This year's Kids Do Ecology Poster Session was once again a great success! Student representatives came to NCEAS on May 31st to present posters of their ecology experiments. Between January and May, participating classrooms and scientists worked together on these experiments. Their hard work definitely paid off - the presentations and posters were great!

Tour through this page to see what students learned and how they worked with their classroom scientists.

This year we also had some of our NCEAS scientists, Leah Gerber and Eric Seabloom, and the Los Marineros coordinator, Andrea Moe, judge the posters in five categories: Best Poster, Best Presentation, Best Scientific Method, Best Data Presentation, and Best Artwork.

Best Poster

Sea Otter Movement Harding students in Ms. Daigle's class won the Best Poster award for their work on California Sea Otters. They wanted to find out where Sea Otters would be in the future along California's coast. Together with their scientist, Chris Pyke, they came up with some games, or simulation experiments, to figure out the movement of otters.

What did they learn? Otters will probably travel from Santa Barbara to Los Angeles and Long Beach. They can also make it to Anacapa and other Channel islands. They also like rocky places because they find plenty of food there and are protected from predators, like sharks or killer whales.

Best Presentation

Pollutant Effects on Lima Beans Franklin students in Ms. Benson's class won the Best Presentation award for their work on the effects of pollution on plant growth. Along with their scientists, Risa Goldstein and Carol Thornber, they wanted to find out how plants grow when watered with different pollutants like soap, shampoo, and sunscreen. Every week for four weeks the students measured the height of their lima bean plants, counted the number of leaves and then number of seedlings.

What did they learn? Plants given soap or shampoo solutions did not grow, while plants given water and sunscreen solution grew. Plants given water grew better than those given the sunscreen solution. What is next for these budding scientists? Perhaps they will try growing plants in different concentrations of these pollutants!

Best Scientific Method

Conservation of the California Condor Monroe students in Ms. Pisacane's class won the Best Scientific Method award for their work on the conservation of the California Condor. These students, along with their scientists, Helen Regan and Toni Mizerek, hypothesized that reducing threats to condors will increase their population size. They rolled dice for their experiments to see how many condors died, were born, and remained living, both with and without conservation measures.

What did they learn? If humans help the condor, these birds are more likely to remain living, than go extinct.

Best Data Presentation

Where do California Poppies Grow? Adam's students in Ms. Rogers-O'Reilly's class won the Best Data Presentation award for their work on where California Poppies grow best. With the help of their scientist, Parviez Hosseini, they designed six treatments. They planted poppy seeds in either soil or sand. The seeds received fresh water, salt water, or a mixture of the two.

What did they learn? Poppies planted in soil and watered with fresh water grew the most. Plants in sand and watered with a mixture of fresh and salt water also grew well, as did plants in soil watered with the mixture. Pure salt water was not good for the plants.

What would these scientists do differently? They thought that another way to evaluate their results would be to measure the plants at the end and perhaps let the experiment run longer so that plants are larger.

Best Artwork

How Water Pollution Affects Plants Cleveland students in Ms. Hines-Knight's class won the Best Artwork award for their work on how water pollution affects plants. With the help of their scientists, Tarlie Harris and Melissa Mascali, they designed an experiment to find out how detergent, oil and vinegar would affect plants. They hypothesized that plants watered with these pollutants would die, and control plants watered with regular water would remain living for the duration of the experiment.

What did they learn? They proved their hypothesis that the plants watered with pollutants would die. They also learned some helpful tricks for next time, such as keeping the control plants separated so that they do not get polluted in the process! - This is real science in action!

What will they do next time? Students thought that next time taking pictures of the plants at different stages during the experiment would be helpful for interpreting the results in the end. They also thought that it would be interesting to experiment with different concentrations of the pollutants next time.

Poster Sessions from Other Years