- Paschal High School
- Science Club
Two Seniors Present Research in Far West Texas!
Posted by Whitney Smith on 11/13/2019
Two Seniors Present Research in Far West Texas!
Paschal High School seniors Mark Moses and Coleman Odom traveled to Sul Ross State University this past weekend in Alpine, Texas. They presented research posters at the Texas Herpetological Society Fall Symposium. The only high school students in attendance, all other presenters were graduate students or professional biologists!
Mark Moses coauthored a poster with science teacher Andrew Brinker that documented movement in the Clear Fork of the Trinity River between recaptures. The results supported the literature on home range and movement between sexes and age classes. The average movement was 674 meters for recaptured males and 433 meters for recaptured females. Large males moved the most at 808 meters between recaptures whereas small females moved the least at 204 meters between recaptures.
Coleman Odom coauthored a poster with TCU graduate student Shelly Wu and Paschal science teacher Andrew Brinker that identified 8 different taxa of diatoms in fecal samples of red-eared sliders. The education department at the Botanical Research Institute of Texas allowed Paschal to borrow a portable scanning electron microscope for a week. During that time several students and teachers used the microscope, and Coleman was able to use it for this research project.
After the symposium was over, the students traveled to Big Bend National Park for a field trip. At the park students were able to find and photograph the rare Big Bend Slider along with loggerhead shrikes and cactus wrens. After a five mile hike down the window trail the students returned to the Davis Mountains State Park where they camped for the symposium.
Congratulations to these students for such an outstanding accomplishment!
Thank you to the TCU Andrews Institute of Mathematics and Science Education for funding this innovative educational project. Thank you to Texas Parks and Wildlife Department for scientific research permits. Thank you to Tarrant Regional Water District for permits to conduct this research downtown Fort Worth on the Trinity Trails. Thank you to BRIT and Hitachi for providing the students with an opportunity to work with the scanning electron microscope. Thank you to FWISD and Paschal High School for supporting this educational adventure.