Sub cultures in liquid media

Sub cultures of the fungi used in the kauri die back project - Trichoderma, Illyonectra and Fortini, and Agathidicida - were dropped into flasks of PDB and allowed to grow.  They were incubated at 20 degrees on the 'juggler'  ( a device that keeps flasks moving in a constant smooth fashion).  To give them sufficient time to incubate, Marg instructed me to check on them in about a week.

After four days, you can see the cloudiness indicating fungal growth.

Some cultures grow more slowly, and need more time.

ICMP

The International Collection of Microorganisms from Plants (ICMP) is located at Landcare Resource's Auckland regional office.  It is a major international collection of living cultures of plant associated bacteria and fungi from New Zealand, and from overseas as well.  There are over 20,000 strains of bacteria and fungi from plants and soil.  Megan is the collection manager.

Cultures are stored in liquid nitrogen at minus 196 degrees C by a process known as crypopreservation.

Elsa is depositing more specimens into the collection.

A methodical record of deposits and dispatches are kept in the lab.  to check that specimens remain viable, from time to time, Rose takes out culture and plates it to see that it incubates.  Scientists from all over the world request cultures, not just scientists from New Zealand.

Fungal cultures are stored in drinking straws! I sometimes cut plastic straws into 4cm lengths and seal the ends on this heat activated press to make storage units.

Cultures sealed in plastic straw cases and ready to be sterilised before storage in the ICMP collection.

Making PDA (gel) media

Potato Dextrose Agar (PDA) is made in a similar way,  mixed and sterilised in the autoclave; but then it is poured into petri dishes and left to set. 

As a guide, you can pour twenty plates from 500ml of PDA.  If you pour more plates, it means that the layer of nutrient is too thin and that there will not be enough food for the plated bacteria.  I am getting better at judging this, but my first pour produces nearly 30 rather meagre plates.

I

Making liquid media

The fungal subcultures for the kauri die back need to be grown in liquid culture, so first I had to make Potato Detrose Broth.  This has the same nutritional content as Potato Dextrose Agar (PDA) but is in a different form.

I use my lab notebook to write down exactly what I have to do, so that I have a reference for later and can look things up, a little like CBS Maths modelling books

You need to mix up the liquid media very thoroughly.

Pouring the liquid media into flasks.

The media must be sterilised in the autoclave.  As a check, the stripes of the tape go black after being autoclaved.

Easter at Landcare

The office staff arranged an Easter morning tea and chocolate treats for the staff everyone appreciated the kind gesture and made an effort to attend.

Over Easter, we drove up to Northland and paid our respects to Tane Mahuta in the Waipoua Kauri Forest.  It was gratifying to see visitors taking the cleaning procedures seriously and cleaning their footwear thoroughly.

This article was in the New Zealand Herald - kauri die back and the precautions the public can make
is increasingly in the media.

Pest survey

The curator of Systematics sent an email to his team alerting them to the Auckland Regional Council's deadline for feedback (28th March) about the Regional Pest Management Plan (RPMP).

The ARC has several environmental initiatives.  Two third's of Auckland's local native species are under threat of extinction.  The two major problems are the spread of kauri die-back disease and adequate pest control, especially for possums and marine pests that are becoming increasingly established in our ecosystems.  The feedback form has a relatively broad scope but it comes down to two fundamental choices:

What level of additional investment do you support?

How should it be funded? (which directly impacts on funding proposals)

Bevan's alert to the scientists at Manaaki Whenua to give specific feedback is an authentic example of scientists participating and contributing to science; viz.  "It is important to give your informed option on matters such as ... funding for the RPMP ... these are areas that Manaaki Whenua has a strong interest and ability to effectively contribute ... strong public support will justify to the council that increased investment is important"

Bevan's email to staff

I sent in my feedback as a member of the public.

Student leadership

As part of one of our leadership workshops, we worked in groups to devise ways to improve our school.  these two ideas were deemed the best, and if implemented would do much for student leadership.

Student activated ways to get teachers to playground duty on time

Student activated ways to keep track of, and locate, lost uniform items.

STLP goes South

While our class time was full and rigorous, there were still opportunities to network while enjoying some of Dunedin's pleasures.

I arrived early for the course and took the opportunity to visit the Albatross Centre.  It was an ideal
time as fledglings were still in their nests with young adults gliding above, and parents looking to land. 

We visited Orokonui Ecosanctuary as a group - we split our time between observing
the wild life outside and reflecting on our personality profiles inside!

The bird life was amazing - it was fantastic to see native birds close up .

It was a delight to stroll through the iconic university grounds each day.

We were driven to and from the airport in absolute style.

Leadership PD

The STLP2018a team had an intensive five day leadership course, based at the University of Otago.  The focus was on transformative leadership whereby you lead, motivate and facilitate others to embark on science teaching, which is guided by you but owned by all.  

A major part of the PD was finding out your own leadership style and working with it to the best advantage: identifying and utilising your strengths; identifying areas which need work and practising ways to improve them.  To provide base line data, we asked people who work with us to complete an observers questionnaire, which we also completed ourselves, so we could compare our personal assessment with those of others.

Questions in the observer survey

Sample questions in the personality survey

Hard at work - thoughtful presentations and interactive workshops

Monitoring meetings

Jenn and Janine arranged to meet each of the teacher participants for a series of monitoring meetings: with the host at the host company, by themselves off-site and with their principal at their school. 

Janine visited Manaaki Whenua on 14 March to discuss my progress in phase 1 with Megan, followed by a tour of the facilities.  Janine and I discussed my goals over a very pleasant lunch at Columbus, followed by a meeting at Cockle Bay.  Our principal, Dorothy, deputy principal, Paul, and science curriculum leader, Gillian were also present. All the meetings were fruitful.   The school meeting considered the current science development plan and how my phase 2 initiatives will connect with Gillian's.  There was discussion about the STLP planning meeting at the end of phase 1 and the pros and cons of different data collecting to monitor both our teacher and student science engagement. 

My meeting withe Janine narrrowed my focus to concentrating more strongly on phase 1: taking advantages of opportunities to observe best science practice in schools, working independently ata suffciently high level to be a real benefit to projects; and establishing a candid working relationship with the sensior leadershp team to ensure phase 2 is implemented effectively.

Discussion document for the school meeting

Discussion document for goal setting with Janine.

Kauri die-back project

After our induction by Megan, Maj gave us our instructions to start the next part of the kauri die-back project.  We grew a lawn of Phytophora agathidicida and then plated it so that there were nine plates of 17027QU Q261 and seven of 20274QU Q261 (The permit number Q261 must always be displayed) .  

We also grew three other fungal cultures to cover the plates: Trichoderma (green),  Illyonectria (orange) and Fortini (green/black).

Then we took a small plug of each of the fungi, and placed it PTA, at the edge of the petri dish, and measured the growth for a week.  We marked the outer edge of growth with a thin marker pen each day to monitor growth for nine days.

Illyonectira

Fortini grew very slowly.

Trichoderma grew the fastest, and outgrew the agathidicada.