Letter to a Biology Student

To whom it may concern:

Hello, my name is Joshua Lei and I am a 15-year old Freshman at Saratoga High School.  During my Freshman year, I took the mandatory Health/Drivers-Ed and World Geography, English 9 MAP, Biology, Chinese, PE, Engineering, and Geometry.  Before I came to Saratoga High, I went to Redwood Middle School and Saratoga Elementary.  I like various topics in school such as math and science.  Outside of school, I am a fencer and I train almost every day of the week.  This takes a lot of time and balancing school and sports may be difficult.  On the first day of Biology class, I did not know what to expect with each teacher because they are so new to me.  As any student would, I payed attention to what Mr. Orre had to say and tried to understand what this class might feel like.

Mr. Orre designed a class known as "Flipped Classroom".  This means that you will be listening to his vodcast lectures for homework and then bringing in your questions for the next day to ask Mr. Orre.  The idea is to learn as much as you can at home and bring all the difficult topics to school to discuss with the teacher.  As the school year progresses, you can start to see a pattern for his classes.  On a typical day, you begin your DO NOW, an activity to get you thinking about last night's vodcast.  After Mr. Orre gets around to check all the vodcasts, you will recap the vodcast and then ask Mr. Orre about any lingering thoughts about the vodcast.  After all this, we normally do a project, lab, or write up.  It is essential to get a good quality notebook before the semester starts.  The notebook be a good chunk of your grade and it is imperative to keep your notebook tidy or else you will lose a lot of points during the notebook check before each test.

One of Mr. Orre's biggest Pet Peeves is definitely not cleaning up after completing a lab.  I had third period, the period right before lunch.  He would not let us go for lunch until we cleaned everything up.  This made the whole class work together to clean up the classroom so we could go eat lunch.  The tests, in my opinion, are fairly difficult.  My advice for studying for the tests is to obviously know the vodcast and also do the CFU's, the mini tests after each vodcast.

I thought this class was fun because of the 'Flipped Classroom" design.  It was definitely different from any other class I enrolled in.  The biggest piece of advice would be to keep a tidy notebook, submit the Blogger posts on time (especially second semester), and take the CFU's to get a deeper understanding for the vodcast.


Sincerely,

-Joshua Lei

20 Time Final Post

     For my 20 Time project, I designed an experiment which tested whether taking a nap would help you study.  For my experiment, I different lengths of a nap to test one thing.  I then composed another experiment with the same nap duration, but it tested a different topic.  I did tested two topics with different nap lengths and also included a no nap control.  I ran the two experiments with a decent amount of test subjects and gathered my data.
     The first thing I tested was the number of words remembered after taking a nap with the various nap lengths.  I have attached my data table below.  For my data table, there are three sections: a section with no nap, a section with a 15-20 minute nap, and a 30-60 minute nap.  Under that include the number of words remembered by the test subjects out of a possible 15 words remembered.  For the subjects that did not take a nap, they remembered an average of two words, which can be seen with the blue lines in the chart.  This low number of words that the subjects remembered can be attributed to the amount of stress of their daily lives and sleep deprivation.  According to Nationwide Children's Hospital, teenagers get an average of seven to seven and a half hours of sleep a day, but teens should receive at least nine hours of sleep.  This huge gap of sleep may impede students to perform at their full potential.  Also, school gives a lot of stress to students to get good grades.  These factors could be a reason why the subjects remember such a low number of words.

Words
NO NAP	15-20 min	30-60 min
2	5	10
3	6	11
2	7	12
3	8	15
4	6	13
2	7	12
1	5	10
0	6	9
2	6	12
2	6	11
3	7	13
4	6	10

     Next to the no nap data is the data for the people that got a 15-20 minute nap.  The average number of words remembered was six words, which can be seen with the red line.  The nap slightly helped but the brain waves in the brain during a power nap is not the ideal type of wave to improve memory.  That is why the 30-60 minute nap is so helpful if you want to memorize things.  The average words remembered for a 30-60 minute nap is 11 words, which can be seen with the orange line.  The longer nap helps with memory because the waves in the longer nap help memory.

Words Remembered Chart

     The next thing I experimented was how fast the test subjects could type.  This seem like a trivial trait, but it really tells me about how attentive the subjects are and also tests accuracy as well as motor skills.  I have attached the data table below.  Again, as you can see, not taking a nap hurt the performance.  The no nap subjects had an average of 55 words, which can be seen with the blue line, the 15-20 minute subjects had an average of 91, which can be seen with the red line, and the 30-60 minute nap had an average of 68, which can be seen with the orange line.  The 15-20 minute students had the most benefit because of what kind of waves were produce in their short nap.  A 15-20 minute nap boosts alertness and studying accuracy.

Typing
NO NAP	15-20 min	30-60 min
60	93	76
61	83	73
65	83	69
59	82	67
57	89	73
62	90	75
63	91	69
60	90	68
59	89	72
65	88	73
60	88	71
65	85	73
55	91	68

     If I were to grade my self based on what I set my goals as at the start of this project, I would give myself an almost perfect score, if not a perfect score.  The grade I give myself is very high because throughout the time for this project, I have worked productively, worked outside of class, and have also provided accurate data from the people I ask all in the short amount of time I received.  As my final product, I have composed two data tables and charts illustrating my findings and attached them onto this chart.  Along the way, I have written about what I have done so far as a checkpoint.  My first checkpoint I wrote was in February and can be read on my blog here.  I have write three total checkpoints all on the same blog, which I have already added earlier.

Words per Minute Chart

     Not only have I been working productively to produce enough data to form a conclusion, I have also learned a lot on the way.  During the duration of this project, I kept thinking about "Process over Product."  I thought about this during this project because this project is so open ended and there is no right or wrong answer.  I feel like I have produced a sufficient product, but I also learned a lot of intangible things along the way.  I feel like a better student today because of what I experienced during this project.  I have overcome many obstacles by myself and I have grown as a student.

Pig Dissection

     I think the relate and review for the pig dissection would be "What is the structure and function of the different body parts in a pig?"  During the course of this pig dissection, we needed to identify and say what the function of each part is.  The pig dissection relates to this class because in the last unit, we have learned about the different body systems of a human.  A pig and human are very similar in anatomy because we are both mammals because of the traits we learned in the previous unit.  For me, my favorite of the dissection was cutting the skin open to see all the body parts.  I cannot really say why, but it felt satisfying when I cut open the skin and see the organs inside the pig.  I am not grossed out by the organs and I find it interesting.  I also liked looking inside the pig and trying to identify the body parts and what they look like.  I used the tools and poked around in the pig to see what is inside.  The pig dissection was definitely a valuable experience.  It is not every day where you get to dissect a pig.  Also, since this is a biology class and biology is the study of life and living organism, it is important to look at an actual living organism.  Learning about something is one thing, but it is another thing to actually look at the thing in real life.  For the pig dissection, we were asked to identify the structure and function of the pig with a video tutorial and that video my group and I made can be viewed here via YouTube.

20 Time Individual Reflection

   For my 20 Time project, I decided to design an experiment to test the benefits of taking a nap.  I took on this challenge as my project because I am interested in how much sleep impacts everybody's lives and how productive naps can be.  Initially, I set a goal to run an design an experiment and gather data so I could analyze the impact of naps.  By the end of the project, I wanted to gather enough data to safely conclude how beneficial naps are.  Through the course of this project, I focused mainly on collecting evidence to make a conclusion, but along the way, there are many situations in which I grow and improve as a student.  After collecting my evidence, I could potentially tell others about my experiment and they could benefit from what I told them.

     At the start of this project, my plan consisted of designing an experiment that follows the scientific method.  I would collect data, form a hypothesis, design and run an experiment, gather data, and form a conclusion.  Knowing that I wanted to do this and the timeline of this project, I started researching as my first step.  After researching enough and forming my hypothesis, I can now design an experiment.  Next, I needed to find people that are willing to participate in my experiment.  After a while, I needed to check on the people that ran my experiment and collect the data.  This took the longest time because I needed to get a good number sample size to make a conclusion.

     That was all my initial understanding.  As always, nothing ever goes perfect so I needed to improvise.  The first setback I had was designing the experiment.  This, in my opinion, is the hardest step.  Normally in labs, I am given instructions, but in this 20 Time project, I needed to design my own experiment.  This took a while because I really needed to assess what I wanted to find out.  Another setback I had during the course of this project was to get a good number of people to participate in my experiment.  I needed to reach out to my friends and even my family and get as many people I can get to participate in my experiment.  This took a long time because I needed to tell them about my experiment and ask if they were available to do it.  Many of them said yes initially, but when I followed up, many of them said that they either did not have enough time or they forgot.

     I did not only have setbacks and failures during the course of my project.  Once I was assigned the project, I knew what I wanted to do.  I wanted to do something related to sleeping and brain-related topics.  I just needed to narrow my vision and compose an experiment that is plausible to complete on time.  I also found analyzing the data a success.  I like to very neat and organized so I created a Google Sheets and composed a table with all my data.  Since I am a visual person, I made a graph to further analyze my data.  After I collected my data and made charts, I could make a reasonable conclusion about what I think the data is trying to say.

     Along the way of this project, I learned a lot about my topic I researched and also the various soft and process skills.  I did gather enough data to make a conclusion, but as I went about my experiment, I learned a lot about designing an experiment, problem solving, and time management.  I learned a lot about myself as I am finishing up such a non restricted project.  The fact that 20 Time allows students to explore their interests lets them wander into their own interests and designing their own experiment, base on what they desire.  Throughout this project, I learned more about myself and how I operate.  I learned about making a strict timeline so I can get things done in a timely fashion.

     If I were to start over, I would change the way I asked people to run my experiment.  This took a long time, and I should have wrote it once and then copy and paste my messages to my peers.  Instead, what I did was respond to each person with the same message, but I typed it up every time.  This long process impeded how fast I got different people to participate in my experiment.  After all I have done to learn about my topic, it is safe to say that I have gathered enough information to spread my knowledge on what I have discovered.  I can share to my peers and they will take my advice for future references.

Unit 9 Reflection

     Unit 9 taught me how to classify animals.  The first essential question of this unit was "How is life organized?"  Throughout the vodcast, I learned about different domains and kingdoms.  Not only did I learn the various domain and kingdoms, I also learned about the structure of organization after that.  Next comes the phylum, class, order, and so on.  This unit taught me how to classify organisms.  Some other essential questions are "How does a taxonomist determine the kingdom and domain that an organism belongs to?" and "How do defining characteristics of modern invertebrate phyla show increased complexity evolved in animal kingdom?'.

     After learning about the various domains, kingdoms, and phylum and how they can group different organisms in a fairly organized manner, I still wonder about the "odd-ball" organisms.  Mr. Orre mentioned that protists is kind of the miscellaneous group.  In the world of science, there is never a right or wrong answer or even lines.  There will always be some grey area that scientists debate and I wonder about those "odd-ball" organisms and I am interested in how they could possibly be classified. 

     During the course of this unit, I put a lot of effort into a presentation called What on Earth Evolved.  During the lottery of choosing my organism, I chose the shark.  During the course of my research, I found many interesting things about sharks that I did not know before.  I studied their significant impact on Earth and their distinctive characteristics.  After I spent a lot of time researching, I could dump all my information I gathered into a Google Slides Presentation, which is embedded below.  Having made presentations before, I came into this project knowing that formatting presentations to make them aesthetically pleasing takes a lot of time.  I tried to include little amounts of text per slide complemented by a picture that portrays the point I am trying to make.  I also need to make sure to not forget to cite my source.  After I finished my presentation, I now needed to practice presenting.  I asked my dad for help because I knew that he is adept at speaking in front of large groups.  I asked him if he could critique my presentation and he gave me a few pointers such as "Don't say umm, like, and so a lot or else it seems like your stalling." or "You're talking to fast."  These pointers eventually gave me a direction to point my presentation before.  Finally when I thought I was ready, I presented to my family to get practice speaking in front of people.  This practice was really helpful because it made me get use to people staring at me.

     It was the day of the presentation and I was presenting last.  I was really anxious during the time of the presentations before me.  Once it was my turn, I executed my presentation well, but I thought I spoke too fast and did not provide eye contact with enough of the audience.  I started my presentation with a question, trying to involve the audience, and surprisingly, many different people started saying what they thought, which gave me confidence.  I ended with a pun, which might have been funny.

     Trying to assess my performance, I thought that having few bullets per slide was helpful because it did not overwhelm the audience and also gave me pointers to the things I wanted to say.  I also thought pictures were nice to because it supported my point.  At the end, I had four slides of Works Cited, which I did not like.  For the future, I could make the font smaller to squeeze my links into a smaller space.
     For the future, I should give myself more time to practice my presentation.  Getting some practice helps because you know what you want to say and also you do not get too nervous in front of the audience.  Also, I thought that I was speaking a little too fast, which I tend to do when I get nervous.  In addition, I should have stood more assertively and projected my voice to sound confident.

Geological Timeline Individual Reflection

     In this project, we made a geological timeline to show different events in the course of Earth.  I found that there are three events in Earth's history that stood out to me the most.  The first event is the diversification of vascular plants.  A scientist can look at fossils to see that more plants are around but plants increase the amount of oxygen and decrease the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, making Earth more habitable.  This eventually led to different mammals and eventually us, humans, living on the Earth in a suitable environment.  The second event is the Permian Extinction.  An extinction may seem like a bad thing, but this allows newer and fitter animals to roam the planet.  Reptiles, marine, and terrestrial organisms radiate during this period while many present day insects dominate.  This is a significant event in Earth's history because many of the larger animals went extinct while the smaller animals survived.  This can be seen as natural selection, as I learned in Biology class.  The third event is the origin of primate groups.  The arrival or primate groups are important to us because it gave rise to humans.  Without these primate groups existing, we may have never existed on this planet or we would have been significantly different.

     During the course of this project, we discovered more and more about how long Earth has been existing.  Since astronomical numbers such as light years are hard to comprehend, the Earth's scale is a little more understandable.  Earth's history is can be measured with eras and periods.  In the beginning eras, nothing much happened because the Earth is still taking its shape.  However, as time progresses, Earth undergoes more and more events.  Eventually towards the end, there are so many things happening it is hard to draw and write all the major events.  The amount of events that happened towards the end of the timeline really shocked me because the events seemed like it all happened in the recent years.

     The amount of progress humans have made during such a short amount of time has really left me dismayed.  We have been around for such a short amount of time, yet we still find ourselves asking each other to stop and save the environment.  All the mammals that lived before us managed to not destroy the Earth for a long amount of time.  However, we perform such detrimental actions such as the burning of fossil fuels and throwing plastic into the ocean.  We have managed to hurt the Earth so much, but we also have had many important discoveries such as writing with pencil and paper and high tech things such as the internet.  All the things we use today were discovered by someone not too long ago.

     I still wonder about how much longer Earth's history will be.  I learned about how we are only in a blink of an eye in terms of Earth's history but I do not know how much longer it will be.  I do not have an estimate because if we are only a blink of an eye, the history would be so large one could not comprehend.  Also, I wonder about the different actions we perform that hurt the environment.  Burning fossil fuels really hurts the environment, but I do not know how much longer we could really keep doing this and still living on Earth.

The Latest Check In - 3rd 20 Time Blog Update

     After working on my 20 time project for a good amount of time already, I have learned many things about my subject.  Since I am creating an experiment, I need to first gather information.  I have already gathered enough information about my topic to understand what is going on.  Since I am working on sleep and memory, I learned about the different sleep patterns and various beneficial ways to study and memorize concepts and words.  Through the course of this project, I have learned many things about myself.  Over the course of this project, I have learned that I work very productively in the amount of time in class.  The classroom is silent which causes me to focus clearly on the task I am working on.  Also, I have learned how creative I can be to solve various problems.
     Through this project, there have been many setbacks and things that hold me back from my desired goal.  The first setback I encountered is that I need to find the words, concepts, or diagrams I need to give to the people performing my experiment.  Recently, I have been using random word simulators to form random words.  Now, I have been moving into grasping concepts from biology.  For example, this can be things we learned about evolution and photosynthesis. After I gather enough of these, I can move onto creating diagrams.  These diagrams can also be from my biology vodcasts or even be other geographical maps.  The main setback that has be pulling me back the most is that I need to spend a lot of time finding things for my experimental people to study and memorize.  In the next class, I plan to handle this setback by gathering various things to study from my biology notebook and going online to finds various concepts and diagrams to study.
     My next step in my 20 Time project would be to finding a lot of people that want to perform my experiment.  Since I have finished gathering information, forming a hypothesis, and forming an experiment, I can now run my experiment.  To run my experiment, I will need people to run my experiment.  I can do this by asking my friends to do it.  I will give them my procedures and once they finish, they can both tell me their results as well as any advice so I can run the experiment smoother.
     Once I form a conclusion about the hypothesis I made, I can see what makes sense.  If my hypothesis is correct about sleeping and taking a naps, then I can apply this studying habit into my own ways of studying.  If this experiment proves to be beneficial, I can use this way to study during a big test or even during finals week.  I can also tell my friends and peers about this and they can study more effectively.

Unit 8 Reflection

     This unit was all about populations constantly changing and evolution of populations.  Some of the essential themes and understands are evolution, the role of variation in evolution, causes of change, why change occurs, what evolves, and natural selection acting on phenotypes.   One of the major concepts about evolution is that natural selection acts on each individual.  However, this is not the case; the whole population evolves.  The natural selection acts on the phenotypes, but the genotype changes because of this.  Another concept that people miss is that evolution is the change of allele frequency in a population over a period of time.  Going in to this unit, I knew what evolution was but I could not have told you a solid definition.  The concept of evolution can be seen by the Hunger Games Lab.  This lab really helped me understand all of the concepts of evolution in a real example and this lab really cleared things up for me.  The Hunger Game analysis can be viewed here.

Pathwayz. Gene Pool. Digital image. Pathway. Ben Himme, Web. 10 Apr. 2017. <https://www.pathwayz.org/Tree/Plain/GENE+POOLS+%26+ALLELE+FREQUENCY>

     This unit covered most concepts of evolution.  However, there is not enough time to learn everything of one subject.  Some things I wonder about are why evolution is evolution and why natural selection is so random.  Natural selection acts on individuals but I do not understand why it acts the way it is.

Get Holistic Health. Screaming in microphone. Digital image. Get Holistic Health. Get Holistic Health, Web. 10 Apr. 2017. <http://www.getholistichealth.com/13375/how-to-develop-assertiveness/>.

     In the previous unit, we learned to be more assertive.  Since then, I have made efforts to try and be more assertive.  One thing I have done that I found really helpful is to stand up like a hawk and not slump my shoulders like a turtle.  I found this to be helpful because standing straight gives me more confidence to become more assertive.  I still need to work on my voice and stating things in a more declarative tone and not in a question-like tone.

Hunger Games Final Analysis Answers

1. In this Hunger Games lab, each student was assigned a different way to eat corks.  There was a stumpy's that had to eat food with wrists, knuckler's that had to eat food with knuckles, and pincher's who had to eat with their index finger and thumb.  The class went outside to the lower field and all stood with their backs to the center and once Mr. Orre blew the whistle, the class would turn around and try to eat as many corks as possible.  After a certain amount of time, he would tell us to stop and count of corks.  If we did not have more than a certain amount, we could not reproduce and died off.  This lab stimulated a real life situation of different kinds of animals fighting for survival.  It also demonstrated natural selection because most of the pincher's survived because they were better suited for survival.
2. The pincher's phenotype of aa was the best for survival.  The pincher's were best suited for survival because the way that they ate was the most efficient.  Instead of picking up one at a time with their wrists, pincher's could grab two at a time with far more accuracy with their fingers.
3. Throughout this lab, the population did evolve and this can be seen with the evidence that I collected.  At the beginning of the lab, the ratio of "A" alleles to "a" alleles were 0.48 to 0.52, respectively.  At the end of the lab, the ratio of "A" alleles to "a" alleles changed to 0.18 to 0.82, respectively.  The population did evolve because the ratio of the different alleles changed.
4. Some random factors in this lab were the assignment of alleles at the start, who stood where in the circle to get food, who was the child of which family, and sometimes the placement of the food.  However, some factors were not random and were done on purpose.  The factors in this lab that are done on purpose are the mating of two individuals and where Mr. Orre decided the place the food in the later generations.  If Mr. Orre decided to put all the food next to the pincher's, the whole population would turn into pincher's fairly quickly.  However, if he decided to help out the stumpy's and put the food right next to all the stumpy's, the stumpy's would have a higher chance of survival and would last a little longer in the population.
5. If the food was a different size, the population would have changed.  If the food was too big for a pincher to pinch, the pincher's would not do as well as the stumpy's because they use their wrists not delicate and precise fingers to grab things.  If the food was smaller, than the pincher's would be favored because they have precise movements and can pick up smaller items easier.
6. If there was no incomplete dominance, then the knuckler's would have not existed and the population would only be pincher's and stumpy's.  The results would have changed because the ratio of alleles would have been far more towards one species and in this case would be the pincher's.
7. Natural selection acts on the population causing the weaker traits to die out and stronger traits to be common.  Over long periods of time, the population would evolve because the population needs to adapt to their environment.
8. Since pincher's provided to be dominant, pincher's commonly got together to mate and produce another pincher baby.  However, later on in the lab, there were only a few stumpy's and knucklers.  The stumpy's bred with stumpy's, making more stumpy babies, which make the ratio of stumpy's in the population higher.  If pincher's mated with only pincher's, the whole and most of the population would be pincher's.  In nature, to ensure survival, same species mate with each other because they want their species to not die out and become extinct.
9. In evolution, a population evolves.  The population would change in order to adapt to what the environment provides.  Natural selection acts on the phenotype.  The genotype changes which causes the phenotype to change.
10. After this lab clearly demonstrated evolution and natural selection, I had a clear understanding of how these concepts work and this lab answered all my questions.

Nap and Studying Testing Progress Report

     For my 20 Time project, I am conducting an experiment to determine how long an ideal nap would be to boost studying efficiency.  The first step of an experiment is to gather data about the topic.  After gathering as much helpful data as I could, I found out a few key things that will help me for my experiment.  I found out about a persons sleep cycle.  Around every three hours, our body repeat a sleep cycle.  If you take a nap and wake up in the deep sleep portion, you will not feel very good.  Another thing I found out was that around a twenty minute nap is ideal because it does not enter deep sleep and the nap does not seem too short.  Over the course of the 20 Time so far, I have learned that I am very curious in my subject.  While I am searching about a particular topic, my mind wanders to compose another question I have about a similar topic.

     So far, I have had a few setbacks.  As of right now, I am about to start my experimental phase.  After gathering enough information and forming a hypothesis, I am ready to conduct an experiment.  However, I need to have a group of people to help me conduct my experiment.  I cannot test myself because I know what is being tested.  I plan to ask my friends that I socialize with outside of class and also ask other biology students in Mr. Orre's class to see if they are interested in joining my experiment.

     My next steps in my 20 Time project is to conduct my experiment.  After successfully running a first round of experiments, I hope to analyze the data and possibly conduct another follow-up experiment to test something related to this topic.  After all the necessary testing is done, I can analyze all my data and come up with a conclusion.  Once I find out what the most efficient nap time is, I can use that information for myself when I am studying for the finals or just studying in general.  I can take efficient nap breaks that can help me get better test grades and also become a more efficient worker.

Unit 7 Reflection

     Unit 7 was all about our ecosystem.  Some big idea of ecology that I learned are homeostasis, interdependence, habitat, niche, biotic factors, and abiotic factors.  Homeostasis is a big thing in an ecosystem because like our bodies, an ecosystem work best at equilibrium.  For example, there cannot be too much of too little sun.  Just right is in the middle where the flowers receive enough energy to produce oxygen and glucose but not too much so where they are out of their tolerance range and die off.  Interdependence is a also a huge factor in an ecosystem.  All the different trophic levels rely on each other to provide food for each other.  The primary consumer all the way up to the quarternary consumer relies on the little primary producer to provide enough energy for them to stay living.  Habitats are important because this is where the species live and perform their daily tasks.  This is where they live and their habitat needs to fit their needs and tolerance range.  Niches are also important because not only does the area need to fit their needs, but the factors also.  The species adaptations are needed to fit whenever something is not going right.  Biotic and abiotic factors are important because a turtle needs other biotic factors such as birds and trees and abiotic factors such as sun and water to survive.  With both of these things working together, the turtle could live.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMsB-EkFQtg&feature=youtu.be

Our Conservation Biology Project can be viewed here.

     I do have some questions after this unit has ended.  As our unit ended, I wondered about how I could make our home a better place.  After seeing Bag It, I really wonder about how long we can still last keeping up how much we use plastic and fossil fuels to literally destroy our planet.  Also, I want to know how I could help.  This task seems way to large of a problem to understand what little role I could do to help contribute to solving this problem.

     I think that our Conservation Biologist Project went really well.  My group had a really easy time dividing the tasks equally and meeting deadlines.  Our group did not have any communication errors or conflicts that stopped our progress on working on our project.  I think that the way we divided work went well because we finished everything in a timely manner and everybody knew what to do.  However, I thought that we did not have time to record the project together, so Mitra had to finish it at home.  I learned a lot about how a group project works and I can take my knowledge to apply it to the next project so it runs smoother.  For my survey, I was a little more passive than aggressive but my assertive score was not very low.  A few things that I can do to become more assertive is to stand straight like a hawk not a turtle.  I need to stand up straight and also look people in the eye.  If I think that staring into each others eyes are weird, I can look at their nose of forehead.

Story of Stuff Extra Credit Summary

In this short informational video, I learned more about the process of how to change the process.  From the last video “Story of Stuff”, I learned about what five things contribute into the cycle of burning fossil fuels to creating hazardous toxins.  The video “Story of Change” was a continuation of the previous video.  “Story of Change” talked about how we can change this system.  The answer to changing the system lays in our hands.  We the people have the ability to change the whole system.  There are three different components to changing the process.  The first step is the idea.  Everybody needs to have an idea to start and build off of.  For example, Martin Luther King Jr. needed to have an idea of what he wanted to argue before he could do anything.  He couldn’t just go up there not knowing what he wanted to say.  The second thing is we the people.  We live in a democratic society and we the people have a huge amount of power.  For example, when Martin Luther King Jr. was giving his speech, only 25% of the people supported him.  This may seem like a tiny amount, but that 25% of the people were highly effective.  The third thing is to take action.  The 25% of Martin Luther King Jr.’s supporters did not just stand around waiting for something to happen.  Those 25% of the people took action and made something happen.  This step is very critical because if you have all three things, you can change anything you want.  I think this three step process is very logical and effective.  First, you need an idea.  This makes sense because you need to know what you want.  The second step is we the people.  This means that the citizens have the power to protest and eventually get what they want.  This makes sense because the majority of the population of America is the citizens, not the wealthy.  The third step is to take action.  This makes sense because an idea is only just an idea unless you do something about that idea.  Someone needs to make it happen or else nobody would know about the amazing idea.

Setting the Stage for 20 Time

     In my Biology course, we are starting a project called 20 Time.  Also known as Inquiry Hour or a passion project, I will spend roughly 20% of my time in class or every other Monday working on what I am interesting in and passionate about.  In my 20 Time project, I will ask the question "How will different nap lengths benefit how well one can study?"  By studying, I mean the different aspects of studying such as memory, understanding new concepts, accuracy in subjects such as math, and many other factors that are used in a useful studying session.  Using the scientific method of inquiry, I plan to design an experiment testing different lengths of power naps to identify what would be ideal for the most efficient studying.

     I chose this specific project because I question what the most efficient and effective way to study is and how to achieve this.  I also love sleeping and I am sure everybody values their sleep.  Not many teenagers get the recommended 9-10 hours of sleep daily.  It turns out that the average teenagers get around two hours less than what experts recommend.  In order to compensate for the missed sleep time, I wonder what length of a nap could help boost both how you feel emotionally as well as how to study more efficiently.  This project will answer the question I asked above through a series of experiments and trials.  After running various tests, I will analyze the data and observations I have gathered in the experimental phase and come up with my best answer to my question given the data I received in my experiment.

     My goal in my 20 Time project is to find how to attain a high quality studying session by taking various naps.  Through my course of this 20 Time project, I hope to find the sweet spot for the amount of time each nap should be to have the best studying time afterwards.  By collecting data, I could measure how much progress I have made my determining if I have hit my jackpot yet or not.  If not, I will continue to find the best time and duration.  Moving forward, I plan to use the steps of the scientific method I have learned in class and design my own experiment.  I will gather information, form a hypothesis, construct and run an experiment, and collect data and analyze.  I will repeat the experimental steps if needed.

Unit 6 Reflection

     This unit was called biotechnology.  Biotechnology is the manipulation of living organisms in order to benefit mankind.  Biotechnology is very broad, but in this unit, we focused on the question, "What is the purpose of biotechnology?"  Biotechnology generally focuses on topics such as DNA, proteins, and inheritance.  Throughout this unit, we learned various subjects of biotechnology such as sequencing, PCR, and gel electrophoresis.  Watching the nightly vodcasts, I learned a lot of detailed facts about these various subjects, but there is a bigger scope than just memorizing the facts about the subjects.  Sequencing, for example, can be applied into the bigger world rather than just a biology class.  Sequencing can find the exact order of the DNA.  This is impressive and also can be used in the outside world.  Sequencing can be used for forensics to see who committed the crime with the given DNA sample.  Another example is PCR, which stands for polymerase chain reaction.  This is the process that amplifies a certain DNA segment into making millions and millions of copies.  Again, PCR can be used in the outside world in cloning.  If a scientist wanted to clone something, he or she would use the process of PCR.  Gel electrophoresis can also be used in the real world.  Gel electrophoresis can be used to identify criminals that ran away from the scene.  The forensic scientist would scoop up a DNA sample and can try and find the culprit.  The DNA would be put into the tiny wells into the agar gel to run the gel electrophoresis and analyze the data like in my previous blog post about gel electrophoresis.  These subjects are just a few of the many topics I learned this unit.

     This unit was short and sweet.  Some strengths in this unit for me was that I just came off a nice long vacation after the stressful finals week.  My family and I went out of town to visit family and this was a nice break from the constant stress of school.  My brain was allowed to be relaxed and decompress, which made my mind fresh for this unit.  I also had a clearer idea of how to study and tackle various assignments such as vodcasts, tests, and lab reflections.  Some setbacks, however, included the constant studying I wanted to accomplish.  I wanted to constantly study after each vodcast, but I was not able to do so.  A success I would like to share is the use of note cards for studying for the big unit test.  I convert all my vodcast notes into note cards and this is a neat way to study in short chunks separated by a few minute breaks in between.

     In this unit, we did the Candy Electrophoresis Lab and the pGLO lab.  In the gel electrophoresis lab, I learned about how to get the DNA.  In this lab, we did the candy with dye.  The dye acted like the DNA.  The different DNA would run against the control DNA, and I learned that the results were never exact.  Some were pretty close, but not all of them were 100% perfectly this color or length.  More information about how I analyzed the lab can be found using this link:  http://leibiologyblog.blogspot.com/.  The other experiment we did in the biotechnology unit was the pGLO lab.  In this lab, we tried to use different possibilities to try and see which DNA would glow.  In this unit, I learned the reason for each substance that we used.  For example, the calcium chloride would be used for loosing the membrane and the arabinose would make the bacteria glow.  With all these chemicals, I was able to find out what each substance did to the final result.  My analysis can be found with the same link which is: http://leibiologyblog.blogspot.com/. 

     As always, there is never enough to learn about a various topic.  Biotechnology is so broad that we barely covered the fundamentals.  I wonder about the real world of biotechnology and how it can be implemented to benefit our society to make things easier.  For example, the movie GATTACA.  GATTACA was a dystopian society where everybody was perfect genetically.  I want to prevent things like that, but also use biotechnology to benefit our society.

     In the beginning of the year, we wrote a New Years Resolution.  My goals were to maintain my grades fairly high.  So far after around three to four weeks, my grades are still maintaining a high percentage.  The hardest part of the semester is definitely the first month.  This period of time is the hardest of all because the grades fluctuate a lot.  If you get a 5/10 on your first assignment, you will have a D as a grade.  Right now, I am still around where I would like to be grade wise.  There are a few steps, however, I could start doing.  The first thing for biology is to study proactively.  This means after each vodcast relate and review and CFU, I need to study the material so I could come in prepared with all my questions that needed to be answered.  This way, I do not need to cram the last minute.

pGLO Lab Analysis

pGLO Observations , Data Recording & Analysis

1.

Obtain your team plates.  Observe your set of  “+pGLO” plates under room light and with UV light.  Record numbers of colonies and color of colonies. Fill in the table below. Plate Number of Colonies Color of colonies under room light Color of colonies under   UV light - pGLO LB 0 grey-white grey-white - pGLO LB/amp 0 Clear (nothing) Clear (nothing) + pGLO LB/amp 49 grey-white grey-white + pGLO LB/amp/ara 64 Glowing green Glowing green

2.	What two new traits do your transformed bacteria have? The first trait that I observed was that the transformed bacteria started to glow,  The second trait that I saw that the transformed bacteria were not only growing, but the bacteria were both green and glowing.
3.	Estimate how many bacteria were in the 100 uL of bacteria that you spread on each plate. Explain your logic. I think that there are too many bacteria to count in the 100 uL of bacteria.  Bacteria are microscopic and with that, it is hard to tell how many single bacterium there are.
4.	What is the role of arabinose in the plates? The role of arabinose is to provide a way to control expression of the GFP gene.
5.	List and briefly explain three current uses for GFP (green fluorescent protein) in research or applied science. The first application of GFP is US Company Yorktown Technologies sold florescent green zebra fish in order to detect pollution in waterways. The second application of GFP is that a Japanese-American team created florescent green cats as a proof of concept to use cats as a model organism for disease. The third application of GFP is that a South Korean Team bred red glowing dogs which allowed scientists to study the genes that cause humans diseases such as blindness.
6.	Give an example of another application of genetic engineering. Genetic engineering can be used to design various things.  An example of genetic engineering would be to mass produce human growth hormones in the field of medicine.  Genetic engineering can mass produce other various things such as vaccines and insulin.