Ecology at BMS

Burgaw Middle School students were a part of a citizen science project that joined Burgaw Middle School, Mills Park Middle School, and the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences. The students at the middle schools ran an experiment in their classrooms to see if dandelions could recruit beneficial DNA when transplanted from their original soil into new soils from around the state. The students collected soil and the dandelions, they transplanted the dandelions, and grew them in their classrooms for a month. During that month the students collected observations and data on the dandelions. When the month was over the students collected the soil closest to the dandelion roots, the rhizosphere, and sent the samples into the museum so that Dr. Julia Stevens could complete DNA sequencing and find out what types of bacteria were in the student's soil.

This research that our student scientists have completed in my classroom has become a part of a true scientific study. The work of my students, Dr. Stevens, Ms. Cochrane's students, and Ms. Blanchard's students was presented at the Ecological Society of America's 100th year anniversary of their conference. At this conference I was able to co-present our poster to the scientific community that attended from around the world! It has been a true blessing to be a part of a truly amazing group of fellow teachers and scientists! We are paving the way for students around the country, and the world, to be citizen scientists and take part in learning about our natural world.

Below is the poster presented at the ESA conference (If you would like to see it in larger detail, I have attached the .pdf file at the bottom of the page).