Member Spotlights

Monica, Ventura County

Monica, Tapo-Simi 4-H Club, Ventura County

Monica doesn’t just ask questions about her surroundings, she designs experiments to test her hypothesis!

A member of the Tapo-Simi 4-H Club of Ventura County for nine years, Monica is now the vice president.  She has participated in the cooking, sewing, self-determined, camping and outdoor activities, leadership, and leathercraft projects.  In addition to these groups, Monica serves as the teen leader for the creative arts, crafts and hobbies project, where she is introducing earth-friendly crafts made from recycled materials.  She plans to lead the project in creating a tote bag from recycled drink pouches.

A true scientific thinker, Monica wondered how the local man-made lake was affected by runoff from the surrounding land. She came up with her own experiment titled, “Is it Safe to Go in the Water?”  In her experiment, Monica developed methods to test the water quality of Sinaloa Lake.  She monitored the temperature, bacteria, dissolved oxygen, pH, and nutrients of the water.  She preformed research, analyzed the data, and wrote a very comprehensive report.  The finished project won four special awards at the county science fair, and Monica then presented it to the 4-H club and her school.  She continued her research to further study algae blooms and coliform bacteria levels.

The next project she tackled was entering an agricultural competition with two other 4-H members, Kami and Laura.  The three girls designed an experiment comparing different delivery methods and types of fertilizer on potted vegetable plants.  Using tomato, bell pepper, and cucumber lemon plants, they compared three different fertilizer products with a control group.  The project was titled, “Mary Mary Quite Contrary, How Does Your Garden Grow?... with Potassium, Nitrogen and Phosphorous, our plants to sow.”  After collecting the data, they produced a creative video to present their conclusions.  They won first place in the contest!

Monica’s next goal is to start a science project in her 4-H club, explaining, “I hope to show some of our younger members how much fun science can be.  Maybe they will learn to love science as much as I do.”  In the future, she wants to pursue a career in either medicine or green technology.

Author: Vanessa Zubkousky, vzub@ucdavis.edu