Pickleweed and Nutrients: what's going on? - Grade 9 - 12 - 2020 SRS - 2020 SRS

Project Title: Pickleweed and Nutrients: what's going on?
School Name: Watsonville High School, CA
Teacher Name: Satina Ciandro
Student Name: Alejandro Gonzales, Yanely Gonzalez, and Crystal Salazar-Nieto
Grade Level: 9 - 12
Project Description: Pickleweed is a native plant and dominant species which is why we were interested in this plant that inhabits most of Elkhorn Slough. We wondered: How do the primary nutrients such as Nitrogen, Phosphorus, Potassium(NPK), and pH change based on the abundance of pickleweed?
Abstract: 

• Along the ecotone, we collected several soil samples from different locations which we tested.
• Our seven sites all had different types of plants but the main ones we saw were Pickleweed, Alkali Heath, and Poison Hemlock.
• Pickleweed is a native plant and dominant species which is why we were interested in this plant that inhabits most of Elkhorn Slough.
• We performed 4 tests on each of the soil samples that we collected and tested for: (NPK) Nitrates, Phosphates, Potassium, and pH.
• Testable question: How do the primary nutrients such as Nitrogen, Phosphorus, Potassium(NPK), and pH change based on the abundance of pickleweed?
• Hypothesis- we expected the nutrients to have a bigger difference in the pickleweed and not in the uplands.

Atmosphere Protocols: Soil pH, Soil fertility
Language:  English

Hi Alejandro, Yanely, and Crystal,
My name is Eliza Balch and I am a master's student and the University of New Hampshire. I studying water chemistry and water resources. My research focuses on nitrogen pollution in freshwater and where, when, and how the nitrogen is processed. I also work at Great Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve, which is part of the same network of estuary reserves as Elkhorn Slough!
I found your research to be very interesting, and you did a great job communicating through your poster. 
Your poster was visually appealing, especially with all of the pictures of the researchers and the different methods. It made it easy to visualize your project and where you did your research. Your methods were very detailed. I am curious about why you tried different methods and what you learned about how different methods work. A lot of scientific research focuses solely on developing and troubleshooting new methods for doing science, so it is completely legitimate to focus on what you liked and didn't like about the methods you tried.
It would also be interesting to hear why you made the hypothesis that you did. I want to hear more about why nutrients are important for pickleweed. 
More often than not, scientists don't end up with the amount of data that they were looking for. Science is all about telling a story with the data that you do have. Although your data are inconclusive, you found a story to tell and infromed your audience of your finidngs and their limitations. So, great job with that!
Overall, very informative and appealing poster. Great Job!

Hi there! 
My name is Monica Appiano and I am currently a graduate student through Moss Landing Marine Labs. I am studying the soil properties (such as moisture content, mineral composition, grain size etc.) at Elkhorn Slough to understand how they affect the health of pickleweed which is what inspired me to review your poster! You are welcome to look more into my background by easily searching my name on Google and I would love to remain in contact if you would like any advice on anything (doesn't have to be about research and could be about high school, college, etc). I have listed my review into sections; I hope this does not come off as intimidating, it just helped me with organization. Great work and wishing you all the best during these times. 

Questions: Some questions I have are which protocol did you find the most useful during your process, do you have plans for further exploratory research and based on this project, do you think your hypothesis would be supported if you had a larger dataset?

Improvement: Some areas for improvement are including Elkhorn Slough in your title, using less words to describe steps in a more general way such a (placed transect down at each site before soil collection), formatting pictures to flow nicely to tell the story (such as moving the google map image to be seen before the graphs, including a broader impacts section to inform us why this project is important to the larger community. 

Unclear: One area that was unclear for me was the units for the nutrient levels in your graphs. I recognize pH does not need units, but for phosphorus, potassium and nitrates, what does 1,2 and 3 mean exactly? To improve understanding, perhaps explain this a bit more or add a photo that ellaborates on this matter. 

Strengths: The photos on your poster truly engage reviewers like myself to feel included in your scientific journey, so great work with including them! The work you put in to making this poster and collecting the data is well represented and you acknowledged those who assisted you to make it happen! 

Great work overall; I never had the opportunity to complete a scientific project in high school and I am super proud of the work you all put in to completing this project and hope you all consider pursuing research in the future! 

Dear Alejandro, Yanely and Crystal:
 
            Andy Cameron here.  I much enjoyed watching you work through your project on pickleweed abundance. How nutrients relate to pickleweed distribution is an interesting ecological question. Your methods are appropriate to the question of pickleweed and nutrients. Though some results were lacking, preliminary conclusions are still possible.
            I like the way you present your data as a table and as a graph.  It gives me two ways to think about the results. It is easiest to get my head around the measurements when they are seen in multiple views. The higher level of potassium is immediately seen in the graph and how much higher is seen in the table.
            It is not unusual to have partial data sets for a number of reasons: method failure, equipment failure or lack of time. Many studies have been reported from measurements are not complete for every site at every time. One can still make some inferences from the while saying that the inferences are preliminary because of lack of data.
            I could better understand how you think about your study if you give me an example of how you thought the nutrients might change.  Would all of them go up or down at different sites?  Do you think that one might always go up at a site while another might always go down at the same site?
            You put a lot of work into this project.  I’ll always remember hammering away at the hard clay samples to pulverize them after drying!

Hi Alejandro, Yanely, and Crystal,
Scientists in my group think a bit about links between nutrient (and other elemental) status in plants and the chemistry in the subsurface (soils) so I have read with interest your impressive poster- nice job! The photos are fantastic- I felt like I was in the field with you. I like how you were trying different protocols to learn how to carry out different types of analyses and how you hone in on a transect to carry out the studies. Were I lucky enough to get to see you and give this in person I would have asked how you chose your sites- you mentioned that they have a range of plants but are dominated by the pickleweed, heath and hemlock- did you have a change across the sites where there was more pickleweed (or no pickleweed)? Or did you try to sample beneath the various plants? I think sites 1 to 4 have more pickleweed, but I couldn’t really tell from the poster itself. I would have asked you if you also looked at other things like moisture in soils - I like your idea about doing more extensive studies in the different types of soils in each of these sites so maybe your plan was to go after those questions with such an extension! 

Hope you have a great summer!

All my best,
Julie Bryce
Department of Earth Sciences
University of New Hampshire
https://ceps.unh.edu/person/julia-bryce