Drake Garner and Samantha Burrell, University of Florida scientists from Dr. Colquhoun’s plant biochemistry and biotechnology lab, visited Andrea Anderson’s class at Fort Clarke Middle School in Alachua County. Their presentation began by talking about what research is and why it is necessary. For example, with Drake and Samantha’s research, it is valuable to study how plants react to how to different colored light, the smell emitted by flowers and fruits, and ability of a plant to be resistant to diseases.

Drake states, “As scientists we can play around using different colored lights to manipulate plant growth and determine what may be valuable or beneficial.” This allowed students to see the importance of the work being done at UF (less than 10 miles away). As well as start forming parallel relationships between the content/scientific experiments being discussed in their science class and research being done within labs.

To build stronger connections between classroom discussion and real world research, Drake and Samantha brought in miniature multicolored LED plant growth chambers for the students to run their own experiments. Drake was able to push students’ thinking about light by explaining how RGB LEDs work to form all the colors of the rainbow. Lastly, Drake and Samantha furthered the conversation by discussing different hypotheses of what variables could be tested on plants through the use of these LED boxes. Students brainstormed ideas including root length, root thickness, number of leaves and many more.

Although the visit has concluded, Andrea’s students will use the information presented to build upon their ideas in an effort to form their own testable experiment using the plant boxes. This will be an opportunity for Fort Clarke’s 8th graders to be scientists doing their own research similar to Drake and Samantha.