Mojave Expedition: March 24-28, 2014

 

Background material


Biological Soil Crusts:  Maestre 2006; Yeager 2007; Belnap 2004


Cholorphyll Extraction:  Castle 2010; Bowker 2002


Quantitative PCR & Sequencing:  Redfield 2002; Nagy 2005; Soule 2009



march 2014 Roster


Spaceward bound Students: 

Cal Poly Pomona: Devan Sexton, Jessica Andaya, Gabriel Martinez, Bill Weigel,

Veronica Rodriguez, Eduardo Renteria, Khamille Sarmiento   

Cal Poly San Luis Obispo: Gavin Schroter, Shane Johnson, Katie Boos,

Jessica DiMizio

San Francisco State University: Jenin Stephenson, Christian Engelbrecht,

Britne Lavergne, Nicole Ponce


CSU Research Students:

Cal Poly Pomona:  Joseph Rodriguez, Alex Oei, Ernesto Morales


CSU Faculty:

Rakesh Mogul (Pomona)

Ernesto Gomez (San Bernardino)


K12 TEACHERS

Geoffrey Payton (Orchard Academy 2B)

Sneha Tharayil (St. John Eudes School)

Juliana Capra (public charter schools)

Kristin Symer (Lynwood High School)


NASA and Affiliated Scientists, Staff, and STUDENTS:

Parag Vaishampayan (JPL)

Chris McKay (NASA Ames Research Center)

Jessica Cisneros (JPL)

Keith Schubert (Baylor University)

Rosalba Bornaccorsi (SETI Institute)

April Davis

Bonnie Buratti (JPL)

Danny Chau (SFSU)

Idee Belau (The Explorer’s Club)




FOcus Areas:


  1. •Biological Soil Crusts: microbial communities that aid in nutrient cycling in arid and semi-arid lands.

  2. •Soda Lake: microbiology of a dry alkaline soda bed.



Research topics:


  1. •Chlorophyll extraction on biological soil crusts

  2. •Genetic analysis of soda lake

  3. •Chemical analysis of soda lake

  4. •others TBD...


  1. •Data and manuscript analysis regarding 2012 results: elevation, soil & water content, microbial abundance & diversity of the biological soil crusts



program Tasks:


  1. •Developing standards-based lesson plans for astrobiology.


  1. •Building a real-time web-based expedition map.




March 2012