I took a visit to the Wetland Mesocosm Lab on campus during
a class field trip with Dr. Changwoo Ahn. Throughout taking his course, Dr. Ahn
expressed his desire to take me on as a research mentee and explained the work
that he planned to do with his forty mesocosms. The specific research questions
of the study include: (1) Does enhanced nitrogen impact plant growth and
biomass production in the summer of 2017? (2) Will the relationship between
plant growth (e.g. plant cover percentage) among the four species change as
they are affected by treated wastewater application compared to the rainwater
of low or almost no nitrogen input? I am eager to conduct further investigation
on this question as it can address multiple water-related environmental issues.
By using wastewater effluent as a source of nutrients for plants this could
decrease the amount of potable water used in plant irrigation in the face of
global water scarcity.
Most of the work for this project consists of measuring out
and combining the required nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium components to
create the synthetic “wastewater”. This is applied to ½ of the tubs once a
month. In addition, I take bi-weekly measurements of the plants’ morphological
changes through measuring plant height, diameter, and circumference as well as
stem count for some species. This is very time-consuming work and takes roughly
twelve hours spread out over three days.
One thing I have discovered throughout the summer is how to
work independently and not rely on my mentor for too much assistance. I am
fortunate to have prior studies to base my experimental procedures on and have
only gone to my mentor to seek guidance on how to interpret the procedures of
previous years. This has allowed me to gain maturity and self-confidence in my
scientific research experience.
