During my time as a Biology major, I have had many opportunities to evaluate, interpret, apply experimental design and draw valid conclusions from experiments. My first real experience doing so was during the fall semester of my freshman year. During my first biology class, we were given the opportunity to study the effect of sugar and salt on the rate of photosynthesis in elodea plants.  We did this by putting three different groups of elodea plants in salt-saturated tap water, sugar-saturated tap water, and plain tap water.  We then calculated their rates of photosynthesis and  entered the data into Microsoft Excel and began creating charts and graphs. We used these charts and graphs to draw conclusions and create a lab report paper communicating these findings with an audience. As this was my first experience completing a lab report, it wasn’t as well written as it would have been had I completed it later in my academic career. However, this experience gave me the confidence to approach future research projects without hesitation. The link to the paper I wrote during this class is linked below.

Another time that I was able to evaluate, interpret, and apply experimental design and draw valid conclusions from experiments was during my sophomore year, when my research group and I was able to conduct a project that surveyed the lichen diversity in areas around Longwood’s campus.  We plotted land that varied in proximity to water, tree species, and shade, and studied the lichen in each area.  We compiled this data and created a presentation to communicate our results to the class!  This project is linked below.

Fast forwarding to my senior year, it is clear that I have had much more experience applying experimental design and drawing valid conclusions from it. In my Senior Capstone course, we have each been creating our own novel research proposals as if we were attempting to win a grant to fund our research. I chose to create my proposal around type I diabetes. My proposal involves using punicic acid, a component of pomegranate oil as a supplemental treatment with insulin, and to measure the pancreatic beta cell function and blood glucose level homeostasis of the subjects before and after the treatment. My hypothesis was that subjects treated with a combination of insulin and punicic acid would show improved functioning of their pancreatic beta cells and blood glucose level homeostasis over the controls and those treated with just insulin. This experience has shown me a very in-depth look at how the experimental design process truly works. Before this class, I hadn’t been exposed to the “proposal” side of research, where scientists need to make a case for why their proposed research would be important and necessary. This process helped me gain insight into why the research process is so lengthy. The link to the poster that summarizes this process is below.

Elodea Lab Report

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LqMGhu7PIstpHUnnuTeQcVOHz4o3msHb/view?usp=sharing

Lichen Presentation

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1ySW_PN5My4BkJ_iScJGrm5skqjZzQS25WY7WCJifTCo/edit?usp=sharing

Punicic Acid Proposal Poster

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/19547ocCiYPBSBTMACpGzjZCNyGH6g4m6Eitc5ZR2FzQ/edit?usp=sharing