Danika Wellington
BSAS Member and Young Astronomer
Danika Wellington is an eighth grader at Martin Luther King Magnet High School. On April 3, 2004 she won first place in the "Reach for the Stars" astronomy event at the Tennessee Science Olympiad in Knoxville.
Danika's recent "Life on Mars?" project won 1st place in 7th and 8th grade Earth Science at the Nashville Science Fair. Here is the abstract of her project:
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LIFE ON MARS? THE EFFECT OF MARTIAN CONDITIONS ON THE SURVIVAL/GROWTH OF COMMON BAKER'S YEAST The purpose of this experiment was to investigate how Martian temperature, pressure, and atmosphere affected the survival/growth of common baker's yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae). Martian temperature and atmosphere were achieved by using dry ice, or solid CO2. Since Mars is nearly a vacuum, a vacuum pump was used to simulate pressure. The effect on the yeast was measured by mixing it with warm sugar water, so that if the yeast survived they would give off CO2, which would fill balloons; the balloons were then traced onto graph paper. Most of the yeast seem to have survived, for all of the balloons on test tubes that contained yeast inflated. The jars at room temperature seemed to do a little better than the frozen jars, and the jars filled with CO2 seemed to do better than the jars filled with air. The main conclusion from this data is that extreme conditions found on Mars do not greatly affect the survival of yeast. |
Danika used baby food jars with various atmospheres, temperatures and pressures to create test environments for the yeast. She then used balloons to see if the yeast had survived in the artificially-created environments.