Morgan Carr-Markel narrates her team’s experience of bringing honey-bees to the Midtown Farmer’s market in early July –

We had a lot fun leading a stall about honey bee biology at the Midtown Farmers Market on July 7th. Overall, 111 people stopped by and 85 people stayed for at least 5 minutes to learn more about honey bee biology. The star of the show was our glass-walled observation hive – drawing both kids and adults to watch the live honey bees go about their work. This year we had an activity where we asked visitors to look- not just for the queen bee- but also for workers, drones, eggs, larvae, capped pupae, honey, and pollen. This activity provided a great opportunity to talk with visitors about honey bee development, the different castes inside the hive, and bee nutrition. Some kids (and adults) were a little nervous about coming up to the bees, but after seeing their friends touch the glass most people came up and asked us questions.

Photo: Close-up view of a paint-marked queen honey bee laying an egg in our observation hive. She’s surrounded by a retinue of workers.

We also had an area for visitors to learn about beekeeping. Kids could try on a bee veil and touch a smoker and hive tool as well as a frames of wax. Nearby we had a hive box with wooden frames holding large photos of bees, which made a great educational display. Our honey bee trivia poster drew people who came to learn cool facts about honey bees (ex. Honey bees stay warm throughout the winter by clustering, eating honey, and shivering their flight muscles; Last year Minnesota beekeepers produced 7.81 million pounds of honey).

Photo: Claire Milsted and Shiala Morales talking with visitors about honey bee biology, native bee diversity, and how we can help all bees thrive.

It was great to talk with kids that had visited the native bee Market Science tables the week before and remembered learning about bees’ important role in crop pollination. We had an activity with pipe-cleaner “pollinators” and “flowers” made of jars filled with colored sand (pollen). Kids could move the pollinators from flower to flower and watch them move the colored sand from one to the other, thus “pollinating” the flowers. It was fun making the pipe-cleaner pollinators. In addition, we had a box of pinned bees of many different species from Minnesota to show the wide diversity of native bees here. Many people were interested in helping native bees and we gave out lots of flyers about programs such as the Minnesota Bumble Survey and Bumble Bee Watch as well as a list of flowers to plant for honey bees and native bees. Hopefully, together we can make our world a better place for both people and bees!

Photo: Chris Kulhanek using an educational frame to describe how honey bee workers grow and develop. The observation hive and smoker are to the right of Chris and the bee veil and pipe-cleaner “pollinators”/jars of colored sand “flowers” are to her left.

A big thanks to the volunteers who made the day possible: Chris Kulhanek, Isaiah Mack, Claire Milsted, Shiala Morales, Maggie Shanahan

A few Saturdays ago at Park Rapids Farmers Market, we plated leaves to look at the microbial endophytes living inside of them. Then we did some more leaves at Cedar Creek Ecosystem Science Reserve. Find yours below!

Park Rapids Farmers Market

Cedar Creek

The Blekhman Lab at UMN studies the human microbiome — that amazing, complex microbial community that lives in and on us! If you visited them at Midtown Farmers Market last Saturday, you got the chance to culture your own microbiome. See the photos below and match up your ID number (e.g., A1, A5) with the ID number in the photo to see how (a portion of) your microbiome looks when grown on an agar plate! There are also some additional lab plates that the Blekhman Lab did to give you an idea of what other microbiome members look like.

By: Amy Kendig

While viruses can cause scary diseases in humans, they are not always “bad”. For example, viruses can help plants withstand extreme conditions and humans fight against diseases. Viruses infect organisms from bacteria to elephants, and are important parts of ecosystems around the world. Last week at the Richfield Farmer’s Market, we talked about what viruses are made out of, who they can infect, and how they are transmitted.

Visitors used microscopes to observe aphids feeding on oat leaves. Aphids are one way that viruses can spread through a crop field or wild grassland. They carry the viruses that I study (Barley Yellow Dwarf Viruses) in order to understand how nutrients in the soil affect plant diseases.

While we can’t see viruses with our eyes, scientists have used powerful microscopes to figure out what they look like. Based on these pictures, young scientists built their own models of viruses. They used pipe cleaners to make DNA and Play-Doh to make protein coats because these are two main parts of a virus particle. We talked about what DNA is and how viruses can get inside of hosts. Once we figured out the basics, creativity took over and entirely new viruses were created!

Finally, visitors played a matching game to figure out which viruses are transmitted by which vectors to certain hosts. They learned that the names of viruses can be associated with the name of the host and that there are many types of vectors.

One of my favorite parts of Market Science is learning from the people that stop by. For instance, one visitor taught me that mosquito saliva can act as an anesthetic (causing numbness) when biting humans. This can make disease transmission more successful because we are less likely to swat them away. I spoke with another visitor about treatments for rabies virus that are used where he grew up in India. It was interesting to think about how there are multiple perspectives on virus (and other) biology, and the science I used for these Market Science activities comes from just one of these perspectives.

by Jake Grossman

Even though southern Minnesota is hitting peak leaf color right now, University of Minnesota tree lovers were talking about the transition from summer to fall at the Midtown Farmer’s Market on October 1st. Just like us, trees need to prepare for the winter. Unlike the tomato plants in your garden, which die off and can be replanted from seed in the spring, or prairie grasses, which go dormant at or beneath the surface of the soil, trees have have to survive winter with their entire bodies in the freezing air. Some of them even keep their leaves all winter – and supporting all of that living tissue in a cold environment can be a big challenge!

One of the most obvious ways that many trees prepare for winter is by shedding their leaves. During the spring and summer, green leaves, filled with nutrient-rich chlorophyll, make food through photosynthesis. As the days get shorter and colder, trees will suck up as much of the chlorophyll in their leaves as they can. This is a way of recycling nutrients, which can be used next year. The leaves are left without much green pigment, but with plenty of the anthocyanins and carotenoids that produce red, orange, and yellow colors. This is why leaves change color in the fall. The reds and yellows we see in October aren’t new pigments – they were there all along, hiding behind the green. After trees have taken as much out of their leaves, they let them “senesce,” or die off in a controlled way. This is different, and less damaging for the tree, than the freezing damage that you will observe if you leave your houseplants outside during a hard frost.

Minnesota’s trees are preparing for winter on the inside, too! To stay alive, they need to have a constant flow of water running from their roots to their crowns through the long, thin passages called xylem. These structures are like the veins and arteries of the tree, and they function like drinking straws: a bubble or interruption in flow can cause the whole xylem vessel to stop working. If water in the xylem freezes in the winter, it can create air bubbles (air is pushed out of liquid water when it freezes), which disrupt xylem flow. This is called “cavitation,” and must be avoided. Plants have many mechanisms to do so, including, in some species, the creation of natural antifreeze!

At Market Science, we want you to pay attention to how trees prepare for winter. So we asked visitors to become scientists and use a tool that many of us employ in our own research: “litterbags.” Fallen leaves are often called “litter,” so a litterbag is just a mesh bag filled with senesced leaves. Scientists interested in how quickly leaves decompose can put leaves of a known weight in a litterbag, leave them out in the world, and weigh the leaves after some time has passed. The rate of their decomposition can tell us about the leaves’ chemical composition and the environment where they were decomposing. Our visitors got to do this, too, by making litterbags filled with leaves from oak, pine, eastern red cedar, box elder, and basswood! These newly trained litter scientists will place their bags around their homes and yards and check them periodically to see how decomposition proceeds for their leaves of choice.

Thanks to everyone who came out to learn about the ways that MN trees prepare for winter. Two pieces of news for those who visited us:

1. In case you were wondering, maples were the runaway favorite in our poll of favorite fall foliage, beating out birches, aspens, and oaks.

2. If you brought home a litterbag, keep an eye on it as we move through winter and spring. If you take a picture of it decomposing next year and send it to Market Science, you’ll be entered in a drawing to win a tote bag. Get in touch here.

by Drs. Katie Liberatore and Marisa Miller

Did you know that Aegilops – the name for a genus of grasses including wild wheat relatives – is the longest word in the English language in which the letters are arranged in alphabetical order? This was just one of the many fun facts shared by volunteer scientists and educators at the Market Science booth this past Saturday at the Midtown Farmer’s Market.

An ancestral wheat head!

USDA-ARS (Agricultural Research Service) scientists Katie, Veronica, Marisa, Jitendra

We talked a lot about domestication of cereal crops this week, particularly wheat and barley. Humans began the process of cultivating these plants for use in the fertile crescent around 10,000 years ago. Some were interested to find that barley had a second point of domestication in western Asia. Modern cultivated wheat and wild species were on display to give an in-person view of how plants have been adapted to modern agriculture practices by humans. We discussed how the ancestors to both plants used to have “shattering” seeds that readily fell off the plant – this was important to spread the seeds in the wild. However, people selected for “non-shattering” plants so that all of the grains stay put until ready for harvest all at once. Market-goers were able to look under the microscope to view “shattering” versus “non-shattering” seeds, which have smooth and rough break-points from the plant, respectively.

Market-goers were able to test their knowledge of where in the world cereal grains, pseudocereals, and and grain legumes were domesticated with a fun matching game. Those who were paying attention in the first lesson were able to place wheat and barley on the map right away. Some crops were much more difficult to match to their point of origin – most were surprised that peanuts were first cultivated in the Andean region of South America!

What defines a cereal versus a pseudocereal versus a grain legume? Good question! True cereals all belong to the grass family (Poaceae). True cereals include wheat, barley, oat, rye, corn, rice, sorghum, millet, and teff. Pseudocereals are not grasses, but are used for nutritional purposes like cereal grains. These include buckwheat and quinoa. Grain legumes are subset of legume crops that are grown for consumption of their seeds. These include peanuts, soybean, and chickpea.

Budding artists had fun trying their hands at seed art. For the more scientific of the bunch, matching the grains to the proper plant was fun, while others chose to decorate farm scenes. Some market-goers even honored Prince with Purple gRAIN art. It was a great day at the Market! We hope to see you next Saturday.

This week at the Market, we talked all about butterflies and the many types of butterflies that you can find in Minnesota. Did you know that there are about 146 species of butterflies in Minnesota and the most of them survive the winter here just like us! Market-goers were able to meet some of these Minnesota natives butterflies and try to identify them. We had Pearl crescents, Cabbage whites, and Eastern tailed blues.

We also talked a lot about how butterflies make different patterns on their wings. Did you know that they are actually made from lots of tiny overlapping scales on the butterflies’ wings. In fact, the other name for butterflies and moths collectively is “Lepidoptera”, which means “scaly wings”.

We then talked about why butterflies have different wing patterns: to scare predators, to hide from predators, or to tell predators that they don’t taste good. Then junior market scientists were invited to color their own butterfly wings and there were a lot of great creative patterns!

We also talked about how butterflies have a very specific life-cycle. They start as eggs, hatch and grow as caterpillars, turn into a pupae in a chrysalis, and then emerge as the adult butterflies that we all see. Market-goers could play a guessing game to match the caterpillar with its adult and junior market scientists could make their own caterpillars to match the butterfly that they drew.

Lastly, Market-goers could learn about the very special butterflies in Minnesota that are currently at risk, like the highly endangered Poweshiek skipperling. Did you know that 15 species of butterflies are listed as Endangered, Threatened, or Special Concern by the State of Minnesota? Ten of these species depend on our disappearing native prairies. These Minnesotans are facing many challenges due to loss of habitat and other potential problems. We also learned about what places like the Minnesota Zoo and Monarch Joint Venture are doing to try and save these animals and ways that we all help butterfly populations in Minnesota!

On July 30, researchers from the Ishii laboratory at the University of Minnesota came out to the Market to demonstrate an innovative method for removing nitrogen pollution from water: woodchip bioreactors.

When nitrates build up in our local waters, algae blooms can develop which alter the water chemistry and make it difficult for many other animals and plants to thrive. Agriculture often needs to use nitrate-based fertilizer to grow crops, so researchers have worked to find ways to remove this nitrate from water draining off fields. Woodchip bioreactors are a sustainable method to remove up to 50% of the potential nitrate pollution!

The woodchips act as a home and food for many small bacteria (tiny organisms or microbes). As we need oxygen to breathe, the microbes use the potentially polluting nitrate and breathe out (respire) nitrogen gas (NO2), which isn’t a pollutant. Then the water can run-off to nearby streams and eventually lakes with far less nitrate!

Woodchips are a food source for the bacteria!

We looked at bacterial colonies, the microbes that do the work in a bioreactor!

The systems are constantly being improved. The Ishii lab studies the microbes to try and select bacterial types that are more efficient at removing nitrates. Other researchers study the best ways to move water through the systems. Many farms in Minnesota and elsewhere already have woodchip bioreactors in their fields.

Thanks to the microbiologists of the Ishii Lab!

by Kevin Theissen

Our planet is a dynamic, ever-changing system and this past Saturday at the market we explored the fascinating science of geology with a team of students and faculty from the University of St. Thomas.   Geologists use physical models to understand the natural behavior of streams like our local Mississippi River. The models provide insight on major processes such as erosion, transport, and deposition–and the sometimes hazardous consequences which include flooding and landslides. Visitors got hands-on experience investigating the interactions between water flow and landscape with a table-top stream table. They created hills, dams, slopes, and stream channels and experimented with changes in the rate of streamflow. Visitors learned that the “sediment” for our stream table was an unexpected material—recycled toilet seats!

The Earth’s large crustal plates move at the rate that our fingernails grow and accordingly lead to much slower changes than rivers. Given hundreds of millions of years, however, those slow changes mean dramatic differences.   Visitors observed marine fossils of organisms known as brachiopods, bryozoans, and crinoids representing a shallow tropical sea that once covered the Twin Cities and much of southeastern Minnesota during a period of geologic time known as the Ordivician, more than 450 million years ago. Reconstructions of plate movements suggest that Minnesota was likely centered on the equator during this time.

Visitors also donned 3-D glasses to get dramatic views of a variety of important plate tectonic settings where plates converge, spread apart, and slide past each other.   Perhaps the best example of this is the Pacific ‘Ring of Fire’ which includes deep-sea trenches, mid-ocean ridges, and several large mountain chains.

Junior scientists topped all of this off by decorating their own pet rocks!