Jonathan Shimizu: Week 7 Recap

I’m really starting to feel the pressure now. As week seven began, so did our lab work and data analysis. We spent the entire week at Shaneka and Anna’s lab cutting stem samples, staining them, taking pictures, and processing our leaf samples. Originally, we intended to stain the leaf samples so we could count the stomata. However, the leaves refused to de-stain and re-stain properly. Michael ended up creating his own staining protocol which worked well. To complicate things, our microscopes didn’t have enough magnification to make counting stomata feasible with our remaining time. Instead, we used the leaf samples to measure chlorophyll concentration. We also met with Anna to get a crash course in stats and to learn how to code in R. With all the work we still have to do, I have a feeling next week is going to be stressful…

This weekend we visited the WNDR Museum and Shedd Aquarium in Chicago! I had a lot of fun at the museum and I loved all of the colorful exhibits. My favorite out of all of them was the exhibit which responded to our steps with clouds of colors. Overall, I think Shedd Aquarium was my favorite out of the two. The last time I visited was about six years ago, so I enjoyed seeing how the aquarium has changed. My favorites were the sturgeon, arapaima, and penguins.