S-STEM/TRAIN Scholar Jasmine Patricio

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.