The last day of the first week! This week had a super steep learning curve on all fronts. I learned how to properly sterilize and Autoclave items, how to use a super exact pipette instrument, and use a antimicrobial cabenent. These are just the main skills and knowledge that I gained this week I learned so many (micro) skills that are so useful in the scientific world.
Today I took the Optical Density values like I did yesterday at a fixed wavelength of 750 nanometers of all of my algal cultures giving me a quantifiable number for the density and growth rate of my cultures. I also started another set of cultures of picochlorum with the Exxon Mobile Dense media recipe. The OD machine or Optical Density sends very specific wavelength light into a sample of algal culture allowing for that wavelength to be absorbed by the cells and the light that makes it past will give an indication as to how much light was absorbed telling you a OD value to represent culture density. The two new cultures that I inoculated are in the image to the left and the right image shows the Optical Density machine.
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Today I took the two small flasks that I Inoculated with algae and split portions of them into six 100 ml erlenmeyer flasks. There were 3 flasks inoculated with the Picochlorum and 3 with the Nannochloropsis. We have 3 tests for each type of algae. The first flask will have the same 500 µl of vitamin mix the, second flask will have vitamin B12 in it at the same concentration as the amount of B12 in the vitamin mix, and the third flask will have no vitamins at all. This mixture for the growth media was repeated for both algae types.
I have forgotten to update on my more intellectual assignments given to me by Dr. Posewitz. I have been assigned 2 more scientific readings having just finished the other readings assigned the first day, and not even having glanced at the 3 books he gave me. Today is the day of major preparation for my first algal growth experiment. I made algal growth medium today using specific dosages of the different chemical compound concentrates. I sterilized this growth medium. I used this media made of the three solutions and 1x seawater, to make two 250 ml erlenmeyer flasks full of 100 ml of growth media. After adding the growth medium I added 500 µl (micro liters) of the vitamin mix. The reason for not adding the vitamins earlier is because if I autoclaved (sterilized) the growth medium with the vitamin mix in it, the vitamins would change forms because of the high heat environment in the autoclave. I inoculated the two erlenmeyer flasks with 5 ml of Nannochloropsis gaditana and the other 1 ml with Picochlorum celiri in the form of dense algae cultures. After that I set them on the stirring table to grow. Just to mabe clear up some confusion surrounding the term autoclave, the autoclave sterilizer brings items to high pressure and high heat. The high pressure allows you to bring items to a high temperature without boiling most liquids (water).
The start of the second day went very similarly to the first I dropped off Jem went to Coolbaugh Hall Dr. Posewits and I went over to the lab to start my day. I showed him my glassware that I had washed and told him that I read the manual of the autoclave sterilizer. We first started by getting all of my washed glassware into the autoclave to sterilize it we put this special tape called autoclave tape as seen the the image in the bottom right corner of this post. We put this tape on the glassware, the stripes on the tape turn to black when the item has been thoroughly sterilized.
Had an amazingly hectic day today just so much thrown at me all at once here at Colorado School of Mines.
First I completely forgot to communicate with my mentor Dr. Posewitz about obvious specifics for the first day until the night before the first day. Nonetheless I communicated over email with Dr. Posewitz about what to do my first day. I was instructed to go to Coolbaugh Hall where his office is at 10 o'clock and then he would give me a tour of where I would be doing my project and work. I first dropped my friend Jem off at Brown Hall to go to his internship. I parked my car and after getting lost for about 15 minutes in Coolbaugh Hall trying to figure out the office numbering system not finding any map or directory of any kind the whole time. I arrived at Dr. Posewits' office regrettably 5 minutes late of 10 o'clock. I was immediately welcomed in and he began deluge me information about his plan for the day handing me links to scientific readings and 3 books. We then left his office to go to the Colorado School of Mines geology museum/laboratories. We went through several security doors and then arrived in a cluttered laboratory. In the lab glassware lining the shelves, and containers of compounds on shelves and many scientific instruments littering the tables and shelves of the lab. I was then ushered into a office area with desks and computer monitors, along the way I was introduced to many graduate students along the way none of their names registered in my consciousness. I was overwhelmed with Dr. Posewitz leading me along from one part of the lab to the other explaining what each of the scientific equipment did in the lab. In the lab's office space he started outlining my specific tasks for the day. The first was to wash several erlenmeyer flasks and other pieces of glassware rinsing them off in deionized water and then set them out do dry on the drying rack. The second task was to read the 2 large scientific articles about Nannochloropsis gaditana (A type of algae) and Picochlorum celeri. Once I finished with the glassware washing I dived into the first article about Picochlorum celeri (A type of fast growing microalgae) words I had to define probably every 5th word to glean any understanding from the article. Because of the density of the article I read this for the rest of my first day. |
Grady JamesThis is a blog about my experience on the amazing 3 week internship opportunity called LINK (Leading Internships for New Knowledge) given to us our Junior year at Animas High School. |