Brassica Juncea Experiment

Wisconsin Fast Plants are known to be great educational tools for classroom experiments. They germinate quickly and are easy to take care of. These plants germinate after 1 or two days and have a life span of about 30 to 40 days. (Marin and Terrana, 2004).

The purpose of this lab was to investigate and observe the effects of organic vs. synthetic fertilizers on plant growth by planting lima beans with added amounts of fertilizers, and to see how does adding different nutrients to the soil affect the growth of the lima bean? A significant difference was examined between the plants that contained manure and miracle growth, unfortunately the plant with no additional fertilizers (Plant #3) did not show any growth. The plant that grew the most was the one that contained manure, to an extent the one that grew the most in a short period of time was the one that contained miracle growth, as shown in figure I. The hypothesis explaining if the Lima Bean plant contains synthetic nutrients in the soil then

In order to test this hypothesis and prediction, an experiment was conducted using a heterozygous F1 generation of Brassica Rapa seeds. The seeds were planted, pollinated, harvested (F2 generation) and germinated for observation. When leaves were visible, phenotypes (green vs. purple) were counted and recorded. The experiment took place over 13 weeks, spanning the full semester of General Biology Lab I. The sections that follow will detail the materials and methods used, the results of the investigation and an in-depth discussion of the outcomes.

Bioassays, Daphnia magna, were used to monitor water for the presence of toxic compounds in various water samples, including samples 1 mile upstream from the Fletcher’s Paint dump site and one mile downstream. A bioassay is a living organism that serves as a detector for toxins. It is hypothesized that if the Daphnia mortality rate when exposed to water samples from various locations is higher in greater solutions, then their deaths' indicate that the water contains toxic compounds due to the harmful toxins that originated from human pollution. This is the same hypothesis for the Fletcher’s Paint experiment.

The purpose of this course is to provide the fundamental knowledge of the effects of environmental chemicals on living systems, and the toxic responses of the human and plant systems. Students will discuss risk, ethics, and social responsibility with regard to environmental toxicology.

Some of these toxins will be released into the environment. These toxins are considered hazardous, which can cause asthma attacks and could reach all the way to Port Isabel’s school. For this cause it is critical that residents should know the consequences of this production and take into consideration the approval of this project.

Figure 1: . In 2010 A cartoon by Piraro about how fast food effect pigeons which representing the people who addicted on fast food.

The salt marsh is an ecosystem that has many different organisms and species dwelling upon the surface. Of these organisms, they include sea lettuce, the Sheepshead Minnow, Fluke and the Great Blue Heron. These organisms interact with each other in the ecosystem. The sea lettuce is a producer, which gets eaten by the consumer, the minnows. Then, minnow is eaten by a secondary consumer, a fluke. Lastly, the Great blue Heron, as a top predator and tertiary consumer, eats the fluke. Through this process, toxins are transferred from trophic level to trophic level. An example of this is the BP oil spill, which released a large amount of toxins to the ocean, and animals can take in the toxins, causing large amounts of deaths. Each organism has a lethal threshold, or the amount of toxins an organism can have before death. The Great Blue Heron in this case has a lethal threshold of 44 toxins (EduChange, 2004). A lab has been done to model the biological magnification of toxins in an ecosystem with the Great Blue Heron. If a Great Blue Heron eats for five weeks, then the animal will die because the lethal threshold of 44 toxins has been passed and the toxins cannot be

According to research, once the chemicals are released into the air, water, or the soil, it can cause a decline in health, which can possibly result in death. About three quarters of the chemicals that comes out

While it is important that these harmful toxins are being filtered out of our water, they are still allowed in the water in very small quantities. The toxins that are watched for vary from state to state, which means that a contaminant in one state may be allowed in the water in unregulated amounts in another. If something is toxic to the people of California, it will be just as toxic to the people of Wisconsin. I believe that the best way to combat this problem is to add any toxins that are found to be toxic when ingested to the list in the federal Safe Drinking Water

Contaminated water poses health risks on humans, pets, wild animals, and farm animals. (Mcdermott-Levy 2013)

One particular bloom in the summer of 2014 was of poisonous algae which produced the toxin microcystin – consumption of which can cause diarrhea, vomiting, and even liver failure – that had formed in an area of Lake Erie used for the city of Toledo’s drinking water (Wines, 2014). The city issued a notice to the approximate 500,000 citizens using that water informing them not to drink it, even after boiling. The ban took two days to lift, impacting the ability of those citizens to get fresh drinking water during that time.

Blue green algae, also known as cyanobacteria can be found in many lakes and ponds throughout Connecticut. It can go unseen or noticed in these bodies of water and not have an impact in others. However when the circumstances are just right the alga can bloom excessively and release toxins into the water. If and when this occurs people and animals using this body of water for recreation can be at risk. Because the toxins in the water cannot be seen, a chemical analysis of the water is needed to verify the release of the toxins. This issue began in my small community in 2012 when the weather was just right in temperature and the correct amounts of nutrients were

     Heavy metals, such as copper, lead, mercury, and selenium are another group of toxins that pollute the water as well as the rest of the environment. The source of many of these pollutants are industries, automobile exhaust, mines, and even natural soil.

Toxins are chemical, biological or physical substances that cause damage to an organism when they enter the biological system. These toxics can affect the entire system of the organism or just a substructure of the organism like cells or organs. Biological systems respond to toxins in various ways and this depends on many factors. Even though many toxic effects of foreign compounds are biochemically based, the way these effects are expressed may be very different. The interaction of toxins with normal metabolic processes can cause muscle paralysis or even fall in blood pressure. Toxic responses can be detected in various ways, these responses may be the all-or-none type like death of organism or they can be graded responses. Therefore the means of detection can be death, pathological changes, biochemical change, physiological change and changes in the normal status of the biological systemss (Monsoon, 2010).