Timeline reflection

One of the most important event in Earth's history if not the most important event was the beginning of life on earth. While scientist are unsure how life was initially formed, it is still undoubted one of the most important events, in earth's history for a couple of reasons. First, it was an extremely unlikely event, and was very complex. For that reason knowing how life first formed would be very helpful to understanding how we got to where we are, and how likely it is that life exists in other place in the universe. The other reason is that the first life, whatever it was, was the beginning of every living thing that exists, without that beginning no life would exist.

Another very important event in earth's history is the Cambrian explosion. It was during this event that life became more diverse. This event is important because it was the event that created diversity in life. During this event nearly all of the major groups of animals began to appear. It was this rapid diversification that led to the creation of many of the species that currently exist.

Another major event in Earth was when life first went onto land. This was also very important, because it was the beginning on life moving out from the oceans, and spreading out through the entirety of earth. This also marked the beginning of a huge new section of earth's history. It created a whole new place for life to expand, and evolve. This event is responsible from a lot of the diversity we see on this planet.

I was really surprised by how long life has been on earth, and that despite that, it was very simple for a very long time, and then is suddenly shot up in a relatively short period of time. It was also interesting to think about how huge Earth's history is, and that everything that we ware taught in our history classes are only a tiny portion of that history. It also profound to me that despite only having existed for a very short time humans have affected the planet so much. It is very weird to think that what took nature such a long time to create has been dramatically changed so quickly. The one question I still how is how did life first get formed?

Image from here

Hunger Games Lab

1. We did a lab that simulated evolution in a population by having everybody in the class divide evenly into three different genotypes(AA, Aa, and aa). We than had everyone stand in a big circle, and corks would be spread out in the middle. We would then go and pick up as many corks as we could. AA could only grab corks with their wrist                                    Aa could only grab corks between their 1st and 2nd fingers.  aa could only grab between their thumb and first fingers   Once all the corks had been picked up we would count how many we had, and if we got enough we could reproduce, and then it would repeat. 
2. The phenotype for picking up food between the thumb and first finger was the the best, because it could pick up the corks the fastest, and the most easily.
3. The populations evolved. We know the because the allele frequency changed. The initial frequency was roughly equal, with a at 48%, and A at 52%. The a:A ratio got to 73% : 27% in one round, but ended at 60% : 40%
                      
4. There were several things that were random in this lab such as the distribution of food, what offspring were produced by flipping the coin, and how aggressive people were in getting the food. The way people were required to pickup the food was non random. The random distribution of food, and the different levels of aggression resulted in some  people survived better based on luck, and not based on their phenotype.
5. The result would have been similar if the food had been smaller. The knucklers, and stumpys would have done worse, bet the pincher would still do the same. If the food had been bigger, then the knucklers, and pinchers would die off because they couldn't pick it up. That would represent a change in the available food supply.
6. If there was no incomplete dominance, then the knucklers would not exist, and the pinchers would be the most common, and the stupmys would still pop up occasionally, but it would be Mose difficult, and the allele would eventually disappear altogether.
7. Natal selection is the mechanism that allows evolution to happen. Without natural selection, then evolution would be completely random, there would be evolution, but it would be only due to sexual selection, genetic drift, and gene flow.
8. Some people were more aggressive, or used their hoods to store corks. This allowed them to do better. and increase their likelihood of reproducing. This made their allele(s) slightly more common, and this is similar to hen some animals are smarter that others, but it is not a genetic factor.
9. In evolution the population evolves. The individuals either die or survive, but the allele frequency of the population changes. Natural selection acts on the phenotype, but the genotype also changes, because the phenotype is what determines whether or not an organism survives, and the phenotype is determined by the genotype so that also has to change.
10. I still wornder why the knuckler did the best.

The best way to learn part 2

I have learned a lot about my topic of how to learn things faster. I have found some broad methods such as take breaks, and some more specific methods that focus on different tyes of learning(auditory, visual, etc.). I am having trouble finding multiple methods to test, so I created a survey to fugure out what types of tequniques people are already ulilizing. I shard this link through facebook, and I am continuing to reasearch tequniqes while I wait for results. Once I have results I will then come up with a way to test the methods, and cary out this test to determine which ones are the most effective. Once I have my results, this experement can be aplied to the way a lot of students study.

Bird Beak Lab

Part 1	Spoon Chicks	Binder Clip Chicks	Tweaser Chicks	Scissor Chicks	Totals
Total Chicks Born	21	9	29	12	71
Percent of Chicks Born	30%	13%	41%	16%	100%

In this lab we simulated natural selection by using tweasers, spoons, binderclips, and scissors to represent diffrent types of bird beakes. This lab showed two of darwin´s principles. One is thes individgals with better traits have more offspring. This is shown is our lab, by the fact that our beak that was the best, the twaesers created the most offspring at 29(see top graph) followed by 21, 12, and then 9, for the worst beak.

The other principle is that the populations look like the winners. This is also shown by our lab. We found that the tweasers had the best traits, and therefor had the most offsping and the population was becoming mostly with that trait. By only three years the population was 41% tweasears. The spoon was next with 30%, and the other two dropped to 16%, and 13%.


In our lab we asked the question if natural selection occurs in a population, how do changes in selective pressures affect the evolution of that species?" We found that if if there are winners, and losers in a evolution, the population looks like the winners, and the tweasers are the winners, then the population will be mostly tweasers. We also found that if we change the selective pressures, then the winners, and losers will change. To simulate the change, we made one type of food poisonous. This resulted in all of the populations dropping a little bit, except the scissors, because they couldn't food any way. The spoon beak did the worst because it was hard for it to control what it picks up.

Two errors, are that after every year chicks were produced, but we still only used one of each beak type in each experiment. This resulted in a linear growth. instead of an exponential growth that would have been more accurate. The other is that we had different strategies for picking up food, the resulted in some beaks doing better purely because the were smarter. to fix this we should create more guidelines for how to pickup food.

This lab was done to demonstrate natural selection. It demonstrated the competition between the different organisms.I learned how different phenotypes affect how will different species survive. Also, this supported observations of Darwin. This can be used to about the threats of invasive species. Based on my experience from this lab, I now get a closer understanding of the competition between animals.

Part 2	Spoon Chicks	Binder Clip Chicks	Tweaser Chicks	Scissor Chicks	Totals
Total Chicks Born	12	6	21	15	54
Percent of Chicks Born	22%	11%	39%	28%	100%

 

A new way to learn!

This semester in my biology class I am edoing a project called 20 time. This means tha we use 20% of our time to pursue our interests, and use the scientific method to solve a problem. I asked the question, "How can I momorize new things more efficienty?" My poject will involove reasearching, and testing different memorization tequniques. I chose this because I think that my results will be very helpful for me, and many other high school students. This project shouls andswer my qustion of "How can I momorize new things more efficienty?" through a combination of reasearch, and testing. My goal is to rank defferent methods of studying by how effective they are. I can measure my prgress in how far along I am in testing methods for the first few moths, the my progress can be measured by how much these help people. My plan is to do some reasearh on methods of learning for the first few weeks, then to test them, and rank them based on how effective they are.

Unit 7 reflection

The main focus of this unit was the environment, and the things that effect it. We learned about food webs, and how all the organisms in an ecosystem are dependent on each other. We also learned about the 10% rule, which state that 90% of the energy from an organism is lost, and that only 10% gets passed on to the next trophic level. We also learned a lot about the effect humans are having on the environment, and what the environment will look like if humans keep doing what we are doing. We did a conservation biology project where we researched different ecosystems, and their threats. We then recorded a video that gave basic information about the ecosystem, its threats, and some solution to those threats. The video is Below.

I still want to know more about what is currently being don to lessen the impact humans have on the plant, and how the world will be like in 100 years if we don't change how we interact with the environment. 

The consecration biology project went pretty well for me. Our groug worked well together, and create a pretty good end result(see above). I found that I am an assertive person, which is good, but also that I am a little passive aggressive. I need to work on that a little the next time I do group work. I need to be a little nicer to people that I don't like as much, and be willing to compromise more. 

Unit 6 Reflection

In this unit we learned about bio technology, which is the manipulation of living things or their parts to benefit mankind. This field of study include 4 main domains:

• Industrial & environmental
• This domain focuses on the production of materials from living things.
• Ex: fermentation of foods and beverages, biodegradable plastics, bio fuels 
• Medical & pharmaceutical 
• This domain focuses on medicines and vaccines from living things
• Ex: medicines and vaccines from plants and fungi, gene therapy
• Agricultural
• This domain focuses on the breeding of plant and animal for human consumption
• Ex: trans-genetic organisms, GMOs
• Diagnostic research  
• This domain focuses on the understanding of our genetics, and using for comparison
• Ex: DNA identification

One of the aspects of Biotechnology that we talked about was bioethics, which about how to decide whether or not to use a technology. This was a very interesting unit, because it brought up the future of where bio tech could take us. There may be a point where we can genetically engineer our children, and eliminate all genetic disorders. We would then have to decide whether or not to allow children to be engineered, and that is a very tough question. 

Some of the technologies we learned about were recombination DNA, which is the process of modifying a plasmid, gel electrophoresis, which allows you to sort DNA by length, and PCR, which creates tons of copies of a DNA segment.

My main strengths were electrophoresis and rDNA, I was less solid on PCR and the domains of biotech but my studying help me a lot. 

We did a lab where we isolated different dyes in different candies and compared them to samples using gel electrophoresis. More information here.

We also modified a bacteria to make it glow green in our pGLO lab

I learned a lot from these labs. They taught me what biotech was like in the real world insted of a sheltered classroom setting.

I still want to learn more about the future of biotech, and how far we are from the world of being able to engineer our children.

My New Years Goals were to get better grades by studying more. I have started that by beginning my studying process, but I still need to tailor my studying to what works for me.