Geological Timeline Individual Reflection

          There have been many major events in Earth's history, but there a certain three that have stood out to me. I think that one of the most major events was the creation of Earth. This is arguably one of the most important events out of Earth's history because if Earth hadn't been formed by the collisions that occurred 4.6 billion years ago, there would be nothing. There would be no animals, no plants, no humans, but most importantly, there would be no life. Another major event in Earth's history was the Cambrian Explosion that happened in the Cambrian Era. During this time, there was a lot of diversification in a short amount of time. This event is significant because it introduced lots of new species and created a huge amount of diversity. The last major event was the mass extinction of dinosaurs in the Mesozoic Era because it gave way to mammals and humans. Without this event, dinosaurs would still dominate the Earth and smaller mammals would not have been able to compete against them. Us humans also wouldn't have stood a chance against the dinosaurs let alone dominate the food chain and make as many advancements as we have.

          The scale of Earth's history is massive and it took an extremely long time to become what it is now. What surprised me the most was how so much of Earth's history was so bare and empty. Earth had no life until just recently when life and diversity started growing at fast rates.

          Although humans have only been around for a short amount of time, we have made a huge impact on this Earth. We have made so many advancements in technology, math, science, and so much more. Humans have changed the planet so much, when actually, if you think about it, we are merely a speck on the timeline of Earth. 

          One question that I still have is are other planets capable of undergoing changes like Earth did to create a habitable environment capable of sustaining life. Also, if humans can contribute this much in such a short amount of time, how many more advancements/improvements can they make in the many more years to come.

Hunger Games Final Analysis

1. We competed against each other with different ways of picking up food where only some of us would survive and leave offspring. Some people had the knuckler trait, some had the pincher beak, and some had the stumpy beak. Obviously, some traits were more favorable, and those were the ones that in the end, had the highest population. We simulated evolution, natural selection, and competition in this lab.

2. I thought that the pincher beak would be the best at capturing food, but it turned out that the knuckler beaks actually got the most food. This phenotype was the best at capturing food because this specific beak allowed someone to pick up food in between their knuckles on both hands while the stumpy beak could only pick up one piece of food at a time.

3. The population did evolve. I know it evolved because the gene allele frequency changed. As the years went by, the allele frequency for "a" started to grow bigger and bigger while the frequency for the "A" grew smaller and smaller.

4. The placement of the food in this lab was random. The placement of the food had a big effect on the evolution of this population because if the food was closer to one type of bird then they would probably pick up the most food and therefore leave more offspring. However, who one mated with was not random. Pinchers could purposely mate with pinchers so that it would guarantee offspring that is a pincher as well. This would affect the evolution of the population because one type of bird could dominate the population by using this method and essentially be the "winners".

5. The results would have been different if the food was larger or smaller. If the food was smaller then the stumpy beak would have a harder time picking up the food, and if the food were larger then the stumpy beaks would be able to pick up the food more easily. For example, if the food turned into soccer balls, then the stumpy population would dominate while the knuckler and pincher birds population would diminish. However, if the food turned into gumballs, then the knuckler and pincher birds would dominate the population while the stumpy birds die out. In nature, situations like this can happen and it's all just based on luck. Specific birds might have to find a different type of food to eat, or move to a different niche with less competition and more food.

6. The results would have been different if there was not incomplete dominance because then there would be no knucklers. There would only be pinchers and stumpys. The pinchers would then become the dominant trait and the "a" frequency would grow to a huge size while the "A" would go down to a very small percentage.

7. The relationship between natural selection and evolution is that natural selection causes evolution. The best traits are chosen and the ones with that specific trait survive better and reproduce offspring. The others without the trait start to die off, so as time passes, the population of the organisms with the best traits grow.

8. Some strategies that individuals used were picking up more food than their phenotype allowed by cheating and picking up food by the handful. Some people also used their hoods as extra pockets to put the food into. These actions would have affected the allele frequency by making it somewhat inaccurate. There could have been a higher allele frequency for "a" than "A" because people had advantages over others. These behaviors are similar to the ones in nature because competition is fierce and animals will do anything and everything they can to make sure they "win".

9. In evolution the single organism is not really the one who evolves. The population is what is really evolving. The alleles in a single individual do evolve, but it's really the population that evolves because the gene pool changes to match the best traits. Natural selection acts on the phenotype of an organism, not it's genotype because their physical traits are the ones evolving. Their genes aren't changing just the allele frequency.

10. A question that I still have is if there are ways birds can "cheat" to pick up more food. I also question if there really are techniques that birds use to "cheat", what methods do they use and do birds use them a lot.

Bird Beak Lab Conclusion

Part 1: Analysis

Our claim/hypothesis for the first part of this lab was "individuals with better traits leave more offspring". This statement was supported by our data because the tweezer beak and the chopstick beak picked up the most food the fastest out of all the different types of beaks and therefore, left more offspring. The tweezer and chopstick birds both left 15 offspring while the other birds left a few less. This happened because birds need food to leave offspring, and if a bird can pick up a lot of food, then they can have more offspring. Our second claim/hypothesis was that "populations begin to look more like the winners". Our evidence supported this hypothesis because the tweezer beak bird and the chopstick beak bird will dominate the population more than other birds. This happened because the tweezer and chopstick birds can leave/support the most offspring and their populations would grow to "beat" the other species.

Part 2: Conclusion

         In this 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 in future generations, birds would evolve to look more like the tweezer beak birds and the chopstick beak birds because of their ability to pick up the most food and leave the most offspring. Our data showed that the tweezer and chopstick beak birds had the highest number of offspring with fifteen each. They had about 21.4% of all the total chicks. The spoon had fourteen chicks, the binder clip had thirteen chicks, and the scissor had thirteen chicks. This data supports our claim because natural selection will cause the beaks of birds to evolve and become like the tweezer and chopstick birds so that they can have better traits.

         While our hypothesis was supported by our data, there could have been errors due to the different types of food and the timing not being perfect. Some of the different types of beaks could pick up different types of food better. For example, if a binder clip can pick up macaroni the best and a tweezer could pick up rubber bands the best, and there were more rubber bands than macaroni, the tweezer would probably pick up the most pieces of food and therefore leave more offspring behind. This would cause the population for the tweezer bird to grow more and essentially start to look like the "winners" and the binder clip birds would start to look like the "losers". The other error of the timing not being perfect could have caused some people to have more time and others to have less time. For instance, one person could have started picking up food earlier and ended later while another person could have started late and ended early. This would cause some people to have more or less time to pick up more food and thus cause more or less offspring than they should really have. Due to these errors, in future experiments I would recommend having the same amount of variation in the different types of food and try to have the timing as exact as possible.

         This lab was done to demonstrate how natural selection plays a role in evolution of a certain species. From this lab I learned that even the slightest change can cause a huge change in the population and the evolution of a species which helps me understand the concept of natural selection affecting evolution and population showing "winners" and "losers". Based on my experience from this lab I could apply this to another situation by knowing how natural selection plays a role in  evolution and teaching other people that evolution isn't actually as complicated as I thought it was.

Unit 7 Reflection

        This unit's focus was ecology. We learned about how the whole ecosystem works and all the effects of not just trash, but also "stuff" in general. Some themes and essential understandings were that the ecosystem cannot run properly if it is unbalanced and that we need to be very aware of what we are buying and consuming in order to preserve our planet and our natural resources. The ecosystem is actually very sensitive to any sort of changes in the environment. For example, a small temperature change or a new addition of a species could cause a whole ecosystem to collapse. Another theme of this unit was how the population rises and falls in somewhat of a pattern. Usually, when the population rises, over the course of the next few years, it falls again. Then the population rises again, falls again, and it continues this pattern unless there is a major epidemic or a crisis. In addition, we learned about food webs and food chains. Within the food chain, we learned how energy flows from each organism to another and how only 10% of the energy is actually retained. We also learned about all the different trophic levels and how organisms are categorized into their specific group.
          I want to learn more about how humans are affecting the ecosystems and what we can do to prevent/lessen the damage we are doing. Although we did learn about different ways to help save the condition of our world, I think that there is always more to do and that the little things I do will really make a difference. An unanswered question that I have is whether the world will be covered in waste maybe a couple hundred years from now or maybe even sooner. I wonder about how many more years people can live on Earth before it starts becoming too polluted and trashed to be capable of sustaining life.
          The conservation biology project went really well in my opinion. I think our group worked really well together. One thing that went really well was our efficiency in filming and editing our video. Another thing that went well was that all of us pulled our weight and I think that for the most part we all did similar amounts of work. However, one thing that didn't go so well was that we sometimes butted heads but in the end, we finished strong and I am really proud of our finished product. Through this project, I learned about the many endangered environments in the world and also how to work/collaborate with others better. I think that overall our group's collaboration was very good.
          As for my progress with my New Year's Goals, I think that I am continuing to improve.  I feel that I have progressed since my Unit 6 Reflection and that I am going to steadily keep improving. I find that I have less homework to do at home because I focus in class more and work on trying to get my assignment done rather than having to do it at home.

Unit 6 Reflection

This unit's main topics were biotechnology and bioethics. We also learned about recombinant DNA, PCR, electrophoresis, and sequencing. Biotechnology is the study and manipulation of living things including their molecules, cells, tissues, or organs in order to benefit mankind. Bioethics is the study of decision making as it applies to moral decisions that have to be made because of advances in biology, medicine, and technology. A main theme of this unit was that recombinant DNA is the insertion of one organism's DNA into the DNA is another organism. It is similar to generic engineering and the result of recombinant DNA technology is a transgenic organism, or GMO. Another essential understanding of this unit is that electricity is used to separate DNA fragments based on size in a process called gel electrophoresis. Larger fragments of DNA travel less and move slower than smaller fragments. Other main ideas of this unit include using sequencing to determine the exact order of a DNA strand and using DNA Polymerase, primers, extra bases, and florescent dyes to create copies of them. A strength that I had in this unit was understanding gel electrophoresis well and knowing exactly how the process works. However, a weakness that I had was having trouble understanding the pGLO lab and the reasons why bacteria grew in some places and didn't in other places. A success that I had was knowing some real life applications of PCR, or Polymerase Chain Reaction before we learned about them. I knew that PCR can be used for paternity testing, detecting diseases, and conducting forensic investigations. A setback that I have is not knowing some of the steps for PCR and what exactly happens in each of them. For this unit we did the recombinant DNA  lab, the candy electrophoresis lab, and the pGLO lab. In the recombinant DNA lab we had to find the correct restriction enzyme that would cut the plasmid in one place and the human DNA in two places. In the candy electrophoresis lab, we took the dyes of different candies and compared them to some reference bands. We then ran the gel electrophoresis and looked at the results. In our pGLO lab, we took a variety of petri dishes and put bacteria in them. One petri dish had +pGLO with LB/amp/ara, another had -pGLO with LB, and so on. At the end we saw which of the petri dishes had bacteria in them and whether any one of them glowed. All these labs helped me further understand the concepts of this unit. I want to learn more in depth about electrophoresis and its applications. An unanswered question that I have is whether or not the genetic modification of human embryos is really in fact possible. I wonder about if our world will become like the world in the movie GATTACA. I think I am on track to fulfill my New Year's goals. I have been procrastinating less and getting more work done in class than before.

pGLO Lab

1.

2. The two new traits that our transformed bacteria have are glowing under UV light and resistance to ampicillin.

3. I estimate that there were about 1000 bacteria in the 100 ul of bacteria that we spread on the plate. Since there were about 200 colonies in our +pGLO Lb/Amp/Ara plate, I estimated that there had to be much more bacteria that hadn't been transformed/not received the plasmid with resistance to ampicillin.

4. The role of arabinose in the plates is to make the bacteria glow under UV light. The arabinose activates the GFP gene which causes the bacteria to glow.

5. Three current uses for GFP in research or applied science are acting as a cell marker, tagging genes for movement of certain cancers, and showing promoter activity. A cell marker can be used to track where bacteria is present and tagging genes can be used to show the movement of certain cancers. GFP can also be used to show promoter activity in operons.

6. Another application of genetic engineering is how plants are altered to express a gene that isn't native to that particular plant or to modify its genes. It can be used to provide resistance to drought or extreme temperature.

Candy Electrophoresis Lab

1. One dye band was a different size than the reference band. All the dyes were the same colors as the reference bands except for the orange dye. The dye was a bit darker than the reference band. The color difference did not occur in more than one color band. We did not observe any dyes that were moving in the "wrong" direction. These dyes could have had other ingredients in their coloring in addition to the reference dyes causing them to move/look slightly different.

2. Fast green FCF would move similarly to Blue 1 and Citrus red 2 would move similarly to Red 40 because they are similar in size to each other. Fragments of similar size travel together in groups. They move at a similar pace and travel almost the same distance as each other.

3. Dog manufactures put artificial food colors into dog food because they want to make the food look more appealing to their customers and seem less processed. The only reason why they use artificial food dyes is for aesthetic appeal.

5. The two factors that control the distance the colored dye solutions migrate are their length and weight.

6. The positive electrical current helps move the dyes through the gel.

7. Gel electrophoresis causes the molecules to separate by size because the smaller fragments travel further and move faster while the larger fragments travel less and move slower. Fragments of the same size travel in groups and cover the same amount of distance.

8. The DNA molecule with the molecular weight of 600 daltons would move the fastest and the furthest. The next to travel the furthest would be the DNA molecule that weighs 1000 daltons. After that, the molecule with the weight of 2000 daltons, and finally the DNA molecule with the weight of 5000 daltons would travel the least and move the slowest.