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.