Week 5 Spring 2019: Chemistry and Contamination

So today I we met with Dr. Wang to discuss our FTIR results from two weeks ago. I really need to become more familiar with chemistry because honestly the rest of our project is so chemistry heavy. The FTIR gives us amazing data and I am so excited that we can show quantitative data. The photo above are TSA plates that I streaked last week to test for contamination in our media only controls. Unfortunately our plastics 3 and 5 were contaminated. We are trying to figure out the best way to keep our plastics stored to deter contaminants. 

Week 4 Spring 2019: Hermanas

Last Friday was the Hermanas outreach and it went phenomenal. I was asked to speak and welcome the young ladies to campus. It was my first public speech to around 400 middle and high school girls. Needless to say I was nervous but excited. I'm so glad I did it and our workshops went well. Our first session was a little busy but other than that I think all the girls had a wonderful day of learning. 

Week 3 Sping 2019: Valentine's day

Today STEAM club participated in the Valentine's day Market. Unfortunately I could not stay till the end of sale but I had to make it to an important appointment for my son. Research this week has just been prep for coincubating our controls. We won't meet for research tomorrow due to our participation in the HERMANAS outreach tomorrow on campus. Next week I'll have some FTIR results to share, I'm sorry that last weeks blog image didn't workout.

Week 2 Spring 2019: FTIR For real

So last week I mentioned that we were going to work with the FTIR but unfortunately Professor Wang was unable to get into the system. We ended up setting up a work area with supplies while we can use when we are there every Friday. If everything goes right tomorrow we will be processing our winter break samples. This image is exactly what we are going to get or something very close. This read out was from last semester and it was ran using our home made micro plastics not our new disk samples.