UA scientists, Alpena HS students team up for research
October 23, 2007Contact Information:
Dr. Dirk Philipp, Assistant Professor, Animal Science
479-575-7914 / dphilipp@uark.edu
By Fred Miller, Science Editor
479-575-5647, fmiller@uark.edu
Dirk Philipp, assistant professor of animal science, records measurements of plant height made by Ashley Paul, a senior at Alpena High School. measures the height of foxtail and cowpea plants used in the study. Philipp works with Paul and her brother Wes, an Alpena ninth-grader, on a research project to determine the potential of foxtail and cowpeas to remediate phosphorus-saturated pasture soils.
Wes Paul, a ninth-grader at Alpena Junior High School, cuts samples of the foxtail and cowpea plants for a research project to determine their potential to remediate phosphorus-saturated pasture soils. Paul's sister, Ashley, a senior in Alpena High School, collects the samples, which will be measured for biomass, water content and nutrient uptake.
FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – Alpena High School senior Ashley Paul measures the height of a cowpea plant growing in a greenhouse and calls out the figure to Dirk Philipp, an animal scientist in the University of Arkansas System's statewide Division of Agriculture.
Philipp, also an assistant professor of animal science in Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences at the University of Arkansas, records the measurement and waits for three more from the same test plot. When the next period begins, Paul's brother Wes, a ninth-grader, joins them in time to begin cutting the plants from each plot, which will be measured for biomass, including weight, water content and phosphorus content.
The aim of the student research project is to find plants that can be used to remediate pastures that have been overloaded with phosphorus after years of poultry litter applications. Two plants, foxtail and cowpeas, are being examined for their potential to take up phosphorus from the soil.
Philipp helped the students set up the research and helps guide them through the data collection and analysis. Some of the more complex analyses, including measurement of phosphorus content, will be done using scientific instruments at the Division of Agriculture's Arkansas Agricultural Research and Extension Center in Fayetteville.
Alpena science teacher Mark Welch began a program of independent student research projects and cross-curriculum education in 1997. Today, Welch and fellow science teachers David Good and Roger Rose work with English, math and agriscience faculty to help students produce top quality research.
"The students work on these projects on their own time and can count on the support of the administration and faculty," Welch said.
In 2004, agricultural science teacher and Bumpers College alumnus Chris Adams encouraged Welch to enter FFA Agriscience Fairs. Adams suggested that Bumpers College faculty could help, and put Welch in touch with Gary Davis, student recruiter for the poultry science department. Davis helps match Alpena students with Bumpers faculty.
Since the student research program began, Alpena High School has won back-to-back national championships in the FFA National Agriscience Fair, two state overall championships in the Arkansas Science and Engineering Fair (beating much larger schools, including the Arkansas School for Math, Science and Arts in Hot Springs, Pulaski Academy and Little Rock Central), five Class 1A state championships in the same fair and four overall championships in the Northwest Arkansas Regional Science and Engineering Fair.
Alpena students have won a total of 654 awards since 1997, including 22 state champions, 26 state runners-up, 97 regional champions, and one Intel Science Talent Search state finalist. A complete list would go on for pages.
Welch said that, since Bumpers College faculty began working with his students, Alpena has never been beaten in a regional or state science fair.
"The Bumpers College faculty teach our students advanced techniques, let them use precision equipment, and help in innumerable ways," Welch said. "It amazes me that they'll drop whatever they're doing to come help us."
"Without all the assistance and special techniques they've taught the students, the road to competition would have been a lot harder," Welch said.
Some of the other student research projects with Bumpers College faculty include:
• 2007 graduate Julie Wilcox studied the effects of lighting color on food consumption in turkeys. She worked with poultry science faculty, including Gisela Erf, avian immunologist; Bob Wideman, poultry physiologist; Keith Bramwell, reproductive physiologist; and graduate student Olivia Bowen.
• 2007 graduate Cassandra Kerby conducted research to determine whether cool cell poultry houses provided less heat stress for birds than conventional poultry. She worked with Erf and Bowen and found no statistical difference between the two types of houses.
• Senior Dalia Garrison is studying how variations in plant anatomy may contribute to how cotton cultivars handle heat stress. She works with Derrick Oosterhuis, cotton physiologist in the department of crop, soil and environmental sciences.
• Junior Ashley Smith studies whether vitamin supplemented feed helps slow the onset of vitiligo in Smyth line chickens, which have been bred with the genetic disorder that causes the non-infectious disease in birds and people. Smith worked with Erf, who also provided the Smyth line chickens.
News releases and photos are available online at
http://arkansasagnews.uark.edu/392.htm