- Successes: Though I didn't really pass those quizzes with flying colors, I thoroughly enjoyed working on the dissections. The hands-on experience from opening up an organism and examining their complex internal bodies was all in all fun to do. Listing the diagrams wasn't all that easy, but through cooperation with our partners and some studying, we knew much of the interior and exterior of many organisms.
- Failures: Some parts of the notebook; initially, I haven't put everything listed on the blog into the notebook, or much of it, for that matter, which hindered my score for some time.
- Something I may never forget: The experience of being in the class as a whole, from the interactive labs, to group projects. Everything I have learned is definitely an unforgettable experience of this second school semester.
Final Blog: Reflection
I have learned quite a lot this semester, there are countless things I have learned and failed to achieve during the past few months, but among them, the highlights included:
Blog 13: Most Interesting Dissection
Blog 12: Worm Dissection
Blog 11: Alternation of Generations
Blog 10: Dissection
Blog #10
Why is dissection an important part of a biology curriculum? Which animals and/or plants should be included in biological studies?
Why is dissection an important part of a biology curriculum? Which animals and/or plants should be included in biological studies?
The discoveries of dissection is crucial to finding out the build of many organisms. It allows students to learn the internal structures and the various systems of animals. Opening up an animal allows one to learn a wider knowledge of the dissected, which in turn could help in research and future experiments.
Blog 9: Community Interactions
Define the different forms of community interaction: competition, commensalism, mutualism, predation, parasitism Give an example and a picture for each
- Competition
Competition is when organisms fight, or compete, with each other for food and habitat. Whoever has the most desirable traits and being able to obtain more than their competitors would have a high chance of surviving and thrive in the environment.
In very dense forests, plants must compete with each other for sunlight that is hardly found on the surface level. The ones that can grow higher would have the ability to obtain more sunlight and survive.
- Mutualism
Mutualism is when two organisms live close and benefit from each other.
Ants and trees is among the many examples of mutualism. The ants could live in the tree and eat some of its leaves, while the tree is defended by the ants against other predators.
- Predation
Predation is when one organism preys on another organism.
One example is when lions hunt and kill zebras for food.
- Parasitism
Parasitism is when one organism benefits through another organism.
Ticks and mosquitoes are common examples of parasitism. They feed off of bodies of other organisms, like humans, for their blood.
Blog 8: Something Learned
One of the many things I have learned was a certain biome in our world, commonly known as temperate forests:
This biome consists mostly of leaf-shedding trees. An abundance of these plants also provide food, oxygen, and timber, which are necessary resources. It's the second-most rain-filled biome on this planet; temperatures are around 50 degrees on average. The trees have a unique ability to have its leaves change colors during each season; they fall off eventually during autumn, in which new leaves will sprout during the next blooming season. Habitants adapt along with the seasons and the trees; a lot of animals hibernate or migrate to warmer climates as tree leaves fall off and food supplies dwindle in the colder months.
This biome consists mostly of leaf-shedding trees. An abundance of these plants also provide food, oxygen, and timber, which are necessary resources. It's the second-most rain-filled biome on this planet; temperatures are around 50 degrees on average. The trees have a unique ability to have its leaves change colors during each season; they fall off eventually during autumn, in which new leaves will sprout during the next blooming season. Habitants adapt along with the seasons and the trees; a lot of animals hibernate or migrate to warmer climates as tree leaves fall off and food supplies dwindle in the colder months.
Blog 7: Biomes Compare/Contrast
There are many biomes that have their unique features that make up the environments every organism live in. Two of them includes Grasslands and Temperate Forests.
Grasslands:
Characteristics:
- Highly nutritional soil, wide range of plants can be easily grown in this environment.
- Due to rich soil, grasslands are considered ideal spots to convert into farmland.
- Above 100 degrees Fahrenheit during summer, great contrast compared to winter season.
- A large portion, if not the majority, of the plants are grasses. Plants like trees, bushes, and wildflowers are also existent, but their ability to recover from fires is poor, unlike the deeply-rooted grass species.
- Due to the lack of large plants, there is the lack of shelter for small animals against their predators, along with lack of large diversity of species.
- Majority of the animals present are herbivores, namely mammals with hooves.
Temperate Forests:
Characteristics:
- Majority of the plants present are leaf-shedding trees, which do so during the autumn season.
- Due to the large majority of these trees, people find that food, oxygen, and timber are crucial resources this environment provides.
- It is currently the second-most rainiest biome found, with temperatures reaching around 50 degrees Fahrenheit on average.
- Among the species of plants, the trees have different-colored leaves in each season, in which would fall off annually to make way for new leaves the next year's blooming season.
- Animals residing in this environment adapt along with the trees and the ever-changing weather. Most of them hibernate or migrate to warmer climates when the trees begin losing their leaves and the weather turning cold.
Blog 6: Most Important Food Pyramid Section
Blog 5: Human-Generated Extinction
There are several factors humans contribute to for a sixth extinction. Probably one of the most heated one (pun intended) is our cause for the world's global warming. The environment has been going for the worse due to our industrializing of many parts of the globe, ousting needed plantation. This leads to the death of many animals that heavily depends on the plants. Due to the lack of very clean ways to dispose factory waste properly, other intact areas have been polluted by trash and would still be destroyed nonetheless. If nothing is done to improve our ways of doing things. everything would lead to the extinction of many organisms.
Blog 4: Types of Selection
- Directional Selection: This selection is when an uncommon phenotype is chosen over a more common one. It will change the allele frequency by shifting it to another direction, eventually becoming fixed.
- Stabilizing Selection: This selection is when genetic diversity dwindles as population goes stable on a trait value. One of the most common form of natural selection, it mostly leads to negative selection.
- Disruptive Selection: This selection is when extreme values for a trait is chosen over more plain values. Due to varying traits, it'll eventually lead to two distinct groups of the same organism.
Blog 3: Microevolution
Microevolution is a change in the gene frequency, these different alleles are which would be able to lead to a new subspecies. Sometimes it occurs during natural selection where the organisms that have the most suited characteristics in their environment would tend to give offspring with its alleles inherited. Gene mutation, shuffling, and crossing over are among variations of this change.
Blog 2: Fossil Interpreting Difficulties
There are many difficulties before one could fully interpret the fossil. Due to ever-changing weather, no one could really tell where the fossil originates from which kind of environment. The remains could have been moved by forces of nature to another different zone, throwing off its origin. Sedimentation and weathering could both break the fossil.
Semester 2, Blog 1: Evolution - A Theory
Blog 14: Actvities, Favorite/Least Fav
One of my favorite activity would be the gummy bear experiment. It was particularly interesting to find different ways to decompose the shape of the colorful treat. The difference in temperatures was pretty fun to notice while the gummy bear began to "melt" into a rubbery patty.
The least favorite is probably the recent cell cycle-related chapters. By far it was one of the most confusing unit with all those cycles, the steps in the cycles, what each step did, and how did it contribute to our bodies. Everything seemed to pile up into a mess, and memorizing each chapter was a difficult task.
In terms of changing one thing, I'd say the screen projector needs a clearer space so that whatever is shown on the laptop can be seen without any interruptions, which comes from the table with the various instruments/papers on it, or the small projector screen. Aside from that, everything seems fine.
The least favorite is probably the recent cell cycle-related chapters. By far it was one of the most confusing unit with all those cycles, the steps in the cycles, what each step did, and how did it contribute to our bodies. Everything seemed to pile up into a mess, and memorizing each chapter was a difficult task.
In terms of changing one thing, I'd say the screen projector needs a clearer space so that whatever is shown on the laptop can be seen without any interruptions, which comes from the table with the various instruments/papers on it, or the small projector screen. Aside from that, everything seems fine.
Blog 13: Crime-Fighting with DNA
Blog 12: Mendel's Pea Experiment
"Look up Gregor Mendel and his pea plant experiments Why does P1 look all alike and F1 looks very different?"
The P1 experiment must have been products of a heterozygous and homozygous plant, allowing all of them to retain most of the dominant traits. The F2 must have been a cross between two heterozygous plants, which causes some to have dominant traits, and others do not.
The P1 experiment must have been products of a heterozygous and homozygous plant, allowing all of them to retain most of the dominant traits. The F2 must have been a cross between two heterozygous plants, which causes some to have dominant traits, and others do not.
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