Plastic Pollution in our Oceans
For this project we were given the task of choosing any real world problem and coming up with a solution. The only guidelines that we were given for the solution were that it had to incorporate biotechnology. My partner and I chose the problem that plastic is polluting our oceans. After much research we came up with multiple different solutions that would all have the same outcome.
Our main solution was to insert mealworm stomach enzymes into North Pacific Ocean plankton. Our two way of doing this were through a virus or by creating a plasmid from the stomach enzymes that we could then insert into the plankton. The solution that we decided to go with was to create a plasmid from the stomach enzymes. We chose this solution over inserting them through a virus because we believe that it would be more realistic and easier to do.
Below you can find out more about our problem and solution
Content:
pho4 gene: planktons DNA
Bacterias: Enterobacter asburiae YT1 and Bacillus sp. YP1: Mealwom stomach enzymes that enable them to break down polyethylene
pho4 gene: planktons DNA
Bacterias: Enterobacter asburiae YT1 and Bacillus sp. YP1: Mealwom stomach enzymes that enable them to break down polyethylene
Reflection:
This project was a lot of fun to work on, but still required much focus. My group worked very well on communication both in class and after class. We also worked well on time management because we set deadlines for ourselves in which we completed our work. We could have stayed on task more in class, however what we did not complete in class we then completed after class. We could have also worked a bit faster at the beginning of the project, however we quickly picked up the pace when we thought we may have been falling behind a bit.
Throughout this project I learned how even the simplest solutions can be extremely difficult to execute. This taught me that you have to think everything through multiple times before deciding whether or not to execute an idea. This project also taught me to a lot about time management because although we had set timelines we still had to manage our own time and figure out when the best time was to do our work.
Overall this project was fun to complete because it challenged the way I thought about all of our possible solutions. It also opened my eyes to new discoveries that have been occurring in the world recently such as the discovery that mealworms have stomach enzymes that can biodegrade polyethylene. It definitely opened my eyes to many new things.
This project was a lot of fun to work on, but still required much focus. My group worked very well on communication both in class and after class. We also worked well on time management because we set deadlines for ourselves in which we completed our work. We could have stayed on task more in class, however what we did not complete in class we then completed after class. We could have also worked a bit faster at the beginning of the project, however we quickly picked up the pace when we thought we may have been falling behind a bit.
Throughout this project I learned how even the simplest solutions can be extremely difficult to execute. This taught me that you have to think everything through multiple times before deciding whether or not to execute an idea. This project also taught me to a lot about time management because although we had set timelines we still had to manage our own time and figure out when the best time was to do our work.
Overall this project was fun to complete because it challenged the way I thought about all of our possible solutions. It also opened my eyes to new discoveries that have been occurring in the world recently such as the discovery that mealworms have stomach enzymes that can biodegrade polyethylene. It definitely opened my eyes to many new things.