Survey Complete! - Music's Effect on Blood Pressure and Heart Rate

This week was all about figuring out which genres of music I should put into my experiment. I created a survey that shows my results. What I did was I created an excel sheet and wrote down 11 different types of music. Then I went around the classroom and asked everyone to tell me what they listen to when they are relaxing, studying and exercising. However, sometimes I feel like I do not know what to do next after I complete something. A setback that I have right now is I need to figure out how I am going to get my subjects for my experiment. I think I will either research and get help from my peers for ideas on how to find the right people. As I have stated before, the next step is to start the process of the experiment. I will need to find my subjects and then I will need to figure out a procedure to execute my experiment. I think that I can relate what I have learned to my everyday life, because everyday I listen to music and with the new information that I acquire from this project, I will be able to cater the music that I listen to towards my needs.

Unit 8 Reflection

This unit was all about evolution. We dove deep into the topic of evolution and how different ecosystems are effected by evolution. Some of the main topics that we learned this unit was artificial selection, natural selection and the formation of earth. Artificial selection is when humans select traits from a population's variation that they want, and they will only mate individuals in the population that have that certain trait. Natural Selection is a process that weeds out the traits that don't help an individual survive, leaving the organisms that have the most useful traits. The difference between natural selection and artificial selection is that artificial selection is decided by humans while natural selection is all about survival of the fittest with no outside influence.We also learned about allele frequency. Allele frequency is defined as how common an allele is in a population. In order to calculate the allele frequency, you need to divide the total number of time the allele pops up in the gene pool by the total number of alleles. Then you get the percentage of how common that allele is. We also learned about the formation of Earth. What I learned is that the Earth has evolved so much over time, that the time that the humans have been on Earth adds up a very tiny amount in the cosmic year. Earth has gone through many different phases and we are just at the very tip of it. Some questions that I still have are, why did the sequence of events regarding the formation of Earth occur in the way that they did? In my Unit 7 Reflection, I talked about assertiveness and I think that I have definitely improved on my skills, but I still need some work. For example, in my engineering class, we were doing a reverse engineering project. Our project was close to finishing, but we were running out of time, so I decided to speak up and assign my group the last different parts that we needed to complete for our poster and for our product. I set up times in which my group could meet during tutorial and lunch, and we got it done within the time limit that we had. I think that looking back, I have improved, but there is definitely room for improvement.

Artificial Selection Ex. Poodles

Natural Selection

Geological Timeline Reflection

The history of our Earth is action packed. However, the 3 events that stand out to me the most are the Quaternary Period in the Cenozoic Era, the Jurassic Period, and lastly the Cretaceous Period. The Quaternary Period is when the Ice Age took place. This time is fairly important because this was when the first fossils of homo sapiens date back, 200000 years ago. The homo sapiens were the start of us, and without this era, there would be no us, the humans. The other important period was the Jurassic Period. This period stood out to me because this was when the dinosaurs dominated the food chain and they were the most abundant and diverse. This period really made the dinosaurs so popular at this time. Finally, the Cretaceous Period was a very important time for humans. This was when the meteor hit Earth, wiping out much of the dinosaur population, allowing humans to take over. Without this meteor that struck Earth, we would not be here. The dinosaurs would still be on top of the food chain, and we would not be able to survive. The Earth history, when on a scale, is extremely massive. The formation of Earth took much longer than I expected it to. I learned that the Earth took a very long time for it to become like what it is today. What surprised me about the scale was the fact that humans, and their advancements, are on the last hour of the cosmic year. Even though we have not been on Earth for very long, we have impacted the Earth significantly, wether it is good or bad. We have created more technology and more efficient ways of surviving on Earth. However in doing so, we have caused some major problems that will harm us in the future. I wonder what will happen if we decide to continue what we are doing? How much harm will global warming cause us if we don't change our ways?

Formation of Earth

The Cosmic Calendar

Hunger Games Lab Conclusion

1. In this lab, we simulated natural selection with our class. The way that we simulated natural selection and evolution was we had all of our students circle up around the big circle on the field. There were corks that were spread out around the circle and when the whistle was blown all the students ran into the center to try and get as much food as possible so that they can reproduce. The different bird beaks that we used were the knucklers, the pinchers and the stumpys.

2. I think that the best phenotype for capturing food was the pincher because they could pick food up with their index and thumb, while the knucklers had to pick up food in between the second knuckles of their index and middle fingers. The stumpys had to pick up food with their wrists. The reason that the pincher was the best was because they had to easiest time trying to pick up food, and also they could pick up multiple corks at once. 

3. I think that the population did evolve because the species that could pick up food the fastest and in great amounts would look more like the population over time. The reason that I know this was because of the fact that the allele frequency of the "a" allele, which was the pincher allele, was more apparent later in time. In trial 8, which was our last trial, the frequency of the "a" allele was 72% while the "A" was 28%. However, in round 1, there was 52% percent allele frequency of the "A" allele and the 48% allele frequency for the "a" allele. The reason for this was because the pinchers and the knucklers had an easier time of getting food to reproduce, so their alleles were more common.

The Allele Frequency of the "A" and "a" allele. The red is the "a" allele and the blue is the "A" allele.

4. Before the simulation started, everyone was given their own bird beak trait and they could only pick up food using the technique that they were assigned. This was the factor that was not random. Some factors that are random include the speed and quickness of the students and the size of the storage for the amount of food that they pick up. These traits are random because these traits vary for every student.
5. Results would have indeed varied if there was more food or less food. If there was more food, then the knucklers and the pinchers would have dominated the population even more because they will pick up the food more efficiently, making all of the stumpys have a lower chance of survival. If there is a shortage in food, then there would be the same problem for the stumpys. The lower amount of food will cause a problem for all species, but the stumpys will have the biggest problem. In nature, there are always going to be times when there are shortages in food, or an abundance in food. The species that live in these areas will need to fight for food more because of the change in the amount of food.
6. Without incomplete dominance, there would be no knucklers. There would only be pinchers and stumpys. Slowly, the pinchers would take over the population because the stumpys would not be able to reproduce fast enough and they would slowly die out.
7. The relationship between evolution and natural selection is that natural selection is the process that leads to a population's evolution. The reason for this is because natural selection weeds out the bad traits, so that only the good traits can reproduce. Then evolution takes place, because then the good alleles would fill up the population, changing the allele frequency.
8. A strategy that individuals used was that they carried out sexual selection. Sexual selection is when organisms from the same species mate with each other, even though there is no benefit to the offspring. For example, the knucklers mated with only knucklers, even though mating with pinchers would give the offspring a higher chance a better trait. This would have affected the allele frequency because then there would be more "a" alleles in the population over time, which would change the allele frequency over time.
9. In evolution, the thing that evolves is the population. Natural Selection acts on the phenotypes of the organisms, because the phenotype is the one that helps or does not help the organism pick up food. Evolution acts on the genotype because evolution looks like the organisms that can reproduce the most and the ones that can reproduce the most are the ones with the better phenotype. So, this affects the genotype of the offspring. 

Music's Effect on Blood Pressure and Heart Rate - #2

For the last two weeks, I have been researching more about my topic and what I decided to research was the different ways the measure the heart rate and blood pressure of anyone. A few machines that can do this are the resperate, an ECG and a cardiac monitor. Some setbacks that I have are what music I need to use to conduct my experiment. Some steps that I have planned in my mind to handle this setback, is I will create a poll with many genres of music, and I will ask students which music they listen to when they are either relaxing, doing homework or exercising. My next step is to make the poll and ask the students in my biology period. Then I will start formulating my experiment, so that I can do the test soon. Once I learn what genre really helps the heart rate and blood pressure during different exercises, I can apply what I learned to whatever I need to do in the future.

Bird Beak Lab

After finishing the first part of the experiment, we claimed that the individuals that have the better traits, for collecting food etc, will be able to reproduce more efficiently and leave more offspring. When we did our simulation, the spoon chicks had 14 chicks, the binder clip chicks had 13 chicks, the tweezers chicks had 15 chicks, the scissor chicks had 13 chicks and the chopstick chicks had 15 chicks. By our simulation, we concluded that the tweezer chicks and the chopstick chicks, who could pick up food easier, had the best traits because of the fact that they reproduced the most and also that they picked up the most food.

Another claim that we had was, "Populations begin to look more like winners". We can support this claim through our simulation, which resulted in the tweezer and the chopstick beaks to end up with 21.4% each in the population. The binder clip and the scissors got only 18.5% of the population. This evidence shows that the tweezers and the chopsticks had the better traits in order to reproduce. Also, these better traits were more apparent, than the losers, when the population totals of each type of bird was recorded.

The Total Amount of Chicks Born for Each Type of Bird Beak

The Total Amount of Chicks Born for Each Type of Bird Beak After the Environmental Stressor of a Limitation on Food

In part 2 of 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?" Our hypothesis was if natural selection was to occur in the population, then the organisms that are better suited for it will survive and continue their process to improve and dominate the population. We were given the environmental stressor that took away 3/4 of our food supply, leaving us with 1/4 left. We found out that the tweezers, which had 14 chicks born, and scissors, which had 13 chicks born, were able to produce the most because they were able to take a lot of food in the given time compared to the others. However, the spoon and the chopsticks, who both had 8 chicks, was not able to get as much food as the others, which reduced their offsprings amount. This evidence supported our claim, and we think that the reason that this happened was because of the fact that the tweezers and the scissors were able to adapt faster to the less amount of food so that they can create more offspring.

Two errors that could have occurred in this lab were the dispersion of the food and the other error could be the level of experience that a person had with the tool they were using. The uneven dispersion of food could have caused a problem because then there would be an unfair advantage to the person who was closer to the food rather than another person who was farther away. This could have an effect because then the person who is closer to the food would have a better chance of collecting more food and reproducing more. The other error was the level of experience that a person had with the tool. For example, a person who uses a spoon very often will have an easier time to collect food when compared to a person who used the binder clip, with not much experience. This could affect the outcome of the experiment because the person who is more experienced could pick up more food. To prevent these errors in the future, I would recommend that we should have tools that people would have about the same experience when using them, along with more even dispersion of the food so that there is no advantage to one person.

This lab was done so that we could understand Darwin's different conclusions along with how competition works. This lab relates to what we have learned through our vodcasts, which explained Darwin's observations and conclusions along with what competition is and how it works. We can apply what we learned from this lab to help understand different ecosystems and also we can predict what will happen when different things happen that can affect the ecosystem. This could help prevent the extinction of different species.