only to find that the chains had broken and they all sunked down. Which is very interesting because the they are designed for resistance in water. Also in the beginning Plastic 5 was the one that was floating the whole week and over spring break it seems like even plastic 5 sunk down but now plastic 2 is the one that is floating. I still have 17 more days till I could run some test on the plastic,but for the meanwhile I will be doing some research on biodegradation and the process of lake cleanings and the chemicals that could perhaps be put in the lakes.

One gallon of Tempe Town Lake water was collected and kept in the fridge until all plastic was ready and in its correct form of 5mm or smaller to fit the characteristic of microplastic size.  There are a total of six tea pods and in each tea pod there are a total of 0.5 grams of microplastics they are currently being kept in an light incubator at 32 °C. The tea pods and water sample will be kept in the light incubator for one month, and we will be observing bacteria growth on the microplastic and see if perhaps the bacteria degraded the micro plastic and which kind of plastic was most affected by it by observing weight loss. The first picture on the top left is the water and plastic before placing it in the light incubator and the picture next to it is Day 2; there was brown somewhat like algae that started to grow on top of the the tea pods. Day 3; is the bottom left and the brown part started growing more and around the tea pods. The picture next to that is Day 4; as y...

This week during lab Maricruz and I got back to shredding plastic SPI6. While shredding I came to notice that the powerade bottle we were shredding was really think and harder to shred than the small water bottle that is extremely thin. We have to shred a total of 3 grams but it takes a while to shred. Also I noticed that my hands get a little itchy and extremely red when I start to use the machine. But Maricruz is extremely helpful and always takes over when my hands get really itchy. We should get enough plastic by next week before spring break and we should also get the water sample and start detecting the bacteria growth within the plastics.

Poster Abstract* Micro plastics draw a concern to how safe the ocean water is for sea animals. Though the impact of ingesting the plastic could potentially affect the animals is not yet well understood on the future impact that it could cause. However, statistics show that numerous organisms, both vertebrates and invertebrates have been found to ingest micro plastics (NOAA Marine Debris Program 2015). Scientist are concerned that organisms ingesting plastics debris may be exposed contaminants absorbed by the plastics, and the plastic debris provides a source for chemical contaminants to the environment. It is the goal of this project to optimize the extraction of micro plastics from sediment so it can be utilized to understand the distribution of micro plastics within the Phoenix metropolitan area. The purpose of this research is to determine how effective the NOAA protocols are for removing micro plastics from sediments. It is hypothesized that the NOAA protocols will only be effec...

So the picture above shows the location of where I got the sample water though, though I regret not getting the coordinates of the exact location I took the water sample from because Tempe Town Lake is pretty big. This weekend while also this weekend I went to Tempe Town Lake again but the only difference was that there were a lot of dead fish just floating around and some even on shore. Which got me thinking if we might something new in the microplastic bacteria growth. There was also a report during 2014 where there was an extreme growth of E. Coli in Tempe Town Lake Water. “ Tempe has received water samples from Town Lake taken Thursday morning that show E. coli bacteria more than 10 times higher than the state's allowable” (Tempe Town Lake 'unsafe' water sample threatens race). I missed another great opportunity and forgot to take pictures of the dead fish. So perhaps maybe this week I will go again and take pictures.

This week in lab what I will be working on is getting sample water from Tempe Town Lake and a water canal that is two-three blocks away from me. While getting the sample water what I have been working on is sanitizing the plastics 1-6 and the tea pods. I did this by putting 0.5 grams of SPI1-6 into two different tea pods then I dipped the tea pods with the micro plastic into 100% isopropyl and placed both of them onto different pans. After, both of the pans were put into the fume box to evaporate the solution. While working on this I realized that I have run out of SPI 1 one and six, which means we will have to grind some up, but thankfully it's not that much anymore. Other than that I should be ready to put the tea pods into the water samples and detect it soon for bacteria. I will also be working on my poster meanwhile.

For my new project we will be testing the types of bacteria that grows on plastics 1-6, based on different water lakes. We will first be sanitizing all plastics 1-6 and the tea pods to make sure the bacteria they are growing only comes from the lakes. Then we will be putting the two water samples from Tempe Town Lake & Encanto Park in sanitized clean jars. Then we will be putting plastics 1-6 in separate tea pods. Six will go in jar. We then will analyze the type of bacteria growth. But since I don’t yet have the water samples what I still am working on sanitizing the tea pods and plastic. Also from my previous project with microplastics extraction from sediment I am still waiting for the Potassium Carbonate to arrive to redo my extraction with SPI 6 and Potassium Carbonate. Meanwhile I wait for those two I could also work on my poster for our presentation at Metro- Tech High School and other research conferences.

This week in lab there hasn't been much start/continue because I am still waiting on the Potassium Carbonate order to arrive. So while waiting things I have done are help Amber with anything maintenance that she needs. So far she has showed me how to clean microscopes, then she will teach me how to make samples for like other labs. What I am also working on is decorating the computer place a bit more. But while I wait I will be sanitizing plastics 1-6. To get them ready for when I start the next part of my project.

Hello, everyone my name is Jasmine I am a sophomore at Phoenix College & this is my 4 ½ term with Stem. I started Stem during the summer when I graduated from Metro Tech High School. I have done two big projects throughout my two years of being at Phoenix College. 1. Develop a protocol from isolation of lysozyme from Egg White The synthesis of the Chicken egg white Extraction and DNA Extraction from the bacteria  Serratia Marcescens was performed to verify if it is possible to develop a protocol from the isolation of Yolk from a Chicken Egg. 2. Determine how effective the NOAA protocols are for removing micro plastics from sediments. Effectiveness of the NOAA protocol will be determined by the percent recovery of the previously added micro plastics . This will be done for all six types of plastics. My major is Biology; Biomedical Research. My first interest  in biology began when I was in elementary school. My teacher was an energetic professor who...