The Biology Lab Mess by Andrea

The Biology Lab Mess by Andrea - July 2026 Scholarship Essay

Back in junior year, I decided to continue my love for science and took AP Biology. It was at times very challenging since it was more detailed and more into depth on the topic. But I had my classmates help me at times and it all seemed to click. Once we got to our final project, where we choose to do our own experiment for about 3 months. I chose to do an experiment based on the importance of earthworms' presence during crop growth. I planned everything out with my lab partner, we got the soil, the worm food, the lima beans, and our tanks ready. But no earthworms. But finally, the very next week they arrived, but not alive, they were dead in a container with a strong smell that made me want to throw up. I was disappointed as time seemed to run out and I became impatient on when the next order would arrive. Since it took over a month for all the materials to arrive, I got the news that if my teacher were to order the earthworms again that I would only have about one month to do my experiment. I had to think of something fast, on my way home from school I looked up fishing placing, since fisherman use worms as bait. But as I looked through the website it stated that the worms were kept in a freezer and with that I didn't think it would be possible to obtain earthworms in time. But then I thought, why not just find the earthworms myself. So the very next day I went to my backyard, got my gloves on and started digging and collecting all the earthworms I could find. I found about 12 earthworms which was enough, so I brought them into school and showed my teacher and he was proud of me for finding a solution for my lab. So I finally got to work and set up everything to start my experiment. This experience taught me that there is always a solution to any problem presented, you just have to sometimes think out of the box.