Queen of Science - 15 Experimental Design

As Fern and Emily get closer to the lab entrance, they can hear people arguing. The irritated and firm sound of Dr. Martin’s voice clashes with the concerned voice of an older man. With Emily trailing behind, Fern hesitates for a second before creaking the door open and poking her head in.

The older man is sat down and holding a cup of tea. Martin dwarfs the man as she paces back in forth in high heels. After taking a sip from his cup, the man sighs and says, “You don’t have to like it. No one likes it.” Looking up to stare at Martin, he says, “You just have to deal with the politics.”

With a frown, Martin keeps pacing and says, “No, I do not. I’ve done the science and published my work- that should be enough.”

The older man rubs his temple and responds, “Getting published isn’t enough. You have to talk to the public, educate policymakers, collaborate with peers-”

Fern watches as Martin gets increasingly irritated and paces back and forth faster while the man lists of her responsibilities. Cutting the man off, Martin declares, almost to herself, “I won’t. My work can speak for itself. I won’t kiss up to those people.”

Understanding that he cannot get through to Martin, the man droops and gets up to leave. “Well… I hope the best for you and your work. Drop by my office sometime, Sarah.” As the man gets closer to the door, he sees Fern and gives a quick smile. Making eye contact with her, the man says, “Ah- so you’re the new research assistant.” Reaching his hand out, he says, “Lovely to meet you. I’ll probably see you in later year biology courses.”

Still stunned by the conversation she just witnessed, Fern opens the door entirely and shakes his hand without saying anything. After making awkwardly prolonged eye-contact with the man, she stands off to the side and lets him pass by. Once he’s gone, Fern looks back into the room and finds Martin. Dr. Martin looks like she has returned to her usual calm, collected self, but who knows. Skipping pleasantries, Martin asks, “need something?”

“I was going to start working on the experiment and get supplies.” Turning back and tugging Emily in the room with her, Fern says, “I brought my friend to help- that okay?”

Sitting at a lab bench, Martin dismissively says, “sure” and cuts off the conversation.

Unsure what to do, the two friends awkwardly sit at the other end of the lab bench. After a couple minutes of Fern trying to come up with conversation starters and peaking at the professor, Martin gets fed up and asks, “need something.”

Before she can think, Fern blurts out, “tea?”

Dr. Martin responds by pointing to the university’s safety poster and saying, “No food or drink in the lab.”

Confused because the older man had tea, Fern starts to say, “but-” only to be silenced by Martin’s side-eye. Refusing to let the conversation die off again, Fern says, “I was trying to come up with supplies that I should get for the experiment, but I don’t know what you already have?”

“I likely have everything you need but the seeds. Have you decided what species you’ll study and how many you need?”

“Yeah, I thought that I would do green peas and I would get 1,500 because that’s how many you mentioned before.”

“Okay-” Mindlessly tapping her finger on her laptop, Martin frowns and says, “First, does the literature support that sample size or did you arbitrarily pick it? Second, it’s essential to consider various sample sizes before you settle on one. ”

Fern really felt well-prepared earlier today. Being told that she basically did not do the bare minimum is a hit to her self-confidence. Maybe she should slow down? But Fern does not have any time to slow down.

Seeing that Fern is upset, Martin looks stiff and says, “I forgot that you know little about the practicals of research- don’t worry.”

After Fern gives a small nod, Dr. Martin switches into teacher mode. She tells Fern to pull out her laptop and having her install a programming language and environment that is often used for statistics in biology. While waiting for everything to set up, Fern is instructed to write an outline of the experiment on a piece of paper. Luckily, the experiment is generally a simplified version of Mendel’s original analyses, and she thought about the design when making the project proposal, so Fern doesn’t take too long.

Once the download and installation are complete, Dr. Martin pops a USB stick into Fern’s laptop and uploads a code file. While opening the file in the programming environment, Martin assumes that Fern is listening as she starts talking, “Before you can think about getting supplies, you need to know what you need. We’re going to simulate the experiment and manipulate variables to see what’s necessary to get a statistical result.”

Leaning in close to the laptop and incidentally getting very close to Dr. Martin, Fern stares at the screen as she tries to make sense of the code. The words seem familiar, and the code looks easy to understand, but the more she inspects it, the less it makes sense.

As she scoots to the side and makes room for Fern, Martin says, “It’s code that simulates a generic experiment. You’re going to fine-tune it.” As she goes through the code and explains different chunks, Martin is surprised by how quickly Fern catches on. After an hour of teaching, Martin leaves Fern to learn on her own and try refining the code. Occasionally Fern gets stuck and asks for help, but she can usually answer most questions herself by looking at the language’s manual and online resources. Apologetic that Emily has nothing to do but sit around, Fern sometimes tries to walk her through her thought processes.

At ten o’clock the building closes. Although Fern and Emily technically could have stayed longer, they decided that it’s best to go home. As Fern is about to leave, she rocks back and forth on her feet and says to Dr. Martin, “Sorry, I wasn’t prepared today.”

“It’s fine, kiddo.” Martin was pleasantly surprised today by how Fern responded to her feedback and eagerly tried to learn. In her experience, most students would talk about how hard workers they are, but actually put in minimal effort. Martin half-jokingly and half-seriously says, “If you’re really sorry, you’ll have read the literature and finished simulating different sample sizes by tomorrow.”

Thinking that maybe she could actually do that, Fern grins, says, “okay!” and walks away with Emily.