Unit 10 Relfection

In this unit we learned a lot about the human body. We learned about the systems in our body that allow us to carry out our life functions. The first systems that we learned was the Circulatory and Respiratory systems. These two systems work together to maintain homeostasis. The major functions of the circulatory system are transporting blood, gasses, and nutrients, maintaining body temperature, separating oxygen poor and rich blood. The Respiratory System delivers oxygen from inhaled air to blood. The next system that we learned is the Nervous System. We learned about the PNS and the CNS and their jobs. For example, the brain has four parts that process: the cerebrum that controls thought, movement, emotion, diencephalon: coordinates with the endocrine system. cerebellum: subconscious, calculates force/direction of muscle contraction, determines body position, and the brain stem: controls basic life functions like some reflexes, breathing, heart functions, swallow, cough. The endocrine system is a system made up of glands that produce or secrete(release) hormones that regulate activity of cells/ organs. Next, we learned about the digestive system. The digestive system is the process of breaking down the food molecules, which is then absorbed into the body. Finally, we learned about the Immune System. The immune system is basically the process of fighting foreign diseases and infections. There are three different nonspecific defenses for the immune system. These include the skin, mucus and then the low pH. The immune system targets, attacks and then kills pathogens when they are dealing with specific diseases. Lastly, we learned about the Lymphatic System and Inflammations. The lymphatic system is a system of tubes and sacs throughout body that collect waste/blood from tissues, otherwise known as a lymph. This clears waste, first line of defense when you start to get sick, use muscles to pump waste out, and catch cancer before it has a chance of getting through. We also learned about chronic systemic inflammation, which always fight foreign substances on top of its normal inflammatory response. However, when you body always needs to fight foreign substances, the systemic inflammation can contribute to many diseases.

Some things that I would like to know more about is how we are similar to other animals and which animals are more similar to us than others.

Since this is my last post, I think that the thing that I have improved on the most is the fact that I have learned how to elaborate on what I am writing, and not just saying what I did without detail. Here is the link to my second unit reflection. This reflection does not have any detail to what we learned in class.

Pig Dissection

The purpose of the pig dissection was to show us how the pig is related to us internally. The pigs internal body has many of the same organs and features that we do and I think that a pig is a really good representation of a humans internal body, when comparing to other animals. This dissection helped me learn more about all of the systems that we learned in our vodcasts, such as the digestive system and the respiratory system. The dissection helped me understand what different parts of the body are used in the different processes. I learned about how to respiratory works with the heart, lungs and other parts of the body. This dissection helped me get a hands on experience of where everything is located inside the body and what parts of the body are used in the main systems. Below is the video that we took describing the different parts of the pig and their function for the different function.

My favorite part of the dissection was cutting up the pig because I never dissected something in a class that is so much like us. Also, I thought that when we were opening up the pig, we had to do some digging to find some of the parts, such as the esophagus. I think that this dissection was valuable because I was able to use my knowledge of systems and the body to locate the different parts of the pig. Also, I learned about how pigs are different to us and why, including with parts that they have and we do not.

20 Time Final Post

In this 20 Time Project, I had to make a presentation to my class about what I accomplished and my whole process for this project. I had to dig up my data from my experiment and that was my proof that I had a physical product. However, keep in mind that I did not finish my experiment just yet, so the data is incomplete.

This was my data for my on going experiment which showed their before and after blood pressure reading and also the change in blood pressure (shown as a percent).

I felt that my TED talk went pretty well, even though I was nervous. I thought that I had grabbed the viewers attention the whole time and that my presentation was interesting and informational. Some things that I could have done better was practicing a few more times, so when I went up to speak I would not have to stutter to try and find the right words. However, not everything went badly. Somethings that I think that I did well was that I did not have any text on my slide, so I was the driving force for my presentation. After looking at the video, which is attached below, I think that I would have given myself a 73/75 or 74/75 because I stuttered a bit too much. This is a problem because I could lose some of my viewer's attention. I am definitely much more comfortable talking in front of my peers because I feel like now I know how to prepare for a talk, so I do not get nervous and stutter. Also, this presentation allowed me to understand how important it is for the speaker to be the driving force in the presentation and not your visual aid. The knowledge that I gained from this presentation is something that I can use in the future with projects like these. 

Another to add is that listening to all my peers talking about their project was really nice because in 20 Time students can explore their interests. Every presentation was different, so that really helped keep the viewers attention because there is always something new that you can learn.

20 Time Individual Reflection

I challenged myself by trying to pick a topic that would affect me everyday. Music is in my life everyday, so I decided to use music as a part of my 20 Time. Also, I tied music to medicine and go the topic how does music affect your blood pressure and heart rate. My goal is to help myself and others who listen to music regularly to use music for more than just relaxation. My plan for this project was to research what instruments I can use to monitor the blood pressure and heart rate and the same time. Then, I made a class survey for what type of music they listen to when relaxing. I analyzed my results and the most common types of music would be inserted in my playlist for my experiment. After that, I went into a doctor's office and I found a few subjects for my experiment.

Some successes were that I had enough subjects to test one of my genres of music that I chose. However, there were not enough patients to complete my whole experiment, and that was a failure. Some things that I learned was that slow beat music has an effect on your blood pressure and heart rate, especially if the patient has a high blood pressure. However, I am just making this conclusion off of my limited about of results from my experiment.

If I could do this project again, I would ask many doctors if I can do my experiment in their office instead of just one. When I get up in front of the class and give my TED talk, I wish to share my information to all my peers so that they can use music the same way that I will be using it from now on.

Unit 9 Reflection

 This unit is all about what on Earth evolved. We learned about how organisms from a long time ago have evolved into humans and other plants and animals today. In the beginning stages of this unit, we were introduced to the study of classification, also known as taxonomy. We learned about the taxonomic levels, which are(from biggest to smallest): domain, kingdom, class, order, family, genus and species. As you go down the ladder of classification, you find that the organisms that belong to the species have more in common then the organisms in the same genus. Next, we learned about bacteria and viruses. The importance of bacteria is that they are decomposers, the are nitrogen fixers and they are apart of biotechnology. Viruses on the others hand are bad for us. They usually make us sick with diseases, like HIV or AIDS. After learning about the viruses and bacteria, we moved on to fungi and plants. Fungi can act as food, antibiotics, pathogens, and more. Fungi are very important to the ecosystem as they are one of the main decomposers in any ecosystem. There are many different types of plants. We learned about the 4 major phyla of plants, which are Bryophyta(mosses), Pterophyta(ferns), Angiosperms(Flowering Plants), and Gymnosperms(Cone bearing plants). All these new phyla help us understand the evolution of plants, as the first true plants probably grew at the edges of water.

Finally we reached the invertebrates and the chordates. The invertebrates include sponges, cnidarian, flatworms, mollusks annelid, arthropods, insects, crustacean and echinoderms. Sponges date back to 570 million years ago. They are sessile, have no symmetry and reproduce asexually and sexually. Cnidarians are the oldest existing animal group that have specialized tissues. The phylum Cnidarian includes jellyfish, sea anemones, coral, hydra and the box jelly. Flatworms have a solid body and incomplete or absent gut. Mollusks have bilateral symmetry and a complete digestive system. Annelids have segmented bodies and a fluid filled space completely surrounded by muscle. Arthropods have an exoskeleton made of chitin, joint appendages and segmented body parts. Arthropods can be classified into five groups which are: trilobites=extinct, bottom feeders, crustaceans=live in oceans and land, freshwater streams, chelicerates=specialized dagger like mouthparts, insects=live on land, must have six legs, myriapods=long bodies and many pairs of legs. They also have an open circulatory system, sensory organs such as an antennae,  body segmentation and compound eyes. Insects have a head, thorax and abdomen. They reproduce through a process called metamorphosis. Crustaceans have a cephalothorax and an abdomen, one pair of appendages per segment, two pairs of antennae, exoskeleton and carapace. Echinoderms have an internal skeleton made of interlocking calcite honeycomb. They also have a water vascular system which are a series of water-filled canals around the central disk. These canals store water used for circulation and movement. They also have a complete digestive system and they can regenerate their limbs.

The chordates include fish( condricthyes, ostreicthyes, lobe-finned fish), and amphibians, reptiles and mammals. Fish are vertebrates with gills and paired fins. Condricthyes are fish with skeleton made out of cartilage. The must move in order to breath. These type of fish include ratfish, sharks, rays, and skates. Osteicthyes are bony fish which have skeletons made out of bone. Their operculum protects their gills and the movements of this help the bony fish move water over gills. Lobe-finned fish are paired pectoral and pelvic fins that are round in shape and supported by a single bone. Amphibians are the first animals with 4 limbs. Tetrapods are vertebrates with 4 limbs, they can live on land or water, mobile muscular tongue and lay eggs in water, moist ground or leaves. Reptiles are ectotherms and they have dry scales, a 3 chambered heart and cloaca. The reptiles include turtles, tortoises and terrapins. There is also the birds. These animals evolved from the tetrapod, and have hollow bones, fused collarbones that form v-shape wishbone, rearranged muscles in legs and hips, and feathers. Mammals are the last chordate. This chordate has a large brain and is a endotherm with a complex social feeding and reproductive behavior. They have hair to retain heat and a four chambered heart.

Some things that I would like to learn more about is about how bacteria and viruses because we did not really go as in depth as we did with chordates and invertebrates.

This unit we did a presentation with the topic of "What on Earth Evolved?"My topic was the rubber tree. I think that my presentation went pretty well. Some things that I did well on was that I had enough information so I could fulfill the time requirement while informing my classmates what the rubber tree is used for. One thing that I could work on is reviewing more of the history involved with the rubber tree. The biggest part that I learned from this is in order to have confidence is to know your topic well. The more you know about your topic, the more confidence you will have.

My Inner Fish Blog Reflection

Last week, our class watched a series called "My Inner Fish" by Neil Shubin. This series is about how we have evolved from those that are thought to not be related to us, such as fishes or reptiles. In the first video, we learned about the first transitional species that could walk on land, the Tiktaalik. This video showed how the Tiktaalik's flippers, which allowed it to support its weight, slowly evolved into our hands and digits and how the fossils were found. The second video in the series is about the reptile and how they evolved over time to become mammals. We learned about how these early land animals lived underground, hunting for prey during the night and more. This series links back to the unit of evolution because we still have structures inside our body that once were used by fishes and reptiles a long time ago.
 One of the questions that we were asked was, "How and why did hair first evolve?" Hair first evolved when it was used as a sensory organ, in the form of whiskers. These whiskers helped the animal maneuver in the dark. However, this makes me think, why did these whiskers suddenly turn up? How did these whiskers evolve into the hair that we have today? I think that the whiskers that the early land animals had really gave them an advantage when compared to land animals that did not have the whiskers at the time.
Another question was, "Why are mass extinctions important?" The reason that mass extinctions are important is because they give the survivors a chance the become the dominant species. These extinctions also create new species that can flourish. The mass extinction of dinosaurs is the reason that humans are dominating. The dinosaurs were the dominating, so no species could take over and flourish. However, when the extinction came, then the mammals began to flourish, and we the human generation was born, since we were once descended from the mammals before us.

Tiktaalik