Unit 9 Reflection

This unit, called “What on Earth Evolved” surrounded the essential questions “How is life organized?” and “What are the defining characteristics of different organisms?” Organisms are placed in groups based on similarities and this system of naming and classifying living things is called taxonomy. The taxonomic levels are, Domain, Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, and Species. I made up a mnemonic device to remember this order, Dumb Kids Playing Cards On Freeways Get Smashed. I know it’s a little violent but it’s funny so it sticks. Whatever works, right? Here is the taxonomic classification of a modern human:

There are 3 domains, called Archaea, Bacteria, which has one kingdom called monera(prokaryotes), and Eukarya, made up of 4 kingdoms, Protista, Fungi, Plantae, and Animalia.  Bacteria are the oldest organisms and are decomposers, nitrogen fixers(using symbiosis), and are a key component in Biotech. Viruses are not cells but small infectious particles that use their capsids and membranous envelopes to capture host cells. Fungi are classified into 3 groups, sac-fungi, club-fungi, and bread molds. Plants are spread into 4 phyla, Bryophyta(mosses), Pterophyta(ferns), Gymnosperms(cone bearing plants), and Angiosperms(flowering plants). Within Angiosperms lie Monocots(single seeded), and Dicots(double seeded).

Next come the invertebrates, in which most have Hox genes that control early development. I was surprised that 97% of all animal species are invertebrates, and I wrote a blog post earlier about one interesting invertebrate. The most primitive invertebrate, sponges, are followed by cnidarians. Cnidarians have two forms, polyps and medusas and 4 major classes, scyphozoans(jellyfish), Anthozoans(coral), Hydrozoans(hydra), and Cubozoans(box jelly). Next, flatworms, mollusks, and annelids are closely related. Arthropods have a touch skeleton and echinoderms have a unique water vascular system.

The final group, chordates, are the vertebrates, which all have a back bone. There are seven classes of vertebrates Agnatha(jawless fish), Condrictheyes(Cartilaginous Fish), Amphibia, Reptilia, Aves, and Mammalia. Amphibians, Reptiles, Birds, and Mammals have amniotic eggs to allow them to reproduce on land.

To dive deeper into each of the categories throughout the unit, each student learnt about a species from the book “What on Earth Evolved” and presented about it to the class. My project was on the genus Australopithecus. I did not procrastinate as I usually do because I was trying out methods for my 20 time project (progress 3-28-16 and 4-18-16) and my topic is preventing procrastination. Even though I was prepared with the content, I was so nervous to speak to the class. I spoke really quickly and finished my slideshow barely in the time limit! I think in the future I would benefit if I presented to smaller audiences leading up to the final presentation to the class. I will try this out for my TED talk and focus on speaking slower. Even listening to my classmates was interesting because a new face and voice would teach us every 4 to 8 minutes.

To finish off the unit and tie in the vast amount of information we acquired over a short period of time, we watched a documentary called “Your Inner Fish”, where scientists proved that humans share common ancestry with fish and are related to reptiles. It was cool to see how our ears have evolved from the reptilian structure and how many of our limbs follow the universal “one bone, two bones many bones” pattern. People are still uncovering the mysteries surrounding the evolution of life today and there is so much more yet to uncover about this world.

"My Inner Fish" Relate and Review

In class we watched the two episodes "Your Inner Fish" and "Your Inner Reptile", through which the main themes are that humans, who are closely related to reptiles, have a shared ancestry with fish. In its early stages of development, a human and fish embryo look very similar because of their shared Hox genes, which suggest common ancestry. In other words, the Hox genes that were found in fish embryos are also present in human embryos, leading on theories of ancestry. Other evidence for common ancestry includes similar body structures like bony skeletons, backbones, skulls, and shared basic brain anatomy. Another important key aspect of the relationship between fish and humans is the Sonic Hedgehog gene, which sends out an organizing signal that tells cells to do different things. This gene helps create the array of digits on the hand in many mammals. As we moved from fish to reptiles, we explored our evolutionary relationship to these other organisms. An example of humans' relation to reptiles is their hearing anatomy. Mammals have a wide range of hearing because they have 3 bones in their middle ear while reptiles only have 1 bone in their middle ear. Scientists think that two jaw bones evolved and got smaller and moved upwards towards the ear as reptiles led to mammals over time. 

The reptile ear has only one bone where as the mammal's ear has three distinct parts.

Getting Results

These pasts weeks, I finished up my research and tested many methods that in theory should lead to productivity. If a person does something they like to do, a happy chemical is released in their body making them want to continue. This is what happened when I finished work doing these methods. Your brain actually enjoys the feeling of being productive which is the secret motivator to success. I learnt that people enjoy watching TV so they do it more but actually if you enjoy getting work done, you will feel motivated to get that relief once you have finished the day's work load. The next step in my process is to take all of these tests and research about the human mind and write a guide to prevent procrastination and promote productivity. I hope this guide will help people increase efficiency in their everyday lives.

Interesting Invertebrate

The fuchsia flatworm is a simple bilateral animal with a solid body and an incomplete gut, it is a beautiful creature! This invertebrate is fuchsia with a red and orange border along with white dots all over its body and its length ranges from 18-48 mm. This rare species has bright colors to warn predators about poison. They are found near the waters of Hawaii, Australia, and the Philippines. They live in the external slope or upper coral reef and crawl around to find food. Flatworms are in the kingdom Animalia, Platyhelminthes phyla and in the family Pseudocerotid. Fuchsia flatworms are actually a very rare species of flatworm and has very defining characteristics that others don't really have. Is this species parasitic or just poisonous?





Bibliography:
http://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/52325-Pseudoceros-ferrugineus
https://www.sites.google.com/site/infowhenyouneedit/fuchsia-flatworms
https://diverdave.smugmug.com/Invertebrates/Nudibranchs-Univalves-and/i-QGdVVDz/0/M/INFWH%200002-M.jpg

Methods to Motivate

This week I researched all the "tried and true" methods to prevent procrastination. After compiling a list of all of them, I tried to reason behind why this particular method would be helpful. I didn't understand why exercising before doing work would help with efficiency but now I understand that after exercising, a chemical, endorphin, is  released in your body making you feel happy, which could make your task seem less daunting. I also implemented one method in my life which was keeping your work environment clutter free, and it worked. I got my work done much faster when my desk was clean because I only thought about my homework rather than my messy room. My next steps are to integrate more of these methods in my life and once I find which ones work, combining them to come up with the best way to stop procrastination.

Unit 8 Reflection

In unit 8, we covered evolution by looking at the history of our Earth and how we came to be. Evolution is caused by genetic variation in populations, which is caused by reproduction, meiosis, and crossing over. Natural selection favors certain phenotypes and causes individuals with advantages for survival to reproduce. Natural selection can favor one phenotype, which is directional selection. In stabilized selection, nature favors the intermediate phenotype and in disruptive selection, both extremes are favored. Disruptive selection can lead to speciation, which creates a new species. Humans took advantage of this aspect of life to artificially select and breed animals using the same mindset of weeding out the weak from the population. Darwin made a conclusion based on natural selection that as the population evolves, it will start to look more like the organisms with the advantages. This was tested in class when we did the Hunger Games Lab and the Bird Beak Lab. Showcased in the lab and in nature, we can tell if a population evolved based on the allele frequency fluctuations. Allele frequency measures how common an allele is within a population. Evolution is evident in the world and will continue to affect our lives of a span of time. Scientists use evolutionary left-overs and fossils to determine who are ancestors were and to dive into more about Earth's history. As a final wrap-up to our unit, we concluded with a project; a timeline to showcase all of Earth's existence. I wrote a reflection on this project, which you can read here. I really enjoyed this unit because it was a good change from what we have been doing for most of this year. It was interesting to zoom out in perspective and understand the world we live in as a whole. Since I had more interest in the content of this unit, it was easy to be assertive with my learning because I cared more about the topic. In the future I should challenge myself to learn like this for every unit. Here is a picture showcasing the different variations of natural selection: 

Geology Timeline Individual Reflection

In this project, we made a timeline to model the span of earth's history and show when and how some major events occurred on our planet. We used a strip 9.2 meters long to represent the 4.6 billion years of Earth's existence, where every million years was represented by 2 mm. The first event on our timeline, the essential kick starter, is the creation of Earth itself, which lead to the existence of everything we know of today and in life itself. Nothing as we know it would exist if this collision did not happen to form our planet. The increase of oxygen in the atmosphere during the Ordovician Period  is also an important event in Earth's history because  this laid the foundation for processes such as photosynthesis and respiration to occur within organisms. The extinction of the dinosaurs during the Mesozoic Era was a very significant event in Earth's history as well as it gave way for mammals to dominate. Humans and other mammals were able to exist because the dinosaurs weren't a looming threat for any longer.

The scale of Earth's history includes a lot of empty time periods, in the sense that there was not much life for long periods of time. Being able to see this visually represented really put so much of history into perspective for me. I was surprised that so much of our history is squished into about 1/2 of a foot on our timelines which in comparison to the existence of Earth, is barely anything! The time period in which humans have dominated the earth is so small but we have influenced and changed the world we live in so much in such an insignificant period of time. This made me think about how long we will exist. Will we be like the dinosaurs and our period of domination abruptly brought to an end?

Here is an infographic that is formatted similar to a timeline with the history of our Earth.