This project was a way to rap up this year of STEM. Our goal in this project was to find a world problem and solve that problem using biology. This project was on of the hardest and longest projects. Our group decided to focus on the pollution and waste that sports stadiums create. We focused most directly on trash. To solve this problem we reasearched how we can biodegrade plastics to educe the amount of trash going to landfills.
Unfortunately i cant show the slideshow on this page but here is a link to it
Key Terms:
Biology: the study of living organisms, divided into many specialized fields that cover their morphology, physiology, anatomy, behavior, origin, and distribution.
Biotechnology: the exploitation of biological processes for industrial and other purposes, especially the genetic manipulation of microorganisms for the production of antibiotics, hormones, etc.
Biodegration: the disintegration of materials by bacteria, fungi, or other biological means. Although often conflated, biodegradable is distinct in meaning from compostable.
Phases of biodegration:
Aerobic Phase: the plastics being to break down from hydrolysis(use of water and moisture)
Anaerobic Phase: monomers are converted to fatty acids
Acetogenisis Phase: fatty acids turned into acetic acid co2 and hydrogen
Methenogenic phase: acetic acid is turned into methane and co2. Hydrogen is consumed.
PLA(Polylactide acid) Type of bio plastic that takes 3-6 weeks in 50 degrees celcius to degrade.
Reflection: This project was a very good one to work on my leadership and work ethic. During this project every day i had to encourage my group mates to help and do research without being a jerk about it. Soon i got my group to help out and we put together a very nice project. I worked every day and made sure that i had goals in mind before the start of everyday. Two pits that me and my group had was our cooperation and collabooration. In the beginning of the project me and my group werent working together but slowly came together in the end. During this project i could strengthen a lot of things, including patience and hard work.