SSEP Blog – Ballston Spa, NY

At 9:00 am we received a call from the manager of the hatchery at SUNY Morrisville.  He had Tilapia but none of them were at a stage where they were big enough to breed.  He did indicate that Tilapia might be a hard fish to work with for this experiment because they are mouth breeders.  Even with this new information, we decided to stick with our decision.  It was our best option.  We still had a leed at the USDA as well as the company contact in Santa Fe that Cornell University had provided.  Our final list of materials was freshwater Tilapia eggs, and Town of Ballston Municipal Water with dechlorinator.  We even had to provide a listing of the ingredients on the dechlorinator bottle.  We submitted the information at 9:45 am.  Just shy of the 10:00 am deadline.

We reconvened and decided together that changing the type of egg from Minnow to Tilapia provided the best opportunity for our experiment to proceed.  We still didn’t have any eggs for the fluids and compatibility test but we had leads.   We would submit the changes to the materials list to SSEP by 10:00 am tomorrow morning.

If we couldn’t find eggs by December 27th, our experiment wouldn’t be able to fly.  The idea of breeding minnows looked like it wasn’t going to work out.  It takes about 8 weeks from the time you set up a tank to the point where the fish are acclimated enough to make breeding possible.  We only had three weeks.  Ms. Rossi and Ms. Irwin spent around five hours this afternoon on the Internet and phones trying to figure out where they could locate eggs and what type of eggs should go on the final materials list.  They spoke with people in Washington, Texas, Florida, etc.  Suggests for the type of fish ranged from trout (too big), Nemo fish, to Tilapia.  A call to faculty in Cornell University’s Department of Biological and Environmental Engineering provided the idea of Tilapia eggs as well as a lead to a possible company that could provide eggs.  Tilapia are breed for food year round and seemed like they might be able to be obtained by the deadline.   The calls to the contact went directly to voicemail.   They also provided us with a contact at the USDA who also didn’t answer his phone.  We also realized that SUNY Morrisville produced Tilapia as part of their Aquiculture Program and were hoping they might be able to provide eggs.

With all of the hatcheries in NYS as well as colleges that support agriculture, we thought someone might be able to help us find minnow eggs.  We are now finding out that most people let minnows breed naturally and this is just the wrong time of year to find minnow eggs.  Most if not all of the hatcheries on the DEC list were shut down for the season.  SUNY Cobleskill could help us out with Trout eggs but they are 5 mm in diameter and will not fit into the experiment well.  A professor at Ithaca College does do research with the breeding of minnows.  Their mating and breeding can be used as environmental indicators.  Unfortunately she didn’t answer her phone or return emails.  We also left messages at SUNY Morrisville.

SSEP let us know that we had until 10:00 am on December 2nd to submit any changes to our list of materials.  ITA had come back to SSEP needing more detailed information about our water which provided the opportunity to make other changes to the materials.  The final list of materials would be submitted by ITA to NASA on December 2nd so whatever we put on that list was final.

By 10:00 am this morning we were beginning to think we might not be able to find Minnow eggs by December 27th.  We made a call to SSEP to see if there was any possibility that we might be able to use a different type of egg for the fluids and compatibility test.  We were told that whatever we submitted for the fluids and compatibility test was what would have to fly on the shuttle.  Could trout be a possibility after all?  Were there any trout eggs smaller than 5 mm?  We asked SSEP whether it would be possible to change the type of egg in our experiment.  Minnow eggs were the right size but just really difficult to find.

Eddie’s Aquarium World was able to give lots of advice as well as all the materials needed to attempt the idea of breeding minnows, except minnows.  The discouraging part was that they only had two minnows left in the tank and there was no way to determine if they were male or female.  Breeding minnows in December is a possibility if you adjust the temperature of water and amount of light to mimic the conditions of spring.  We could order minnows from a biological supply company or wait till Friday when Eddie’s got their next shipment of minnows.

When the 5th grade team from MTS was designing their experiment, they thought briefly about where they might get minnow eggs.  Since many of the biological supply companies sell Minnows, we thought they would be able to help us out.  Calls to the companies this morning made us realize that minnow eggs may be hard to find by the time we needed to ship them for the fluids and compatibility test on 12/27.  There recommendation was Zebra fish which produce eggs on an almost daily basis.  However, the eggs develop and hatch in 48 hours.   Any delay in the shuttle launch at all would affect the experiment.  We determined that maybe a trip to Eddie’s Aquarium World would help.

The team of 5th grade students from Milton Terrace South were thrilled to learn that their proposal had been selected as the proposal to fly on the shuttle from our community.  Dana and Kate both asked if they could scream when they found out the news.  However, they needed to put the excitement aside and get to work answering questions from the national review team on the experiment materials and handling requirements.  The national review team suggested that they switch from using just one egg to considering using more than one egg, in case the egg didn’t hatch.  They made the decision to put down 15 as a worst case scenario with the idea that they would probably end up using 5 eggs.  The review team also suggested that they switch from a Type 1 Well to a Type 2 Well so that you have more oxygenated water available for the fish after they have hatched.  This sounded like a great idea and the type of well was changed.  The changes to the Experiment Materials and Handling Requirements were submitted at 12:02 pm, a full 2 hours and 58 minutes ahead of schedule.

The final proposal selected by the national SSEP panel was from a team of three 5th graders from Milton Terrace South Elementary School who designed an experiment proposal entitled “Development of Tilapia Fish Eggs in Space”. The team includes Dana Betti, Jordyn Catherall, and Kate Yager. Their teacher advisers are 5th grade instructors Megan Otten and Angelo D’Annibale.

Read the official announcement at: http://ssep.ncesse.org/2010/11/ssep-is-proud-to-announce-the-student-proposals-selected-for-spaceflight-on-sts-134/

Two additional proposals were selected as Honorable Mention and submitted by High School students Denise Croote and Troy Mackey.  The High School proposals were entitled “The Effect of Microgravity on Bacterial Reproduction” and the “Effect of Penicillin in Microgravity”. Their teacher advisers include Mary Lou Stern and Mary Ellen Kusnierz, both science instructors at the Ballston Spa High School.

“The entire Ballston Spa community and our corporate partners at GLOBALFOUNDRIES celebrate the participation of our students in this national spaceflight project and the selection of the finalists who will now have their experiment on the space shuttle flight in February”, said Superintendent of Schools Joseph P. Dragone, Ph.D.  “This type of learning is an example of what needs to take place in our classrooms to engage students in the skills necessary to be successful in their future education and the workplace of the 21st Century.”

The students will be recognized and congratulated by the Board of Education at the December 1st meeting.