Pig Dissection

During the pig dissection, we set out to observe and discover pig anatomy, which is similar to human anatomy, and as a result not only did we learn about the different systems and parts we were also able to see the things we learned about in the unit in a real world scenario. As we learned about the how the systems of the body maintain homeostasis in an organism, dissecting a fetal pig was a really good way to observe how systems such as the digestive, circulatory, and respiratory fit in the organism and how this would, therefore, contribute to maintaining homeostasis. In addition, the dissection was quite fun, as we got to have a hands-on way of learning, and my favorite part was observing the organs in the fetal pig and how they connected and worked together to create a working organism. 

Overall, I think the pig dissection was a valuable experience, as not only was doing it a fun hands-on lab that was educational, I think it was a unique way to learn about anatomy and function of the human body through a fetal pig. I would recommend any future students to really get the full experience of dissecting the pig and observing the anatomy, as it really gives a new perspective to the unit "Physiology", even if it may seem a little gross at first.

20 Time Individual Reflection

In the beginning of the 20 time project, I wasn't really sure what I was going to do and I was pretty clueless about what I was going to do for the project. The idea of hypertension popped into my mind when I thought of my dad and how he suffered from this unfortunate condition, attributed to his lifestyle as a child. I realized that this was a problem that few people knew or knew very little of and decided to research deeper into the topic. At first, I was not sure about what I was going to do with this subject, after all, hypertension isn't the easiest thing to do a project on. In the end, I decided to do research on the topic as well as doing an experiment, and even keeping a daily log of me and my dad's blood pressures. In effect, I had a wide variety of things that I wanted to do with this project and it was definitely a bit of a challenge.

By the end of the project, I was proud to say that the 20 time project was pretty successful. Although I had to revise my original plan and had a few time management problems as a result, I would say that I got a better understanding of hypertension. I did some research on hypertension for my own knowledge, as I wanted to know more about what really happens when someone has hypertension and things that could potentially prevent it. In addition, I did an experiment with a group of people, where I put them through different tasks such as exercising or listening to music and recorded the effect on their blood pressures. I also took a daily log of me and my dad's blood pressures for 30 days and compared the results as a way to compare a person with high blood pressure versus a person with normal blood pressure. After I finished all of these I got a better understanding of what hypertension was and how it affects people internally and externally.

During the course of the project, not only did I learn about hypertension, and its effects on people, I also learned a few things while doing the project. Time management was a big part of the project and in the beginning of the project, I didn't do much work on the project as other work from other classes took priority, and by the end of the project, I was running out of time. I also learned about adaptability, as in the beginning of the project I really had to change the idea for my project, as coming up with ideas for my project was fairly hard. Finally, if I were to do this project again, I would definitely plan better in terms of ideas and time management, and I would also consult an "expert" before I started or someone who knows a fair bit about hypertension, before starting the project. Overall, I think my project was successful and I learned alot about hypertension and about myself at the same time.

Unit 9 Reflection

In Unit 9, we learned about the classification and taxonomy of life on Earth. In this unit, we discovered the several billions of species that lived and evolved on the planet, creating the environment we live in today. In order to study and observe the evolution and survival of organisms, we use taxonomy to name and classify these organisms. Organisms are classified into 8 different taxonomic levels: Domain, Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, and Species, depending on their phylogeny(evolutionary relationships) and their characteristics. Based on biochemical and genetic differences, life is organized into three domains: the Archaea who live in extreme places like hot springs and digestive tracts of animals, bacteria who can be harmful or helpful, and eukarya which include animals, plants, fungi, and protists. Domain bacteria include mostly unicellular organisms which come in varieties of shapes and act as decomposers, nitrogen fixers, and can even be used in biotech. Viruses, on the other hand, are small nonliving infectious particles that are enclosed in a protein coat or membranous envelopes, which can help virus infection.

Domain Eukarya is the largest domain and contains animals, plants, fungi, and protists. Fungi are made of chitin and hyphae, which helps absorb food, and act as food, antibiotics, and pathogens. Plants on the other hand are photosynthetic and come in four main phyum: Bryophyta(mosses, seedless, nonvascular), Pterophyta(ferns, vascular, roots, leaves), Gymnosperms(cone-bearing plants, pollen, seeds), and angiosperms(flowering plants, fruit). Finally, animals are the most diverse and come in many different shapes and sizes, like invertebrate(Porifera, Cnidaria, Platyhelminthes, Molluska, Annelidia, Arthropods, and chordata, which are mostly vertebrates,(Agnatha, Condricthyes, Osteicthyes, Amphibia, Reptilia, Aves, and Mammalia).

A large portion of our unit was dedicated to the What on Earth Evolved Presentation, where we had to pick a significant species in the evolution of life and do a presentation on that species. For my presentation I picked the honeybee, and as I worked on my presentation I definetely felt a lot of freedom and choice as I created my slides, learning a lot about the honeybee along the way. Probably the hardest part was giving the actual presentation, which had to be between 4 and 8 minutes, in front of the whole class. Luckily learned that practice makes perfect (the easy way) and the presentation was pretty smooth, even though I was a little nervous. In the endd, not only did I learn that honeybees are essential to our environment and our lives, I also learned that giving a good presentation requires knowing and understanding your information and practicing it before hand to make it as good as it can be.