20 Time Final Post

          My 20 Time project was about memory and this blog post will bring some closure and showcase my final product. This is also a chance to evaluate myself and what I did during this process. What I did in my 20 Time project was solve a question about memory which was "how and why do we forget?" I devised an experiment to test this question using two test subjects and a deck of 30 cards with matching pairs. Then, I made my test subjects play concentration to test how well they remember where each card is exactly. I recorded when they got a pair and when they didn't and I recorded where they picked the cards and why. After, I interviewed my test subjects to see what they thought of it and what they experienced.
          My final product of this project was the data and conclusions that I have produced from my experiment. The data is in the following table.

Turns:

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

Person 1

NP

NP

NP

NP

P

P

NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

P

NP

NP

P

NP

Person 2

NP

NP

NP

P

NP

NP

NP

NP

P

NP

NP

P

P

NP

NP

NP

P

Turns:	18	19	20	21	22	23	24	25
Person 1	NP	P	P	NP	NP	P	P	P
Person 2	NP	NP	NP	NP	P	NP	NP	NP

Key: NP = no pair, P = pair

The conclusions that I have drawn from this is that over time, the short-term memory starts to decay and memories get forgotten easily and that the short-term memory can only hold around 5-9 items at a time.

This table shows the turns that each person took and whether they got a pair or not. It took 25 turns and person 1 won with 9 pairs while person 2 lost with 6 pairs. 

          In Forgetfulness Blog Post 1, I had set my goals for what I want to do in this project, however, I was very unsure about what to do or where to start for my project. By the time of Forgetfulness Blog Post 2, I was sure about what to do, but the problem was how to go about doing what I wanted. By the time of Forgetfulness Blog Post 3, I was completely sure about what I was going to do, how I was going to do it, and why I was going to do it. Some more evidence of what I did are in these google docs: 20 Time Experiment and 20 Time Research. How I would evaluate myself is by going through all of my work and seeing how well I have done everything up until now. I feel that my effort throughout this project, whether it be research, the experiment, or everything in between, has been my best effort. I have produced something that has satisfied my curiosity in this area and I have sacrificed a lot of time towards this project, and for all of those reasons, I believe I deserve an A 

Pig Dissection Lab

           The purpose of this lab was to observe the internal and external organs of a pig. This dissection relates to what I learned in this unit because I learned about all of the organs and organ systems in the vodcasts. I was able to observe these organs and organ systems in real life when I dissected the pig. For example, I could see all of the organs of the digestive system and the sequence of how food is digested in the body. I could also see the respiratory system and what organs were in that system such as the lungs, diaphragm, and the trachea.
          My favorite part of the dissection was when we cut open the belly to expose the thoracic and abdominal cavities. I was surprised to see the shape of each of the organs and the colors of them. It looked unlike the diagrams I have seen, but it was accurate to what I saw in the pig. At first, I was grossed out by the inside of the pig, but over time, I was able to look into it and observe all of the organs. I think this dissection was a valuable experience because it opened my eyes to see something that I have never seen before and to experience how the body works and looks in real life. Below is the youtube video that I made of the dissection and the explanation of each organ system.

20 Time Individual Reflection

          My 20 time project was about how and why we forget. I conducted research about this topic, then I made and did an experiment to test memory and memory loss. I chose this challenge because I was very  interested in this when I thought of it. Also, it has helped me learn how my memory works in the context of remembering formulas for math or concepts for biology. For this project, I was mostly focused on self-improvement of my knowledge of memory and my learning process. 

          My initial plan for this project was discussed in 20 Time Blogpost 1. It was to research this topic to see what it was about, since I didn't know much about how memory worked. Then, the next step was to create an experiment to test what I learned. After that was to conduct the experiment and collect data, then analyze it. I would say that I stuck relatively well to my initial plan explained above. My successes were that I made and conducted a successful experiment. I didn't have any failures, but there might have been inconveniences such as time management and conflicts. My biggest obstacle would be getting started because this was such a vague project with no set deadlines or goals. It was different than what I usually do for projects. However, I managed to finish most of what I wanted to accomplish in the first place. 

          What I learned was about the complex processes of how our brains memorize and forget information. I also learned how to create an experiment. Some soft skills, or life skills, that I learned were time management and resolving conflict issues. If I had a chance to do this again, I would manage my time better and I would plan around my schedule to fit 20 time in to get more work done. What I have learned about myself is that I can improve on my time management and that I have learned about how I forget and what I can do to improve my memory. For now, I think this challenge is done and I don't have any intention of continuing it. 

Unit 9 Reflection

          In this unit we learned about the study and organization of organisms called taxonomy. The themes and essential understandings were the defining characteristics of the different taxonomic groups. The different taxonomic groups starting from largest to smallest are domain, kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, and species. The three domains are Bacteria, Archaea, and Eukarya. In bacteria, there are gram-positive (thick cell wall) and gram-negative bacteria (not thick cell wall). Archaea was discovered in the 1970's in extreme environments and are called extremophiles. Eukarya has many kingdoms: Protista, Fungi, Plantae, and Animalia. Fungi are organisms that reproduce using spores, have a fruiting body with hyphae and mycellium, and consume decayed, organic material. The different types of fungi are club fungi, sac fungi, and bread molds. Plantae are organisms that use photosynthesis or chemosynthesis to produce their own food, and they are called autotrophs. The different phyla of plants are mosses, ferns, gymnosperms (cone bearing plants), and angiosperms (flower bearing plants). Animalia are organisms that are heterotrophic and are animals. The different phyla of animals are Porifera (sponges), Cnidaria (jellyfish and coral), Platyhelminthes (flatworms), Molluska (oysters, clams, etc.), Annelida (segmented worms), Echinodermata (sea stars), Arthropoda (insects and crustaceans), and Chordata (vertebrates). Within the phylum Chordata, there are the classes Agnatha (jawless fish), Condricthyes (cartilaginous fish), Osteicthyes (bony fish), Amphibia (amphibians), Reptilia (reptiles), Aves (birds), and Mammalia (mammals).

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e6/Simplified_tree.png

            What I want to learn more about is how did structures such as a jaw or a backbone form when there was no organism with those traits. Also I want to learn more about how life colonized land from the water. Some unanswered questions that I have are that why is the nerve cord hollow, and why do some chordates lose their notochord, hollow backbone, pharyngeal slits, and tail?
          In this unit we did a project of making a scaled Geologic Timeline. We started from the beginning of the creation of the earth to the present and we included all of the historical events, periods, eras, and biological events that occurred during earth's history. My experience was that it helped me see the expanse of earth's history, what exactly happened in the distant past, and what led to the evolution of the species we see today. It was also a good collaboration experience because I had to work in a group.

Picture of our Geologic Timeline

          Also in this unit I made and did a presentation about an organism from the book What on Earth Evolved: 100 Species That Changed the World by Christopher Lloyd. The organism that I chose was Penicillium, the fungus responsible for the discovery and production of antibiotics. This organism has impacted the earth by helping humans gain strength against bacteria that would kill off humans easily. It has also impacted the world by allowing bacteria to evolve at a rapid pace, making it that we have to produce new antibiotics every year to keep up with the constant evolution of the bacteria. Below is my presentation.

Geologic Timeline Individual Reflection

          In class, we made a scaled timeline of Earth's history from the creation of Earth to the present. Three major events that happened in Earth's history were the creation of Earth, the formation of life, and the evolution of humans. The creation of the Earth is important because that is when Earth is formed. That leads to all the changes that happened after that. The formation of life is important because that led to all of the evolution of life that led to the extreme diversity in life and changed the planet. The evolution of humans is important because they are the most advanced organisms that have developed technology that is changing the Earth to this day.

          The scale of Earth's history is very large. What surprised me the most was the length of some of the eras, especially the periods in Precambrian era. Also what surprised me was the large amount of evolution and speciation that occurred all throughout Earth's history. My thoughts on human's impact on the Earth in such a short amount of time is that it is hard to comprehend. We have just been on this planet for about 200,000 years and the Earth has changed dramatically, whether it is climate change, or the urbanization of the world.
Some questions I have are why are the Precambrian eras and periods extremely long compared to the Post-Cambrian eras and periods. Also, I wonder what led to all 5 of the mass extinctions that happened.

Forgetfulness Project Post 3

          My 20 time project is about how and why we forget. Also it is about figuring out how the human memory system works. What I have learned about my topic so far are the types of memory, what causes us to forget, theories of forgetting, memory retrieval, and types of short-term memory experiments. The types of memory are sensory, short-term (working), and long-term memory. Some examples of what causes us to forget are retrieval failure from the long-term and failure of encoding the memory into the long-term. Some theories of forgetting are the decay theory, the interference theory, the retrieval failure theory, and the cue-dependent theory. Memory retrieval is when a memory is brought from long-term to the working memory.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/36/
Human_Brain_Symbol.svg/1000px-Human_Brain_Symbol.svg.png

         What I have learned about myself is that I have expanded my knowledge about this topic a lot since the beginning of my 20 time project. Back then, I didn't know that there were so many things that go on in forming memory and how it all works. When I started this project, I thought I was going to learn only about how people forget, but that has led me to how memory overall works, and that has made me realize many things about myself, such as my memory patterns and what sticks in my mind and what doesn't. I have used this information to help me remember more things, such as for tests and projects.
          Some setbacks that I have had were learning the information and then applying it in the experiment. Also, I had trouble with analyzing the data from the experiment and relating that information with the information that I had researched. However, I was able to eventually see why both the experiment's information and the research's information matched or didn't match and I was able to make my review and relate process better. The next steps are to conduct a couple more experiments to broaden my data and information to produce more concise and developed findings. Next is to collect and analyze the data into a concise and easy to understand way to present, which will also give me the ability to compare and contrast the data collected. What I can apply this to in school is by understanding how my memory works and how to take advantage of that to help me remember information for tests, quizzes, project, etc.

Unit 8 Reflection

          In this unit we learned about evolution. The themes and essential understandings were that evolution changes populations, not individuals, and what triggers evolution. Evolution occurs when there are different traits in a species, and the individuals who have the best trait to deal with what the environment pressures them with, then the individuals with the more favorable trait pass on their genes while the individuals with the less favorable genes die off and don't pass on their genes. Eventually, the population will look more like the individuals with the more favorable trait, meaning that the population has evolved. When a population's trait frequency changes, or its allele frequency for a particular trait changes, then it is said that the population has evolved.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/
6/69/Human_evolution.svg/800px-Human_evolution.svg.png

          We did two labs in this unit, the Bird Beak Lab and the Hunger Games Lab. In the bird beak lab, we observed different traits of bird beaks and we saw which phenotype did the best at collecting food. The birds with the better beak for collecting food survived and produced more offspring than the birds that didn't have a good beak to collect food. Eventually, the population of the birds became more and more like the birds with the better beak. The allele frequency of that beak phenotype increased in the population, while the others decreased, so the bird population evolved to have the better beak phenotype. In the Hunger Games Lab, we also observed different bird beaks and their abilities to collect food. Those whose beak allowed to get more food produced more offspring and survived, and those who didn't died off. From that data, we could see that the allele frequency shifted to a higher percentage of the better beak to collect food, which means that the population evolved that trait.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/eb
/Timeline_evolution_of_life.svg/1280px-Timeline_evolution_of_life.svg.png

         What I want to learn more about is how the traits that die off evolved in the first place, and what traits ended up surviving through natural selection all these years to make the present organisms and traits we see today. Also, I wonder about what traits and species died off over Earth's history and what caused those species and traits to die off. In the Unit 7 Reflection, I talked about my assertiveness and how I can improve and make it better. So far I feel I am assertive enough to tackle the jobs at hand. What I am doing well is that I am being assertive in the first place. What I need to do better is to be even more assertive, because I feel that I am being assertive in a passive way.

Hunger Games Lab

          What we did in this lab was hunt for food using special phenotypes. The three phenotypes were stumpys (wrists), knucklers (knuckles), and pinchers (index finger and thumb). The phenotype that was the best at capturing food were the pinchers because they had the ability to capture food with two hands and had a better grip on the food by using their index fingers and thumbs. The population did evolve. I know because the allele frequency changed over the generations. The frequency for the "a" allele grew from 0.52 of the total population to 0.82 of the total population. The frequency of the "A" allele shrunk from 0.48 of the total population to 0.18 of the total population. Also on the graph, the function of the "a" allele grows over time, where as the function for the "A" allele decreases over that same time.

          Some events in this lab were random and some were not. Some instances of random events were the random clumps or spread out food and how the organisms reacted to those events. Some instances of non-random events were that pinchers used their index and thumb, knucklers used their knuckles, and stumpys used their wrists. This is similar in nature because random events such as floods or storms happen all the time and they affect the populations of organisms. I think that the results would have been the same if there was not incomplete dominance because the pinchers would eventually outcompete the stumpys and the pinchers would become the dominant phenotype, just like how it happened when there was incomplete dominance.
          The relationship between natural selection and evolution is that natural selection favors the traits that are advantageous to survival, making it so that the individuals without that trait die off. That changes the allele frequency, which is evolution. Some strategies that people developed in order to increase their chance of survival and reproduction were grouping up, helping each other, and competitiveness. This would have affected the allele frequency of the population by giving an advantage to those who used the strategies to help their chances at survival. This happens in nature too, where many species of animals group up together in a herd to help obtain food and protect themselves.
          In evolution, the populations evolve, not the individuals because they are stuck with the genes that their parents gave them. Natural selection acts on the phenotype, but affects the genotype because the phenotypes of the individuals who have an advantage pass on the genotype that makes that phenotype, so the overall population's genotype will eventually have more and more of that genotype and phenotype. Some questions that I still have are that how did all of this start and where did it start?

Forgetfulness Project Post 2

          The 20 time project that I am doing is about forgetfulness and how and why it happens, as shown on my previous blog post Forgetfulness Project Post 1. This post is a 2 week status update on how my project is going so far, which I think is going well so far. What I have done is researched information on how forgetting works and why it happens. How it works is that in short-term memory the brain can only keep around 5-9 items in its mind at a time, so it discards information that are not being used, which is also why it happens. Also, I have researched about experiments to do to test memory and forgetfulness. The experiments that I am leaning towards are short-term memory test because they are more simple to conduct and easier to gather more information about how the brain forgets, which I can then figure out why it happens.
          What I have learned about myself is that I forget a lot, whether it comes to school, activities, and work in general. Also, I forget many things that were in my short-term memory, such as my parents yelling at me to take out the trash. I have also learned about my time management skills and how they are affecting my work on this project and work. My time has been managed just enough to provide enough information and research on this topic in order to go ahead onto the next step of this project which is the making of the experiment.
          Some setbacks were my time management, the complexity of the information, and the many choices I have to make an experiment. The time management is affecting me by just allowing me to get the right amount of research into this project. Most of the experiments that I am finding in my research deal with long-term memory with many components that would take almost years to conduct, which I don't have. Also, the variety of experiments on short-term memory is great, which makes it hard to choose only one. Each experiment tests different parts of memory and forgetting, and I want an experiment that encompasses a big section of each part to conduct to make my experiment more efficient easier to quantify, and to keep track of. How I can apply this knowledge to myself, my school, and my community is by sharing my findings on this blog and raising the knowledge of people about a process that happens almost constantly in their brains.

Unit 7 Reflection

          In this unit, we learned about ecology and how organisms interact with their environments. The themes and essential understandings of this unit were interdependence, homeostasis, and cause and effect. Interdependence is the concept that all organisms are dependent on each other. The way they are all dependent are that they are all connected through food chains and food webs. They all keep the environment in balance which is the key to a healthy ecosystem. Homeostasis is the concept that all organisms want to be stable. When populations of organisms are stable in an ecosystem, the food webs also stay stable, which leads to the ecosystem being healthy and balanced.


https://c1.staticflickr.com/4/3798/13578843423_941cfbc1e6_b.jpg

          There are many things that I want to learn about that wasn't covered in this unit. For example, I want to learn more about the energy transfer between organisms in food webs and food pyramids. Also, I want to learn more about what we can do to save our dying ecosystems and how to balance the needs of humans and environments. My learning experience on working on the Conservation Biologist Project was good. I learned how to balance the workload between my group members and the Team Contract helped us do that very well. To me, I felt that the project was a big workload, but since we got a lot of time in class, it helped me manage my time better for other homework for other classes that I would have to do at home. What went well was the collaboration and cooperation of my teammates. Also that we finished the project on time. Nothing went wrong or not well at all, it was a very successful project. The collaboration between my group mates was very good and we all carried equal weight to make this project.


http://worldanimalnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/e832c18e-21ff-476a-b814-f5e96b52cabd-1-2.jpeg

          In class, I took this survey about what my dominant way method of conflict management is. According to that survey, I was assertive and aggressive, which meant that I was looking for ways for everyone to "win" and also ways for me to "win." My dominant method of conflict management was that I was assertive. Ways to be more assertive is to continue what I have been doing, which is being assertive.

                 

Forgetfulness Project Post 1

          My project is about how we forget and why we forget. This is my 20% time project that I will be working on for the semester. 20% time project is basically a project that uses 20% of class time to pursue a topic that you are interested in. When I was researching topics to do my 20% time project, I thought that researching about forgetfulness would be interesting to make an experiment on and to figure out how it works, since much about the human brain is a mystery. The essential question that I have asked about my topic is, "How does forgetting work and why do people forget certain things?" This question will guide me on my experiment and research to finding the essential knowledge needed to carry out this task.


https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/forgetting.png
       
          My goals are to conduct an experiment involving forgetfulness and retention of memory. I haven't figured out what experiment specifically to do, but that is also one of my goals for this week. Another one of my goals is to increase my understanding of how forgetting works and to share it out through this blog, and to increase awareness for the 20% time projects since I think that it is a chance for students to express what they want to learn.
          How I will measure progress and achievement is to possibly see a noticeable difference between my control and manipulated variables. The difference I hope to see would obviously depend on the experiment I decide to do, but it would be to see the difference on how much one person has retained some piece of information versus the other person.
          So far, my plan moving forward is to make an experiment and hopefully gain all the materials and start it by this week. Next week I want to be able to record and compile the data that I have collected and I will keep doing this until the experiment is over. Then I will analyze the data and see if I met my goal of seeing a difference of the retention of the piece of information.

Unit 6 Reflection

          This unit was about biotechnology and its implications in the world. The themes and essential understandings were what biotechnology was, its uses, its effect on society, and how to use it. What we learned was the different domains of biotechnology, industrial environmental, agricultural, medical and pharmaceutical, and diagnostic. Each of these fields of biotechnology have specific practices they do to achieve what they want, such as PCR, fermentation, electrophoresis (check Candy Electrophoresis Lab), sequencing, recombinant DNA, and pGLO (check pGLO Lab). However, there are some ethical issues with many biotechnological practices, such as cloning and genetic enhancement. These are based on people's morals that intersect with the breakthroughs in biotechnology.

          The labs that we did were the candy electrophoresis lab and the pGLO lab. In the candy electrophoresis lab, we extracted dyes from candies and ran them through a gel. We saw how far each dye moved through the gel and we estimated the length of the molecules by that. In the pGLO lab, we inserted a plasmid for ampicillin resistance in the presence of arabinose into bacteria. We tested that by putting the bacteria on agar with ampicillin so the bacteria without the plasmid would die and the ones with would survive. Also, on the agar with ampicillin and arabinose produced bacteria colonies that glowed in the dark.

          What I want to learn more about is more about bioethics and its effect on the progress of the advancement of biotechnology. I also want to learn more about cloning and how to clone and how to genetically modify an embryo. My progress in my new years goals is going good so far. I am staying on track with my homework and I am managing my time well. So far, I think I am living up to my new years goal's expectations for biology and for all of my classes in general.

pGLO Lab

The number of the colonies in the -pGLO/LB were almost none. The number of colonies in room light and UV light were also none. It was the same for the -pGLO/LB/AMP. In the +pGLO/LB/AMP there were many colonies. In room light, there were many colonies, but in the +pGLO/LB/AMP/ARAC there were many volumes in room light and in UV light. The 2 new traits that the transformed bacteria have are resistance to ampicillin and fluorescent light. I estimate that there were millions of bacteria in 100 microliters of bacteria because many bacteria have to be in the solution for the plasmid to be sure to be transferred. The role of the arabinose is to feed the bacteria to allow it to grow more. Some current uses of GFP in research and science is to make things glow to observe the effects and practicality of this protein. Another application of genetic engineering is to produce many proteins that we want such as insulin for our benefit.

Candy Electrophoresis Lab

          All of our experimental dyes did not match our control blue dye. They all traveled farther than it. Also, our experimental dyes did not go as far as the control yellow dye. The control orange and red dyes went about the same distance as the experimental dyes. Most of the dyes were the same size. Our first experimental dye was not any color we had for our control dyes. Our second and third experimental dyes matched the control dyes better.
           I think that Carminic Acid or Fast Green FCF would have gone about the same distance as our experimental dyes. I think so because they are relatively short, so they would have traveled farther down the gel. Our experimental dyes traveled farther which means they are also relatively short molecules. Also, the colors that Carminic Acid and Fast Green FCF match the colors we used in our experimental dyes.
          Dog food manufacturers put artificial food coloring in their dog foods because they want the dog to be attracted to those colors and want to eat their food. The colors that they put in the food would be bright colors for dogs. The bright colors attract the dog and the dog would want to eat that food.
          I think that artificial food colorings are more preferable than natural food colorings because humans can synthesize the color to be bright or add any other characteristic of the color that they want to add. But natural colorings have limitations to the number of colors and the characteristics of the colors that the people want.
          The two factors that determine how far a dye moves through the gel are length of the molecule and its charge. The length affects the distance a dye moves through the gel by physically making it harder to move through the gel because it is bigger. Its charge also affects the distance a dye moves is because the thing that makes the dyes move is a positive charge. The dyes are a negative charge, so they are attracted to the positive charge. But some dyes might not have a strong enough negative charge to be pulled into the positive charge at the end of the gel as much as another dye molecule.
          The force that moves the molecules through the gel is the attraction of positively and negatively charged particles. At the end of the gel, there is a power source that produces a positive charge, and at the top of the gel, the power source produces a negative charge. The dyes are naturally negatively charged, so they naturally travel towards the end of the gel.
          The component of the electrophoresis process that separates the dyes by size is the gel itself. The gel has many small holes in it to allow the molecules to pass through while going to the end of the gel. Shorter molecules have an easier time getting through these holes compared to longer molecules. At the end of the electrophoresis, the shorter molecules would have traveled further down the gel than the longer molecules, which also allows you to measure the length of the molecules.
          In agarose electrophoresis, I would expect the DNA molecule with 5000 daltons to stay at the top of the gel, while the molecule with 2000 daltons would travel a bit further, and the molecule with 1000 daltons would travel even further, and the DNA molecule with 600 daltons to travel the furthest.

Our gel that has the dyes that were electrophoresized.

New Years Goals

          Two smart new years goals I have for this semester of school are to get an A in biology and to learn new things. My action plan for achieving the first goal is to do all of the homework on time and study for tests. The way I can achieve that is to manage my time well and plan out the work I have to do so I can do them more efficiently. My action plan for achieving the second goal is to actively learn and study concepts and ideas to help me understand them better. This will help in homework and tests in all classes. The way I will achieve that is by also managing my time to allow for active studying and learning to further my education. The result I am expecting after the semester is to see that my homework and studying time will reduce and my understanding of most of everything will be better.
          What I want to keep doing is managing my time and getting work done. This has given me a good grade in all my classes and has made me learn many things easier. What I want to change is also managing my time, because sometimes I lose track of time and I end up staying up late to do homework, which I don't want to do, considering that I have the ability to not do that.