S-STEM/TRAIN Scholar Jasmine Patricio

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.