By Tess Peterson
Staff Writer
SPRINGFIELD – Walk through the second floor of Sangamon Hall, and you will see a tank
with 10 minnows darting about.
On the shelf next to it, you’ll see tanks without any fish.
There once were 10 minnows in each, but some died during a biology experiment set up by Biology Professor David Cox. The lab was designed to mimic the impact of human waste on aquatic environments.
Each tank began with the same water, but Cox added nitrogen and acid to the tanks to different levels marked on the side of the tanks.
Cox developed the experiment to get students to take a hands-on approach and learn about science.
“This provides the best results. It’s always better to do it, firsthand, and not just hear or read about it” Cox said.
There were 125 students involved in this project from different sections of biology classes. The students did this as classwork to better understand what they were learning in class.
Student Hope Maxon said the project initially was not that interesting. But after getting into the experiment, Maxon changed her mind.
“I’ve come to appreciate and see the point that Professor Cox was trying to get us to understand,” Maxon said. “Professor Cox wanted us to see, firsthand, how human created waste can make its way into other organism’s bodies and potentially kill them.”
Once Maxon came to this realization, the project took on a relevant purpose.
As the experiment played out some interesting challenges were presented. The students set up a control tank, and several tanks with minnows. Each week a lab was conducted in each class, during which the minnows were exposed to more acidic or basic water. This was simulating human waste.
Not surprisingly, the minnows in the acidic water at a level of 18 parts per million (ppm) of nitrogen, began to die.
The challenge for the students – and Cox – was that the minnows in the tanks with an acidic level of 10 ppm of nitrogen began to die earlier than those with the higher level of acidic water.
“I don’t know about my fellow classmates, but I was expecting those minnows to live at least until November,” Maxon said.
Cox is happy with the participation and renewed scientific interest of his Biology students after working on this experiment. The challenges of the minnows in the less acidic water dying before those in the more acidic tanks has resulted in some students, including Maxon to want to pursue this project further.
In fact, Cox plans to conduct the same project with a few minor adjustments with his students next semester.
Tess Peterson can be reached at [email protected].