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.