Team: 22
School: Los Lunas High
Area of Science: Botany
Proposal: Algae was once thought of as a nuisance unicellular organism that grows in clusters on the shore of beaches, lakes, or even dog bowls. As technology has advanced, we have realized algae’s potential. It could help humanity in medicine, agriculture and as a biofuel. Even though we have many uses for algae, because of limiting factors we can’t yet use it for large scale commercial uses. For example, contaminants can get in algae and hinder productivity.
I plan to improve on my program that identifies the color of the algae and make it so the program identifies the presence of contaminants. I will be analyzing the growth of algae in several conditions, some of which will be conducive for contaminant growth. I will replicate and have the program identify the contaminants by trends.
By improving the way, we analyze algae we could improve yield by preventing all the resource consumption by contaminants and general growth inhibition by contaminants. I plan to use NetLogo to analyze the nannochloropsis oculate microalgae and its health in 24 well plates.
Mentors
Abe Anderson
Creighton Eddington
Team Members:
Delsin Jaramillo
Edwin Fernandez
Sponsoring Teacher: Anne Loveless