S.H.A.R.P. Credits

The Super Hydroponic Awesome Radish Project would not have been possible without the assistance of several very helpful people. To these we owe our thanks:

Miss Felicia Ledogar, our AP Biology teacher, was the driving force behind this project. It was her idea to make all the AP Biology students do this, and she supported us 110% for the duration of the project. It seemed that as we invested more and more effort in the project, Miss L matched our efforts. She gave us lots of helpful suggestions for how to make our project work, and she provided all sorts of equipment from a shower curtain to help control the heat to the Perlite in which we planted our radishes. Miss L also helped and encouraged us when we had chemicals all over the biology lab to make a nutrient solution.
Another instrumental force in our project was Ms. Terry Vitiello, our other AP Biology teacher. Ms. V complained that we never listened to the advice she gave us, but in truth her advice saved our project multiple times. It was Ms. V who first pointed out that the hydroponic system we set up was not going to work at all, and this advice came right when we were about to leave school for the weekend. If not for Ms. V, we most likely would have come back to dead plants on Monday. Ms. V also advised us not to reformulate our nutrient solution when the radishes weren't growing very fast, and this turned out to be very good advice. We tested a few radishes in reformulated solution, and they didn't taste as good as the ones we left in the normal solution like Ms. V said. Additionally, Ms. V dared to taste and report on our experimental radishes (Miss L wouldn't go near them).
We owe the success of our nutrient solution to the two AP Chemistry teachers at NHHS, Mr. Pat Gibbons and Mr. Mike Kost. Mr. Gibbons lent us lots of chemistry equipment and helped us out when we needed concentrated nitric acid. He also helped us dig through the chemistry closet to find the chemicals we needed for our solution, and when we couldn't find the right chemicals he went back and dug some more until we had all the stuff we needed. Mr. Gibbons was also brave enough to try the radishes we grew hydroponically. Although Mr. Kost wouldn't dare to try the radishes, he lent us even more chemicals and chemistry equipment and also let us use his lab several days after school to mix dangerous chemicals. Both Mr. Gibbons and Mr. Kost gave us an immense amount of chemistry advice. (Help! What is this stuff in the bottom of the flask? How do I make it go away?) This project would have been in real trouble if not for the help of our chemistry teachers.
We also owe great thanks to Mrs. Holly Nicholson for her support of the project. Ms. Nick lent us all sorts of equipment throughout the project, from meter sticks to power strips to magnetic stirring machines. She also deserves credit for putting up with the mess of chemicals and other stuff that we left around her prep room. Ms. Nick tasted radishes three times for us without even a hint of reservation.
Mr. Louis Mazella helped us out several times during the project by giving us advice and equipment. It was his idea to put the harvested radishes in water so they would taste better. He, too, was brave enough to try the hydroponic radishes. Mr. Mazella deserves special credit for being generous and helpful even though Miss L and Ms. V insisted his name was Modzilla, which got on his nerves.
A special contributor to our project was Maritza Casana, a scientist working for Besch Industries in Ecuador. Though we have never met Maritza, we have communicated several times by e-mail, and despite the language barrier Maritza provided us with lots of advice on hydroponics and growing plants in general. ¡Un millón de gracias!
A number of others helped us with the radish taste testing: Mrs. Judy Cottingham, Mr. John Hahola, Faith Hale, Stephanie Hughes, Cuy Neugebauer, Spencer Nicholson, Emily Sielski, Matt Sisco, and Tara Westfield were all brave enough to try them. All these people are still alive today.
Additionally, we would like to thank FreeTranslation.com for its very useful service that provides this web site with multilingual support. We would also like to thank Antoine Bajolet for the use of his free search engine script, PHPDig, and Toan Huynh for the use of his terrific message board, tForum.

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