This week for Innovat[ED], we’ve developed and researched more into our hybrid trees project after receiving some feedback on what our next step is going to be from our teacher, Mr J. Our goals to complete by the end of the session was to look into how to create our own hybrid tree that way it can make the idea more realistic. Our other goals were to research how to plant and take care of hybrid trees as well as finding out how much greenhouse/toxic gases (on average) it can absorb after 10 years so that with this information we can convincingly advertise this idea.

So after researching online, I’ve found out about genetic engineering (inserting specifically one or more extra genes from one organism to another’s genome [1]) and genetic modification (when the organism’s DNA has been manipulated by humans). Through finding this information I decided that I’d have to use genetic engineering to create a hybrid tree. Before doing any genetic engineering, I’d first have to known how to extract the genes from the chosen trees first. After more research, I now know how to extract genes by crushing samples of the trees to break open the cells in order to extract the DNA. Acquiring this knowledge has been an exciting experience for me but realistically I don’t think creating a hybrid tree ourselves within 2 more weeks is quite possible because we have to consider amount of time getting the samples, experimenting extracting the DNA and inserting it, getting the right DNA, testing whether the tree actually grows into a tree that has the attributes and finishing our plan to promote hybrid trees.

Next week we’ll still be looking into how to create hybrid trees but that won’t be our main goal. Our main aim would most likely be completing our advertising plan and initiating it if possible within 2 weeks.

[1] Genome is a species unique combination of DNA.