Unit 10 Reflection

        Unit ten was definitely the most intriguing unit for me, and it was also our last unit. We learned quite a bit about anatomy and physiology, and since I would like to be a veterinarian in the future, these were important for me to understand and learn. I had a rough start in the unit but I pulled through quite well. We had a lab in this unit, in which we dissected an eleven week old fetus pig, and I thought this would be very disgusting and immoral since I am vegetarian, however it turned out to be very interesting. We identified all major organs, such as the heart, lungs, and the stomach, in the pig's body. At the end of the dissection we had to make a video and a blog post about what different organs in the pig do and what organ system they belong to. This was my favorite unit and it has inspired me to maybe take the anatomy and physiology class in my junior year, even though I still have quite a bit of time to choose that.

Pig Dissection Ananlysis

        Before we even began dissecting the pig, I thought I was going to be really disgusted and I wouldn't even be able to look at the eleven week old fetus, however once my group started dissecting, all that we found was quite interesting. I made the first cut in the pig, and once we opened him up, lots of the preservative fluid spilled out, so we rinsed the pig and continued to identify major organs and organ systems. 

        Learning about the pig's anatomy and physiology really helped me better understand how our body functions and how everything in our body is connected somehow. The circulatory and respiratory systems intrigued me the most, especially the aorta in the circulatory system. While we were making our pig dissection video, Mr. Orre explained to our group how aneurysms form and why they form, and since I would like to be a veterinarian in the future, it was very intriguing to me.  

Unit 9 Reflection

        

        Unit 9 was my favorite unit so far. Evolutionary science really interests me, and I've learned more about it in the past couple weeks than I ever knew before. To know that us humans evolved from fish to reptiles to mammals is quite very interesting. For example, we have learned that our fingers, which we use in everyday life, evolved from the fins of fish. A certain gene called the "Sonic Hedgehog" gene is responsible for the digits, or fingers, we have. Too much of this gene can cause one to develop six fingers in the early stages of life, whereas too little of this gene can cause a baby to be born with only four fingers. The "Sonic Hedgehog" gene also produces patterning of the central nervous system and tooth development.


        In Unit 9, all the students had to make a 4-8 minute presentation on a certain genus, family, or species. My presentation was on the topic of sharks. Since sharks have survived all five mass extinctions, learning about them gave me a lot of insight on ancient times. You can view my presentation here.

My Inner Fish

        This series called "Your Inner Fish", which features Neil Shubin, really helped my understanding evolution more. It surprised me to learn that our hands could have developed from the fins of fish that moved to land, such as the Tiktaalik. The "Sonic Hedgehog" gene interested me the most. This gene is what determined our fingers, also called digits. We aren't the only species that form digits, for example chickens do, and from studying chick embryos, Dr. Cliff Tabin found a certain gene that determined digits, the "Sonic Hedgehog" gene. Another interest of mine was the development of hair. The reason of the development of hair was first as a sensory factor. Hair later on developed to keep mammals warm and protect the skin. The skin formed from reptiles. This series is very informative and I recommend it to anyone who would like to learn more about human ancestry and evolution.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_Shubin

Aurelia Aurita

        Aurelia Aurita is the scientific name for the moon jellyfish. This jellyfish is part of the phylum Cnideria that me and my classmates are currently learning about. It is translucent and usually ten to sixteen inches in diameter and has limited motion, so it drifts with the current even when swimming. Moon jellyfish feed on plankton that includes small organisms, such as mollusks, fish eggs, or even small crustaceans. Aurelia does not have any respiratory parts such as a trachea or lungs. It respirates by diffusing oxygen from water. The moon jellyfish also lacks any excretory and circulatory systems. Aurelia Aurita is hunted by various species. This includes the ocean sunfish and the leatherback turtle. The species is even eaten by seagulls, which often become very interested in the crustaceans in its belly. Unfortunately, the moon jellyfish naturally dies after several months of reproducing. It is rare for them to live more than six months in the wild.

https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurelia_aurita

Unit 8 Reflection

Evolution is an odd concept that not many believe in, even though there is physical evidence of it. It is the change in allele frequency over long periods of time. But the real question is, what causes evolution? And the answer to that is simple, natural selection. Natural selection kills off weaker species so only the strong survive and reproduce. Imagine a black squirrel and a white squirrel in winter. Which one do you think will survive? The white one of course because it blends in with its snowy backgrounds whereas the black one pops out. And therefore, more white squirrels survive and black squirrels die off because the predators killed them. Natural selection is a cruel yet needed process that has caused species to evolve over large amounts of time, thousands and millions of years.

The Hunger Games Final Analysis

1. In this lab, we had three different ways to pick up "food" (corks) with our hands, the stumpers, the knucklers, and the pinchers. This stimulated the genetic variety in populations.
2. The knuckler phenotype was the best at capturing food because of the fact that they could pick up many corks at a time.
3. The population did evolve, at least according to our data. There was a large change in allele frequency, for example 52% of the alleles in the gene pool were "A" in the beginning, however by the end only 28% were "A".
4. The random part of this lab was who the people chose to "mate" with. A knuckler could have mated with either a pincher or a stumper, and that depended completely on the students. The way food was spread was also random. A non-random part of this lab is where all the species started and the area of food.
5. If the food was larger or smaller, then the results would have been drastically different because different phenotypes would have a hard time picking up the food, for example, if the food was smaller, then the stumpers would have struggled to pick up food.
6. If incomplete dominance did not exist between the species, then I assume the results would have been different, due to the fact that there would either have been more pinchers or more stumpers.
7. The relationship between natural selection and evolution is that natural selection kills off the weak phenotypes and so evolution can make a species stronger and survive longer.
8. Some people had strategies to picking up food. Some groups or individuals went to the spots where there was most food, whereas some took scraps. The way the individuals behaved definitely changed the outcomes of the lab. Some people were aggressive whereas some stayed on the outlines.
9. In evolution, the entire species evolves to survive in a certain environment and natural selection helps this because it kills off the weaker phenotypes so only the strong ones mate and make the species better.
10. What would have happened if there was less food?