Day 5 - Biotech Lessons

Morning awakening was great after an unusual night of fun. At breakfast I had some thing quiet close to what tasted like chichara, which is pig skin. That was great. We then headed to an Agricultural farm. We saw some familiar experiments like tissue culturing and hydroponics. The farm was built mostly around hydroponics, which are plants that are not grown in soil. Instead the plants solely rely on nutrient enriched water. There was green house upon green house of advance hydroponics work. There were certain green houses for melons and certain green houses devoted to vegetables, etc. We found our way into a green house designated for pumpkins. The pumpkins’ initial cultivation was June 1st and they already weighed 100 kilograms. These green houses inspired Mrs. Simonson and Mrs. Grimes to make a hydroponics green house at the Mesa High Biotech academy because of the science involved. Mrs. Simonson said she had never seen anything like that in her life, so she wants the students to start planning for a hydroponics green house.

After we saw the sophisticated hydroponics systems we visited a historical farm nearby that was suppose to represent how ancient farmers of the past worked on their own farm. There we saw donkeys pulling a huge rock looking stone which was used as a tool to crush corn. We saw the actual animals which were kept on the farm during that time period. Following our tour of the historical farm, we traveled back to the hydroponics farm and had lunch. Our lunch consisted of fresh vegetables that were grown in the hydroponics farm. It was delicious. After lunch we departed to the houses of local current farmers in the area, and mingled with there families. They showed us their houses and we realized how similar the apartments were to the United States. The Chinese government took the land from the farmers and built apartments for the farmer to sell, because they were in prime land near the city. The farmers invite tourists to their houses as their only other source of income. However, they do farm a community garden where every in the apartments have access to the fresh fruit and vegetables grown in the garden.

At 2:00pm we departed back to the hotel and prepared ourselves for the Biotech Lessons for a school. The Chinese school didn’t want us Americans to visit the school just in case we had the H1N1 virus. Instead we set up the experiments in the hotel conference room. We did three labs; they were the Epidemic lab, the DNA Bracelet lab, and the Fruit DNA extraction lab. The students from the school had a lot of fun, especially with the Fruit DNA extraction. Of course we had fun as well. During the labs, the Chinese students were taking pictures of us when we were in front of the class. We almost felt special. Then after the labs were finished, everyone headed out and started talking to each other and we were also taking picture with the Chinese students. The Chinese loved this experience so much that they didn’t want to leave; in fact, we didn’t want them to leave either. After our good-byes and networking exchanges, we headed to the hotel to get ready for dinner. The teachers told us not to change out of what we were wearing to the Biotech Lessons we gave. We went to dinner with matching black polo shirts and black pants. At dinner, the food was the same as the past days. So there were no surprises about what food was what. At night we sat and watched T.V. which by the way was all in Chinese. We learned the Lakers are up 2-0 in games, and that’s all we know. Tomorrow, we head back to Beijing, and then from there we are taking an overnight train to Xian.