Unit 10 Reflection

This unit was about the anatomy and physiology of the human body and how the different components work together to maintain homeostasis. Homeostasis is the process of maintaining the bodies internal conditions and making sure everything is stable within it. The different systems are the circulatory, respiratory, nervous, endocrine, digestive, immune, and lymphatic. The circulatory and respiratory system work together to supply oxygen to the body through a system of arteries and veins which supply oxygen rich blood. Once the oxygen diffuses into the cells, oxygen is replenished through the lungs and supplied to the the body once again. The nervous system and endocrine system use electrical impulses and hormones respectively to communicate throughout the body. The nervous system is faster, while the endocrine system is longer but has a more lasting change. The immune and lymphatic system fight against pathogens and destroy waste within the body through the use of white blood cells and muscles. Some things I wanted to learn about more were how the lymphatic and immune systems are connected and what exactly a inflammatory response is, since I did not truely understand that.

Posts from this units:

• Pig Dissection Relate and Review
• 20 Time Final Post
• 20 Time Individual Reflection

     Since the beginning of the year I have not only grown as a scientist, but also as a person. I have learned to cooperate with others through our many projects and tested my limits by accomplishing different tasks and gaining valuable experiences. I am proud of my blog and the work I have put into it. At the beginning of the year I was skeptical about the idea of blogging, but running this bio blog has not only made science more interactive, but also made it more interesting. 

Unit 9 Reflection

     This unit was about organisms and how they are classified into evolutionary relationships. Organisms are classified based on their similarities and are named through the study of taxonomy. The largest taxonomic level is the domain, which consist of eukarya, archaea, and bacteria. Archaea live in the most extreme of environments and look very similar to bacteria, but are genetically unique.  The kningdoms under Eukarya are the Animals, fungi, protista, and plantae. Their are many phylums under the kingdoms within eukarya, but they all fall under invertebrates or chordates. This refers to weather an organism has a backbone or not. We also learned about transitional organisms through the documentary our "Inner Fish". Transitional organisms such as Tiktaalik and Archeopteryx show how we have evolved over time and the evolutionary changes that have stayed with in our most recent days. All organisms can be shown to connect in a phylogenetic tree, which shows our evolution over time and the different nodes at which we interconnect.

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   One of the major projects done in the unit was the What on Earth Evolved project, I did my project on the yeast, and it helped me learn a lot about not just organism interdependence, but also to make a presentation and publicly speak. I had to research information about my organism but had not guidelines as to the critical information or how to present it, so this project forced to become independent and judge for myself what is important and what is not. Having created presentation in previous classes, I knew that it was important to only place the critical content on the board and to speak the rest of it since the audience will lose interest otherwise and will be waiting for the next slide. Using this tactic also forced me to memorize my content and truly understand my organism instead of reading of the slides and being an un-engaging speaker. This experience will help me in my TED talk since I will mainly be speaking and there will be few supplementary slides for the audience. It will teach me to be engaging and to understand my content rather than read from slides.

Blog Posts From This Unit:

• Blue Ringed Octopus Relate and Review
• Inner Fish Reflection

Unit 8 Reflection

This unit was about evolution and how it occurs in our everyday lives, and what factors effect evolution. The themes of this unit were evolution, and how evolution is connected with geology and the geological timeline. The parts of this unit include natural and artificial selection, allele frequency, speciation, the structural evidence of evolution, and how populations evolve. Natural and artificial selection act on the phenotype of different individuals, who must adapt to constant changes within their environment. Natural selection acts on these phenotypes  and in the process decrease the allele frequency within the population. This allows for speciation, in which related species no longer are able to reproduce with each other, and thus evolve into new species. The types of change that cause evolution within populations include genetic drifts, gene flow, mutation, natural selection, and sexual selection. These all change the allele frequency and affect evolution. Another theme that we learned about was how populations evolve. The three types of change are directional change, stabilizing change, and disruptive change. These show how the genotypes and phenotypes change, and are caused by the different types of change. Another theme we learned about was earths geological history and how earth formed. Earths history was caused by many major events, which include mass extinctions and adaptive radiation, in which their is rapid speciation from a common ancestor. Scientists use radioactive dating of radioactive isotopes in the rocks to determine age. Earths history is split into Eras, Periods, and Epoch's. This unit greatly relates to our previous units about genes, since evolution affects phenotypes, but has a greater impact on the genes of individuals. The labs we did in this unit include the:

• Hunger Games Lab
• Bird Beak Lab 
• Geological Timeline Reflection

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In my Unit 7 Reflection, I learned about my conflict style and found that my dominant style was assertive, though my second one was passive aggressive. I have taken steps to be more assertive in projects by making sure that I am not overpowering or aggressive to my teammates and to make sure that all people win, and that I am a good teammate. 

Unit 7 Reflection

This unit was about ecology and how different factors and decisions affect the biological lives of different species. The parts of this unit include energy movement, food webs, succession within ecosystems, and conservation biology. Energy move throughout the ecosystem through the use of the food web. The layers of the food web include: primary producers, primary consumers, secondary consumers, and tertiary consumers. They also consist of herbivores, omnivores, carnivores, and decomposers. The health of an ecosystem changes greatly based in a number of factors, including population, birth and death rate, and succession. Succession in the process in which new species will enter the ecosystem after the destruction of itself. A major theme of this unit was how everything about ecology connects to our everyday lives and how our ecosystems are threatened and that we should do something about it. One thing I want to learn more about are the solutions to many problems facing our environment and how everyday people can do their part in solving them. I wonder about why our government hasn't passed more laws concerning the well being of our planet and why we ignorantly continue to allow our plant to be destroyed. The content within this unit was easy to understand as the majority of it was big picture thinking or review from previous years, but it challenged me in more of a personal way in how all of the things i have learned affect me everyday and the impact they have on my life.

http://eschooltoday.com/ecosystems/images/Levels-of-Organization-in-an-Ecosystem.jpg

The main project we worked on in this unit was the Conservation Biologist project, in which we looked at the in-depth problems facing a specific biome. My group consisted of Andrew Gao, Sam Tiles, and Pranay Jalan and we focused on the African Savanah and the poaching problems facing this region. It was fun collaborating with others as I had the ability to bounce back ideas and have people to review my work and offer constructive criticism on my work. It also allowed my to focus more on my individual part knowing that others were taking care of theirs. It was a little hard mixing the multiple personalities, and the team contract was more of a burden to fill out rather than a tool to ensure proper collaboration, but it helped me learn how to deal with others and properly work together to achieve a common goal.

Link to Project: African Savanah Conservation Biologist Project

After taking the self assessment test to identify my preferred method of conflict management, I found that I was generally assertive, while my secondary response was to be aggressive or passive aggressive. I should try to be more passive at times, as that will help my assertiveness and tone down my aggression when working with others.

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Unit 6 Reflection

This unit was about the technologies in biology and their different applications in everyday life. Biotechnology is the study of the manipulation of living things and how they are changed in order to benefit mankind. The four applications of biotechnology are: industrial and environmental; agricultural; medical; and diagnostic research. Despite the many benefits that these four applications have given to mankind, there are many questions that are posed about the bioethics of gene manipulation and weather they fit our values and morals as a species. This part of biotechnology is important since scientists are constantly creating organisms and making different discoveries, but weather the applications of these discoveries the moral thing is something that must always be asked in science that changes the natural order of things. We also learned about recombinant genes, and how they are used to mass produce and create bacteria with a desired protein to be extracted. This involves extracting a gene using a restriction enzymes, inserting it into a plasmid, and mass producing the plasmid in order to create and extract the protein that is created from the gene. The three main technologies used in biotech are Polymerase Chain Reactions (PCR), Gel Electrophoresis, and DNA Sequencing. The process of PCR is to denature strands of DNA with heat, add a primer to specific DNA sequences, and to use DNA polymerase to read the DNA and mass produce it, creating multiple copies for analysis. Gel electrophoresis is when DNA is placed into a gel and ran through with a an electrical current, which separates the DNA by size and allows for them to be more easily analyzed. DNA sequencing is used to determine the exact sequence of a gene and uses DNA polymerase and dyes to allow a computer to read it and analyze it. This was a fast paced unit and I had a hard time understanding some of the concepts until we did the labs, which gave us hands on experience and allowed us to truly see how the technologies are used and their  applications in real life.

We did three labs in this unit which all helped me understand the concepts behind the different technologies. In the Recombinant DNA lab, we used paper models to help us understand the role of restriction enzymes and how they cut plasmids and DNA to allow them to combine together. In the Candy Electrophoresis Lab, we ran different dyes in candy through a gel electrophoresis and analyzed them next to sample dyes, which helped us understand how gel electrophoresis is used and how it separates DNA by size.  In the pGLO Lab, we did the replication and combing part of Recombinant DNA, by combining DNA and plasmids through a process of cooling and heating and then mass producing the plasmids inside of bacteria to see how they are actually created and combined.

Links to Labs:

• Recombinant DNA Lab Analysis
• Candy Electrophoresis Lab Analysis
• pGLO Lab Analysis

I want to learn more about the industrial applications of biotechnology, since we learned about the diagnostic and medical applications through the pGLO lab and how that technology can be used to mass produce insulin and other medicines and how gel electrophoresis can be used to study DNA, but not about how biotechnology can be used in the industrial setting.

My goals from the New Years were to gain a 4.0 GPA in the second semester and to final in at least one speech and debate tournament by the end of the second year. I have yet to complete the first goal, but am making good progress towards the goal. The second goal is also incomplete but I have come very close in many tournaments, I need to continue practicing and become more knowledgeable on the analysis of current events in order to complete this goal and achieve future success.

Recombinant DNA Lab 

Gel Electrophoresis Lab 

pGLO Lab

Unit 5 Reflection

The theme of Unit 5 was DNA and how it affects our daily lives. It went over concepts such as what DNA is, how it is replicated, how DNA is used to create proteins, as well as how genes are regulated and expressed in cells. The main understanding of this unit was to understand how DNA affects and controls our whole lives. This unit taught us how to look at the big picture of DNA and not simply what it is, but how it in fact affects our whole bodies and how are genes are expressed to create organisms. My main strength in this unit was my understanding of how DNA is used to create. Through the process of protein synthesis, in which the DNA is transcribed to RNA and then translated to proteins, DNA is changed into proteins which act as the phenotype and expression of genes. The enzyme RNA polymerase reads the DNA split strand and changes the base thymine with uracil, create a single RNA strand. The ribosome then reads the RNA strand and reads it one codon at time (pairs of 3 bases which code for a specific acid) and creates the protein. The protein synthesis lab gave a visual representation of the process which helped me to understand it and allowed me to experiment with mutations and how they affect genes. One concept I had a hard time understanding was how genes are regulated and expressed due to the complexity of the concept and how it is intertwined with protein synthesis. The diagram during the Lac opperon do now gave me a greater explanation because it provided a properly labeled visual diagram which incorporated all the vocab from this concept. My notes during the vodcast were sub par which really hurt my understanding.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protein_biosynthesis#/media/File:Ribosome_mRNA_translation_en.svg

I learned that it is important to look into the deeper meaning of things and their effect rather then just taking them for face value. This was seen with DNA, as I learned about the actual effects of DNA rather than just accepting that there is something called DNA. I also learned that you should be willing to ask for help, as I asked my brother to help me with the concept of protein synthesis since he has taken biology before and is a biochemistry major.

http://biosocialmethods.isr.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/central-dogma-enhanced.png

From the Vark questionnaire I learned that I am mainly a visual and reading/writing learner, which is why I have started to learn more by using notes and drawing diagrams which give me a visual representation of certain concepts. I wonder how organisms were first able to create protein and other molecules when they first evolved since they had to first create certain organelles with out these processes. I feel that I am a better student today since I truly understand DNA and how it effects organisms, rather than in 7th grade biology where I new what DNA was but what is was and how it was different than RNA.

Unit 4 Reflection

Unit 4 was about sex. It went into the details of the sex cycle, genetics, and how genes affect our daily lives. The essential understandings were how do genes affect our physical traits and why is sex great. Through the genetics infographic, we learned about genetics and the different types of genetic inheritance. The coin sex lab gave a great explanation of how genetics work and how to use probability to predict different types of crosses, such as autosomal, x-linked, monohybrid, and dyhybrid crosses. The vodcast on meiosis gave a basic understanding of how meiosis and mitosis are different and the different steps of meiosis. I hard a hard time at first of understanding Mendel's 2 laws and how chromosomes split, but I understood better once I had a visual representation from the diagram and the passing on my genes mini lab. I easily picked up on the different types of genetic crosses and the different abnormalities that can occur since we learned the basics of them in 7th grade biology.
After taking the VARK questionnaire, my results were 7 Visual, 2 Aural, 6 Reading Writing, and 9 Kinesthetic. The results were what I expected because I generally learn either by watching someone or through using logic (not in the test) and examples. Currently I read over the notes and redo the CFU's to test myself, and answer the vodcasts my self to truly test weather I can understand the content. I can use more visual techniques such as notecards and color-coding concepts in order to properly absorb them while continuing my same studying ways. This will play to my learning styles as reading/writing but also the visual and kinesthetic aspects.

Unit 3 Reflection

       Unit 3 of biology was about the characteristics/structure of cells and how they function and create energy. The themes of this unit were how cells create energy, the different kinds of cells, the functions of cell organelles, and diffusion. Learning about osmosis and diffusion was easy because they are based of the principles of high and low concentration and how molecules move from low to high concentration. The vodcast on osmosis and diffusion helped to explain this, as it clearly showed how water diffuses to compensate for the size of other molecules. the egg diffusion lab clearly showed how osmosis works in real life conditions and gave a hands on experience into cellular biology. The vodcast on the different parts of the cell was interesting because it was done by someone else, and it gave a broader understanding of the functions of the different organelles. The microscope lab experiment helped to identify the different parts in cell and was very fun, though finding many of the organelles proved challenging. On the other hand, learning about photosynthesis and cellular respiration was harder than expected. Even though the vodcasts on these topics were very in depth, the complexity of the topics was much harder to remember. The text book notes gave an even deeper insight on the process that occurs in both, but the lack of background knowledge I had on both hurt me, as I didn't truly understand the reactions occurring in the cell. I still don't understand how exactly the cell converts light into energy, and weather the ATP is molecule or from of energy. This unit helped become a better student by forcing me to study and learn more about concepts I didn't understand. I previous years, I picked up and remembered lessons very quickly, so this unit was a change because I had to actually study on the topics of cellular respiration and photosynthesis. Some questions I have include: Is ATP and actual molecule or an invisible energy?; why do certain light waves have less energy than others?; If cells can still create energy without oxygen, how long can the body survive without oxygen?

Unit 2 Reflection

       Unit 2 of biology was about the chemistry of life and chemistry is used to create the cells and other parts of living organisms. The theme of this unit were how chemistry is used to create matter and in turn biology. This included sub units about the the different carbon compounds, the properties of water, enzymes and chemical reactions. Learning about the different carbon compounds and enzymes were easy because the fundamental chemistry of them is based of off carbon connections and in the case of enzymes, proteins. the The macro molecule vodcasts clearly showed how different structures of carbon can create different molecules with different purposes. This included carbohydrates, lipids, proteins, and nucleic acid. The sweetness lab showed the difference between complex and simple carbohydrates and difference in taste between them.  In the messing with enzymes vodcast, it clearly explained the factors that effects enzymes and how they can be denatured. The experiment we did on cheese curdling was a very fun way to learn about how different environmental conditions can effect enzymes and to further our understanding of them. On the other hand, I had a hard time with the properties of water, in particularly polarity and how it allows water to easily combine with itself and other molecules. I still don't fully understand the meaning of polarity and weather other molecules not known as water can be polar. Despite doing the vodcast, it would have been nice to do an experiment on it to gain a further understanding on it. The properties that make water wet were easy to understand and I learned what they are, but polarity and how it effects water still confuse me. I learned from this unit how chemical reactions take place and how different conditions can effect what happens. This can help in the future with biology because chemical reactions and chemistry itself is very important in biology and chemical reactions happen at a microscopic level in cells to allow the body to properly function. One thing I want to learn more about besides polarity are ions. Despite knowing that hydrogen ions effect the pH level of compounds and molecules, I don't fully understand what an ion is and how it can make a compound a acid or a base. are there any molecules besides water that are neutral on the pH scale. I also want to know more about activation energy and how chemical reactions are able to absorb energy. How do they collect and harness the energy to create more chemical reactions? How is energy created from the breaking of chemical bonds? Are bonds created from matter or are they just a chemical attraction holding them together. These are some of the questions I have and things I wonder about.