...so this is what happened in class today...

Mid-Term Evaluation

Overall in this term of Biology 11, I think that my knowledge has definitely progressed. I enjoy learning about this type of science because I have always valued nature and living things.Accumulating this information makes me happy. In this course so far there has been so much discovery. My favourite part of the term was looking at and drawing specimens of microscopic creatures in the lab. I find that I learn best through experiences( I think most people do). My favourite experience was the pond adventure. It was slightly dysfunctional for my small group because of the mud haha but seeing the LIVING, MOVING creatures up close was awesome.
Here are some summaries of evidence to prove progressive learning for the main topics that we went over...
  
Taxonomy& Classification
I feel as though my test on taxonomy was an accurate display of my learning. In addition, on September 15th, I made a blog post called "Scientific names" that helped me to better familiarise myself with classification.

Evolution
In the evolution unit, I retained a significant amount of information. For me, the concepts just stuck. I fully understood the information that was being presented to me. One surprisingly challenging assignment involved cutting and pasting pictures of creatures with different traits onto a piece of paper and linking them to one another to show how they evolved. This should not have stressed me out as much as it did LOL my group worked so hard on this because we were terrified of messing up one connection and then  destroying the entire thing. This "Intense" concentration actually provided a great learning experience.
 

 Okay that picture is very underwhelming...here is another picture of work that I completed in the variation lab which was a project that helped me to visualise variation.













how exiting. Okay here is a less boring picture.
...Okay my computer's not letting me make the picture any smaller so you just got the full on experience I guess...anyway...my partner, Ester (On the left with the leg) and I spent hours at home organising information at home, sharing it with one another, and filming in my backyard to create a video about that covered everything that we learned on the topic of evolution. I loved it because It was the most solid, thorough evidence of learning I had. And then.....IT WOULDN'T EVEN UPLOAD TO YOUTUBE! ...so ya.  Regardless, we still were able to show it to people so overall, the video was a success.

Viruses
Some very clear evidence of my learning on viruses was presented in my two blog posts, "Viruses part 1&2"

Bacteria
One lovely day in Biology, PLAY DOUGH HAPPENED! and then we molded it into the shapes of the different parts of prokaryotic cells and the different shapes that they come in. I am a visual learner so this assignment helped me to understand and remember all of the important placements and functions. I'm stealing these pictures off of my partner's blog










Protists
My best work on protists included the sketching of protists in the lab. I thought that these were beautiful and sketching out the protists for some reason made me really happy :D here is a picture of the paper that I recorded the images on as well as some calculations. 

so that's it :D
I usually complete assignments (usually meaning all marked assignments excluding the classification poster).  My blog is not entirely complete either. I tend to spend a lot of time on my blog posts and forget the fact that they could just be made in less than 30 minutes so that's one of the reasons why completing everything is difficult. In addition, considering the heavy coarse load that I have, when I spend extra time on trying to make my assignments look pretty it cuts into my time for completing work from my other subjects that I struggle a lot more with as understanding does not come as easy to me with the other classes as it does with this class. Budgeting my time is obviously something that I need to figure out and it's something that I aim to work towards in the future. I feel like overall I take pride in the work that I hand in and put a lot of effort into it. In class I think that I could work towards using my time more efficiently as that could contribute to me bettering my abilities to budget my time at home. 
      I think that tests are the best way for me to show my knowledge for a subject and so far, in this class I've gotten 100% on all of the tests EXCEPT FOR ONE (The virus quiz) where I received one mark wrong. :'(
but that's about it. I pushed myself to prove my understanding to the best of my abilities and was often among the last people to finish because I tend to elaborate on the short answer questions.
        My most powerful learning experience in biology was when the class collected protists from the pond beside the school and actually found living moving things swimming  inside the water. I thought it was amazing because it was another reminder that things aren't always as they seem and i found myself very engaged in biology in that experience.

Overall, I have learned a lot of information in this course and have proven it in the tests although there are some areas that I am certain that I can improve upon
I would give myself an 87%


 
 

 

Hey I'm working on the mid-term evaluation now but I'm paranoid that It might not be finished in time. I was thinking about 87 % but I'll explain why in the evaluation.

Viruses Part 2- Rabies

Finally...here is part two :)

The Rabies Virus

Transmission

The Rabies virus is spread from a host (rabid animal) to an uninfected individual (animal or human)  through infected saliva, which is often exchanged when the host bites the uninfected animal due to the negative effects of the virus

Effects and Symptoms

Symptoms of the Rabies virus begin with flu-like symptoms and can develop into mental problems including delirium, hallucinations, extreme anxiety, confusion, and rage. Symptoms also include insomnia, paralysis, and hyper saliva production, and vocal spasms.If the rabies virus has enough time to infect the central nerve system it is fatal and will continue to damage the brain until the virus results in death.

Deaths

Each year, the rabies virus causes approximately 55,000 deaths world-wide

When and where in the world was the epidemic?
The rabies virus came in to existance over 4000  years ago before 2000BC. The epidemic can be found in most of the world excluding Australia and New Zeland. The most deaths occur in developing countries in the continent Asia and Africa.


 

Viruses part 1

 Describe the general structure of a virus

Viruses are very small compositions containing nucleic acid in the form of DNA or RNA enclosed in a capid.

What is the genetic material that can be found in a virus?

The genetic material that can be found in a virus includes single-stranded DNA or RNA or double-stranded DNA or RNA

 Example of plant virus:

The Cauliflower Mosaic Virus infects plants( most commonly cauliflowers and turnips) through transmission via aphids. The virus causes deformities, stunted growth, and mosaic patterned legions on leaves

                                                      Example of animal virus:

                                                      Canine Parvovirus is a common virus among dogs that is spread through                                                       direct contact of feces.The virus can cause many factors and symptons                                                         that lead to death.

Viruses...are they non-living or living?
The topic of whether viruses are living or non-living is a difficult topic because they do possess living traits including the ability to adapt over time and they contain genetic material. They also have the ability to "Reproduce" but they are only able to do when attached to a host cell which can be considered as not so much "Life" as it is "Borrowed life". Viruses are unable to reproduce without a host cell. Viruses are unable to ingest, produce, or dispose of nutrients either so although they are very similar to things that we consider living, based on the concept of what life actually is, I do not consider viruses living.
Beneficial viruses?
There are viruses that can prevent aggressive attacks from occurring. For instance, having cowpox can prevent you from having smallpox in the future. Being infected with the Hepatitis A virus can also stop the Hepatitis C virus from spreading. These work like vaccines as they are a weaker virus that can prevent a very bad virus from replicating and wreaking havoc inside a persons body.

Cephalopod Camoflage

One kind of animal that I have always been fascinated with is the tentacly-suckery-swimming kind. I'm referring to cephalopods. The most well known kind of cephalopods include squids, cuttlefish, and octopi. I remember snorkeling in Hawaii a few years ago and coming across a small group of squids that seemed to be changing color or refracting light as they swam with their skin looking like it had a weird rippling, marble effect going on. It kind of made my brain hurt. Then, a few days later, I also saw this really tiny dark colored octopus shifting around on the sandy ocean floor. I watched it for a while until somehow it completely disappeared as soon as it came across a piece of black and white coral. It didn't seem like it had to bury it's self in the sand or hide underneath it to conceal it's self. It just literally just disappeared instantaneously. That also made my brain hurt. WHAT IS GOING ON!

so...I found this video...

AND THEN MY BRAIN HURT EVEN MORE

...so I found this other video to explain what just happened. It's crazy.

So... that was informative.
 But I think that the whole idea of this is amazing. When you think of a color changing animal, immediately, CHAMELEON pops into your brain. Yet everyone knows what an octopus is but you don't just think "Oh, octopus. Yes. Magical creature of invisibility and mind-blowery."...(or at least I didn't) Now we know :D

Progress Reflection

     So far in biology eleven, I am proud of the amount of knowledge that I have gained in this course! I've learned a lot about organisms that I had never understood before for example the details of natural selection and how it leads to evolution and what exactly a virus is. NOW I FEEL INFORMED :D this if fabulous. In my opinion, my best work was evident in the tests, the biology home video, and my blog entries. I feel like tests and are the best way for me to give evidence of the knowledge that I have retained in a unit. I generally spent as much time as I could to complete both tests and took pride in the amount of information that I was able to display on the spot. The biology video was one of the best ways for me to show what I had learned. It was definitely my favorite assignment so far as it was very fun to prepare and film. And after watching it, I was surprised that I actually knew so much information. Still working on uploading it onto the interweb though...teehee. In addition to those pieces of work, I feel like the paragraphs that I have written in my blog are some of my best work because in each post, I had learned something new so I tried to elaborate and provide a lot of accurate information to share the new facts that I had learned. In particular, the narwhal post. That one was cool. I like that one.
     My binder is pretty organized.I am able to flip through it and use it as a study tool. Some things are slightly out of order though.After looking through my binder, it is evident that I have completed pretty much all of the question and answer worksheets that were handed out.HOWEVER....this is going to come across as extremely pathetic...but cut-and-paste assignments stress me out. So...ya. The majority of those are incomplete or gone because either some cutout pieces were lost or I just became very confused. And then I rage quit. I have also kept up with most of the work that has been assigned, except for the scientific names of imaginary species and a few blog entries. It is evident that I could try harder to stay on top of everything in order to prove that I am engaged in this class.
      So far, the narwhal blog post means the most to me because the information that I found out was super interesting. Who would have thought that something that looks like a decorative horn is actually a tooth that may work as a hyper sensitive sensory organ. It was surprising to me because everyone knows what a narwhal is but they don't know what the tusk is for. Now I know. I FEEL INFORMED AGAIN.
     To me, engagement in class means listening attentively  to the teacher as she is talking and actually trying to relate to and comprehend what is being said , using time in class to complete assignments, contributing to class discussions, and working together with peers to actually engage in making discoveries in labs. In class, I have learneda lot  of fascinating things from paying attention and actually using my brain while taking notes rather than just blanking out and copying like a robot. In team projects, I like to share ideas and learn from the ideas contributed from others.I totally love labs and try to find interesting results to the best of my ability.
   For the rest of the semester I will make it my goal to be more engaged in class and spend more time on homework. I want my blog to have more posts and just give as much evidence of progress in this class as possible. Because I am definitely learning and am starting to view things differently but I don't think that it is as evident as it should be.

What is the Purpose of the Tusk

There are many different hypothesis' as to why narwhals have a large tusk protruding from their skull. Because  the tusk is a trait that only males have, many theories state that the tusk is a sexual trait that displays male dominance and can attract females through social ranking. Some sources claim that the tusk may be used as a weapon although the most fascinating discovery that has been made regarding the tusk is that it actually contains ten million nerve connections and it may be highly sensitive to many things including hydrodynamics, temperature, pressure, and possibly many other stimuli.

The Majestic Narwhal

 Q: What is the purpose of the long horn extending from from the head of a narwal?
A: My hypothesis is that the long horns may not be as "Functional" as they are "Intimidating". I feel like narwhals probably aren't very aggressive  creatures so the horn may be a way of scaring away predators.

Scientific Names

Today I gathered the full scientific names of 5 different animals that I thought were very similar.Scallop: Eukarya, Animalia,Mollusca, Bivalvia, Ostreoida, Pectinidae, Argopecten, A.irradians. Man of War Jellyfish: Eukarya, Animalia, , Hydrozoa, Siphonophora, physaliidae,Phsalia, Piphysalis.Cuttlefish: Eukarya, Animalia, Mollusca, Cephalopoda, Sepiida, Sepidae,Metasepia,M.pfefferi. Nudibrank: Eukarya, Animalia, Mollusca, Gastropoda, Nudibranchia, Facelinidae, Cratena, Peregrina. Lobster: Eukarya,Animalia, Anthropoda, Malacostraca, Decapoda, Nephropidae, Homarus, H. americanus. I chose these animals because I thought that they would be very closely related since they are all invertibrates from the sea. After taking a closer look, the animals are not as similar as I thought. All have been placed under the domain, Eukarya and the Kingdom Animala. The most closely related animals in the list are the Scallop, Cuttlefish, and Nudibrank which is evident because they all share the phylum,Mollusca. Mollusks are the largest phylum of marine animals and 23% of marine animals are classified under the Mollusca phylum. The Scientific Names of the Man of War Jellyfish and Lobster were not what I expected them to be. Although they seemed similar, they both come from the two completely different phylums, Cnidarea (which contains over 10,000 different species) and Anthropoda(which represents an animal that has an exoskeleton). This assignment has definately opened my eyes to the crazy thought of there being over 8.7 million different species of or eukaryotic creatures on earth and that although some animals may seem very similar, there are many distinctions that make them vastly different.

Lichen is a type of fungus that grows in a symbiotic relationship with algae. Lichen is able to withstand temperatures below freezing point because it has the ability do shut down it's cells in the process of dehydration. Because the cells are shut down they are protected from the destruction of ice crystals forming inside of them.

This is a coniferous sapling. Evergreen trees can stay throughout cold winter environments by the adaptions of their leaves. Winter can be very dry so their needles are very thin, waxy and have less pores so that they can retain water much better than deciduous trees can.

Some slugs are able to survive the winter by burrowing underground below the point of freezing so that they can avoid being frozen themselves. A lot of other slugs die after laying their eggs in the autumn. The eggs are able to withstand the winter so that new slug babies can hatch and repopulate.

We found a ladybug  :)

ladybugs are able to survive the winter by establishing large groups and huddling together in elevated warm areas to hibernate due to the shortage of natural food sources.

After participating in the living things scavenger hunt, I have formulated the question, how do some of these organisms survive the winter.