Letter to a BIO STUDENT

Dear Bio Student,

I am Veda. As a freshmen at Saratoga High School... let me start by saying... it's not as bad as you think it is. Freshmen year depending on the classes you take can be enjoyable if you do homework and pay attention in class-shocker i know. I took Geometry and Bio, duh, and found both classes to be relatively well paced. I play three sports and found it easy to manage my time wisely and turn in all my homework on time. I also am in MAP which gets better trust me.

As a teacher, Mr. Orre likes it when you follow rules... a huge expectation for a teacher to have I KNOW. You can joke around with him but when he is talking, you are expected to listen to what he says and do as he instructs. Being a split classroom, we do an awful lot of labs and write-ups on our blogs, and listening to instructions and turning them in on time is essential to maintain a passing grade. If you do well on labs and the write-ups and average a C on tests, you will be able to get an A in the class. His tests are hard however, and after studying I got Cs as an average on all my tests. Our notebooks contain everything in them and are organized how Mr. Orre wishes it to be. Another thing, don't skip vodcasts; it's an endless cycle that you struggle to break. We also keep a blog and here is a link to my personal favorite blog post...http://vedabioblog.blogspot.com/2017/04/unit-8-reflection.html

Some things I did this semester that kicked me in the butt was doing the vodcasts, or not doing them is more accurate. I would skip them and at the end of the week realize i had five thirty minute videos to watch and make-up. Another thing is studying. Study for biology, it's a hard class and covers a lot of material, don't put it off to the end.  Also, don't get on Mr. Orre's bad side. This doesn't really affect me, but some student I know have gotten on his bad side and deeply regretted it.

I liked this class, however, I am not interested in Biology as much as you may be. I am into the conservation part and found that to be the most exciting unit, but the rest was just learned to pass the class. Even though that works, having an interest and going beyond expectations is a really good idea. I am taking Chem next year because I know I will not be able to keep up with Chem Honors. Overall, do your vodcasts, listen to Mr. Orre, and apply what you learn in this class to your life. Since this is my last blog post forever I shall sign off in a manner of true excellence.

BE EXCELLENT MY DUDE,

VEDA 

River Clean Up Reflection

The river clean up was organized on National River Clean-up Day, and the site I visited was the one in San Jose near Westmont High School. A couple of students from my sixth period class was their including Shreya and Jayne. When I thought about a river clean up, I had imagined cleaning up an actual river full of trash, but at the site, most of the work we did was no where near the water.

I relate this to what my seventh grade teacher, Mrs. Chapman, said about the river near her house, and how on some days, she would find lawn chairs and old umbrellas and other misselanouc objects. I suppose I had thought this clean up would be similar to that, however, there was barely any water in the river. A lot of trash we picked up was plastic bottle pieces, as well as food wrappers. In the end, we had a stack of five half full trash-bags.

Pig Dissection 2k17

In this lab we asked the question, what organs that pigs have relate to human structures? The idea of dissections is to learn more about the animal being dissected, or to relate it to us and learn more about the structures that we possess. This pig was never born, it never got to eat mush out of a trough or frolic among the grass with its fellow piglets. It was dissected by Mr. Orre's biology class to learn more about the organ structures that we took notes on. My favorite part of the dissection would be the end of the dissection because I felt really bad for the pig. However, since that is not the answer I should tell my teacher, the second best part of the dissection would be the cutting of its mouth and peeling the mouth back because it was incredibly satisfying. This lab was a valuable experience because we got to see the same organs we possess in real life. It also helped visualize how every system in our bodies work.

Twenty-Time Project

I worked on this project with Ananya. When I learned that she was working with ADHD I wanted to join her because my family friend has been recently diagnosed with ADHD. The project itself was learning about the diagnosis of ADHD and how specialists could improve it. Our initial plan was to create an actual test to diagnose it properly, but after realizing the complexity of the process, we just decided to write up options on how to improve the actual diagnosis. We also planned on actually testing subject with and without ADHD, but because it was a subject that people often don't wish to disclose, we also were unable to do that. Based on what we have information wise, our next step would be educating people of the unreliability f current diagnosis and treatment, and other steps that can be taken to help people with this learning disorder. I also learned that children with ADHD often have smaller brains than children without, and also they have significantly more grey matter in their brains. They also have smaller frontal lobes which plays a part in impulse control as well as hyperactivity. If I had a chance to redo this project, I would actually create a test and test it on human subjects to see whether our analysis is valid or not. I learned that as a person however, since we finished the analysis decently soon, I took the free time in class to listen to music and just do background research instead of trying to do more real work to push our project forward. Our next step would be sharing what we have learned with others as well as trying to see if we can test it on subjects.                                                                                                                                                      

Unit 9 Reflection

This unit we focused on the defining characteristics of organisms, and the classification of these organisms. These organisms are divided by Kingdom, Domain, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species. There are five kingdoms which are divided into a three domain system. Besides the basics, the most important thing we learned is how we evolved from the smallest of organisms to us. We watched a documentary called "Your Inner Fish" which depicted a man looking for a fossil evidence to prove that we evolved from fish. He was looking for one of the transitional fish/ tetra-pod organisms.


https://www.sciencenews.org/article/find-your-inner-fish-pbs-series-human-evolution

Some questions I have can not be answered at this moment. I want to know how dinosaurs looked like, not their structure- which can be defined by their fossil- but their exterior. I heard that some dinosaurs may have been covered in colorful feathers and bright scales which is very different from what I had known about dinosaurs being brown and green. I wonder why dinosaurs would have colorful feathers and what the purpose would serve. I also wonder how mammals managed to stay alive with all the dinosaurs ruling the earth. I would assume they went underground, but the fact that they were able to evolve into modern mammalia is incredible.


(https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/cf/af/85/cfaf850a14e07b971c03c63a3273024c.jpg)

To help us learn in a different fashion about evolution, we did solitary projects on different organisms. I feel for my project I could have done far better. I was not as prepared as I could have been and it totally showed in my deliverance. Next time I definitely should review my information more before I present. I did the project a week back and did not look at it till I presented it and because of that I left out a ton of information and did not meet the time limit.

Geologic Timeline Reflection

Two major event in Earths history is the extinction of dinosaurs in the Cretaceous period, and the evolution of Eukaryotic cells two billion years ago. Another important event is the evolution of mankind during the Holocene epoch in the Cenozoic era. The reason the extinction of dinosaurs is critical is it not only shows the end of reptilian domination as well as the evolution of mammals. Even before the dinosaurs is the evolution of eukaryotic cells which became the dinosaurs and mammals that evolved into humans.

Earth's history mainly occurred during the Precambrian period and was just the development of the basic units of life like oxygen and unicellular cells. After the Precambrian period however is when the main evolution of mammals and all life occurred.

Just as humans we screwed up the atmosphere and caused the extinction of hundreds of organisms. We also have decimated the forests, polluted the ocean and continue to spew poisonous gas into the atmosphere.

It would be interesting to see how long the Holocene period will actually last. Based on the extinction of the dinosaurs and all other evidence of mass extinction, it is safe to assume we too will be decimated at a point. I wonder if we will just be fossils that future life forms find just as we find and try to explain the fossils of dinosaurs.

Hunger Games Final analysis

1. In this lab we studied the effects of natural selection in a classroom environment where we were all birds fighting for survival.

2. The phenotype that was the best at collecting food was the pinchers because it was easier to pick up corks by pinching them. In comparison to the stumpies which had to pick corks up with their wrists, the pinchers were more efficient and better at collecting the corks.

3. The population did evolve as the little "a" surpassed the big "A" allele. It started off as a 50, 5O difference but after the second generation it became 33% little "a" and 67% big "A". The population evolved from an equal amount of stumpies, pinchers, and knucklers, to just knucklers and pinchers, with the stumpies on having 1, or 2 repersentatives. The knucklers were the dominant race having a "Aa" allele combination, but in the end, the pinchers still ended up collecting the most food. 

4. The variables in this lab that were random was the placement of the food, and the placement of the birds. If you were closer to the food and had less people around you, you got more food. This is an example of genetic drift. What was also random was the amount of corks needed for offspring which varied from 5 to 12. What was not random was how the offspring was created. We used coins to determine what children we concieved but you could choose any partner you wanted whether it was a stumpy and you were a pincher or vice versa. 

5. If the food was bigger or smaller the results would be the same because our results were based on allele frequency. No matter what the foods size was the knucklers had the best allele combination and therefore would have been the dominant variation no matter what. However, a variable would be how easy it would be to collect food. For the stumpys it would be easier if the food was bigger but if it was smaller, it would be more difficult. Like the galappogas finches, the populations would have to evolve to fit the food size. 

6. If there was no incomplete dominance, there would be no knuckles at all, and therefore, the variation that was the majority of the population would disappear. Incomplete dominance proved to be crucial to the lab because they had a higher chance of being made, and therefore dominated the population.

7. Evolution occurs because natural selection helps weed out the weak genetics and only allow those with the genetics needed to survive reproduce. By only allowing the ones with the genetics to survive to reproduce, the population becomes the variation that has the best genetics and therefore a species evolves.

8. Some strategies people evolved to survive better was to stay away from people and choose the corks that were not in the huge clumps, or to grab multiple corks at a time. In nature, animals do anything they can to survive and reproduce. On an emphasis on ANYTHING, it made sense in the lab if people went overboard. People were tackled and dove to the floor in order to secure the most food. People pushed people out of the way in order to ensure they got the amount of food needed to survive.

9. In this lab, what evolved was the beaks. Since the beaks are a phenotype or physical trait, I can state natural selection acts on the phenotype.

10. If there were no stumpys, and only had "aa" as pinchers and "AA" as knucklers and no incomplete dominance who would make up the most of the population, or would it be equal?

This is the graph of allele frequency.