ArborGen visit

Our next trip was to the Arborgen facility in Summerville. We spoke to Maud Hinchee and her colleagues who genetically engineer trees. ArborGen engineers trees so that they can withstand changes in climate and disease. ArborGen's trees can help reduce the loss of lumber trees, which helps the economy. The process takes 14 years, and consists of researching the tree's genome, inserting the new gene, culturing the tree's tissues, testing the tree, and marketing the trees. A pine tree has 25 billion bases to its genome. Humans, for example, have only 8 billion bases. The scientists at ArborGen think they will be able to make a tree that is more resistant to the Southern Pine Beetle, such as trees that smell less like oleoresin, which is what attracts the beetles.
Maud's colleagues showed us some of the plants that they are in the process of genetically engineering. Each plant had its own canister with a jell that helped it grow. This jell had all the nutrients that a plant needs. They have plants that show different stages of development as well.

Our trip to ArborGen helped us a lot, and gave us another person that we could talk to: Joerg Bohlmann at the University of British Columbia.

The Horticulturalist

The next expert we needed to meet with was Tony Bertauski, a horticulturalist at Trident Tech. He talked about the difference between pest insects and non-pest insects. A pest insect is an insect that is harmful and destructive, and a non-pest insect is an insect that does not harm an environment. He let us look at a log that had been infested by a pest burrowing beetle. He also let us look at a pest moth and a non-pest moth, hissing cockroaches, and an ant farm. Skyler became very good friends with one of the moths that day.

Our visit with Tony Bertauski helped us a lot, and it was a really cool experience.

The Climatologist

We determined the first thing our team needed to do was talk to someone who knew something about the local climate. We spoke to Mr. Mark Malsick in October from the state climatology office and he told us the following:

There are many trends in the temperature data--going back to 1898 across our state. We looked at graphs from Charleston and Summerville and could see various warming trends like the one that occurred from 1898 to 1920 and cooling trends like the one in the 1970s. The warming trend of the early 20th century occurred at a time when we weren't putting much Carbon into the atmosphere.

We may be in a warming trend but the current data is inconclusive. Temperature graphs across the state show both warming and cooling. In Beaufort, the trend is cooling, while Summerville is seeing warming. The SC average temperatures over the last 100+ years have varied 6 degrees. If we are warming, Mr. Malsick predicts that we will see more "tropical" type species of plants, insects and animals like alligators. Migrating species may stay longer. Some species will have a longer growing season to damage the native environment.

Now we had an understanding of climate change in our state.

The RESEARCH PROJECT

In First Lego League, there are four main scoring categories: the mission tables, the teamwork presentation, the robot presentation, and the research presentation. The research presentation is when we present the judges with all the information we learned while preparing for the competitions. This year's research project guidelines are that we must research our geographical area for something that is being impacted by climate change. We then make connections with another area in the world experiencing the same issue to learn how they are handling the problem and compare our solutions to theirs.
One week for homework, our coaches said that we need to bring in ideas for the research project topic. We all had really great ideas, from saving sea turtles due to erosion and higher sea levels, to drought and insect problems. We had a vote and the pest idea won. The insect that we are focusing on is the southern pine beetle, a small, destructive insect that kills pine trees by burrowing through it and spreading a fungus. The pine tree is being effected by climate change, and is becoming more susceptible (easily infected) due to a higher heat level.
Not only is the pine tree weaker due to increased temperatures, but those higher temperatures increase the reproductive rate of the pine beetle by allowing for an extra generation or two each season.
Now that we had a research project to focus on, it was time to talk to the experts.

Check back later for more on the Ice Wolves' progress!

What we've done so far...

The new team came together at the Trident Technical College in August, and we spent the first few weeks making progress. For example, we started the robot, brainstormed team name ideas and logos, and started our mission board.

Check back later for more info on the Ice Wolves, team 122!