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Hi Grace and Summer,
Thank you for sharing the results from your potato soft rot study. A gentle reminder that you did not “do something wrong” and no way did your study fail. Your results were not as expected. The success of your study stems from how you you made careful observations, implemented a well-designed study, made and recorded observations, made an accurate report and gave reasonable explanations for the results. All of this is good science. On the other hand, yes, your results were disappointing. And yes, my lab notebooks have plenty of results that were disappointing.
A true story for you. When I was a graduate student working in plant pathology on a virus of cereals that is transmitted only by aphids, I set out do a simple experiment that would confirm wat everyone thought was occurring before moving onto the next set of experiments. Easy, or so we thought. Zip for results. Try again and again and again using different approaches. Finally, after months of trials wit zip results, we realized that the data were not ”wrong”, but instead we were asking the wrong question. Outcome, something else that was much cooler was happening.
So, be proud of yourselves. You did a great job, and yes you save what it takes to be successful in science and anything else that interests you. Perhaps plants and microbes may be part of your future. You are awesome!
Have fun in all you do.
Plants are cool,
Donna Hazelwood, Ph.D.
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I loved this mentors response, very encouraging in the face of negative results and even drew on their own experiences to show it happens to all of is. Really awesome.
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24-25 School Year?
Teachers! If you're thinking of bringing PlantingScience mentoring into your classroom during the 24-25 school year, applications are now open for BOTH sessions!
To apply, log in to your PlantingScience account and locate the application link under 'Resources'. For more information, check out 'Join as a Teacher' above!
Scientists, this is a great time to update your availability and consider adding Investigation Themes to your preferences. If you are new to PlantingScience, check out 'Join as a Mentor'.
We're looking forward to working with you! Please contact us if you have any questions.
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Scientist Mentors Needed!
As we grow and continue to pursue our F2 research, we are sending out this appeal to our Scientist community: please spread the word and invite your students, colleagues, and friends to sign up and mentor with us! Mentors range from late undergraduate students to emeritus scientists. Feel free to download our mentor flyer and post it in your institution to encourage others to join us, too!
Testimonials
“I liked that we didn’t know what was going to happen before we did the experiment. Instead of being taught something and then just doing an experiment to prove it, we made an attempt to find out what would happen ourselves.”
- PlantingScience Student
“At every opportunity, all involved kept reminding my students of the process that real science requires. This helped me to convince my students that they are really doing science - not just play acting until some future date.”
- PlantingScience Teacher
“It is a lot of fun interacting with students from an age group I don’t have the chance to spend a lot of time with. It is a good reminder of where public knowledge of plant science stands, and a great opportunity for me to practice explaining key concepts in a simple and straightforward way.”
- PlantingScience Mentor