Final Blog

Final Blog: Reflect on your semester and year in biology. What were your successes? What were your failures? What did you learn that you will never forget?

              It's hard to believe that the year is almost over! 
                    This semester in biology was harder than the first semester, in my opinion. I had to work harder on my notebooks, we have a project right now in the making, and we had SEVEN dissections! This was really new for me because I've never done dissections in middle school and these dissections were my very first. Our first dissection of the worm, I felt nauseous and disgusted. However, after we continued doing more dissections, I got used to it, and I even dissected some species by myself. For example, I dissected the squid which had a lot of stuff inside of it and was slippery and smelled HORRIBLE. After we dissected it and cleaned it out, we fried the squid. I, of course, did not eat it. So, I think that one of my successes this year in biology was getting over my fear of dissections. Dissections are also something I will never forget. Once you get over the smell and disgusting aspects of dissections, it really isn't that bad; in fact, I had fun doing some of the dissections, and I learned a lot about  different species' organs and internal/external anatomy.
                       Furthermore, this year went by extremely fast. I was never exactly a fan of anything science related; but I did learn some new things this year in biology, mostly concerning animals and organ systems. For me, this is already a step up since science is a really hard subject for me and I do not seem to understand many things science-related- no matter how long I study.

Blog #15

Blog 15: Compare two of the organisms that we have dissected. Discuss at least 2 similarities and 3 differences.

           Two organisms we have dissected so far is the fish and the frog. They are similar because they must both keep their skin wet and moist to prevent them from drying out. Also, they both lay eggs and they both have gills. However, a frog only has gills while it's still a tadpole. Lastly, another similarity between these 2 species is that they both have darker dorsal surfaces and lighter ventral surfaces.

                 Although the fish and frog share many similarities, they also share many differences. Firstly, a frog is semi-aquatic while a fish is fully aquatic; a frog can live on both land and water, but a fish can only survive in water. Frogs are amphibious - they live in and out of the water. Fish can only live in the water; fish can only stay underwater with the help of gills to breathe and cannot come out of water due to the absence of a lung to help it breathe on land. Also, frogs have arms and legs and fish do not. Furthermore, fishes have scales and fins, both of which frogs do not have.

Blog 13

Blog 13: What was most interesting about this week's dissections?


The most interesting thing about this weeks dissections were all the different parts of the animals we dissected. For example, I never knew that an earthworm had a brain! I've never done dissections in elementary or middle school before, so pretty much everything was new to me. I learned a lot of the different parts and exterior and interior anatomy of the species we dissected: the earthworm, crayfish, fish, grasshopper, etc. In the beginning, I was disgusted and felt sick, but after more dissections I began getting more used to it and I actually was surprised that I learned so much from these animals. For example, when we dissected the fish, we had to take a fish scale and examine it under the microscope and it looked really interesting since we got the opportunity to really see how it looked like close up. From that, we found out that the fish was about 50 years old (in fish years).

Blog #12

Blog #12: What surprised you from the worm's dissection?

          For the worm dissection, me and my partners discovered a lot. We cut open the worm and observed the inside, which sort of looked quite like the outside. I was surprised that there really wasn't anything in there. However, I found it surprising that there was dirt inside, which looked like black chunks. I didn't know that worms had dirt inside their body, even though they are pretty dirty organisms. Also, I was surprised that the worm had so many segments. I never noticed before, but the worms body has around 100 segments, depending on the size of the worm. For my earthworm, it had 96 body segments, which we counted individually. I also used to think that worms were slimy even when they were dead, but turns out, the earthworm was actually very dry and wrinkly looking. Although I learned alot from this dissection and got to see the inner parts of the worm, I'm glad we won't be doing a worm dissection anytime soon.

Blog #11

Blog #11:
Get a picture of alternation of generations. Put it in your blog and explain how it relates to plants.

          "Plant life cycles have two phases known as the alternation of generations. The sporophyte phase is "diploid" in the picture, and is part of the life cycle in which meiosis occurs. The gametophyte phase is "haploid", and is the part of the life cycle in which gametes are produced. In flowering plants the multicelled visible plant such as a plant leaf is sporophyte, while pollen and ovaries contain the male and female gametophytes. Plant life cycles differ from animal ones by adding a phase, the haploid gametophyte, after meiosis and before the production of gametes.

          Alternation of generations is normally used to describe the life cycles of plants. Organisms such as fungi can have life cycles in which different kinds of organism alternate. The term 'alternation of generations' has been applied to these cases."

references: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternation_of_generations

                 http://ridge.icu.ac.jp/biobk/BioBookmeiosis.html

Blog #10

Blog #10:
Why is dissection an important part of a biology curriculum? Which animals and/or plants should be included in biological studies?

          Dissection is an important part of the biology curriculum, because it allows students to have hands-on experience with animals or plants, which is especially important for students who are interested in pursuing the medical field as a surgeon or someone like that.  A lot of important information about the environment can be discovered through the examination of the dissected animals' organs and tissues. Science education is a process of exploring different experiences, like dissecting animals, that may lead students into a future profession.
              
             An animal that should be included in biological studies is the frog. The frog is probably the most popular species that students dissect, in different schools around the world. Classroom often use frogs because they can be easily caught, and are small; frogs also have about the same organs as a human. Research scientists dissect frogs to see what effects pollution and climate change are having on frogs. The reason for this is because of the fact that frogs are a lot more sensitive to environmental changes and will show effects much earlier than other species, such as human beings.The dissection of the fetal pig in the labratory is also important because pigs and humans have the same level of metabolism and have similar organs and systems. Even better, fetal pigs are usually inexpensive and easy to buy.

          

Blog #9

Define the different forms of community interaction: competition, commensalism, mutualism, predation, parasitism. Give an example and a picture for each.

           One type of community interaction is competition. Competition is an interaction between species or organisms and the fitness of one is lowered by the presence of the other. Competition can occur when the species are competing in the same area for a limited food supply or when they must share limiting resources. Species less suited to compete for resources either adapt or die out. An example of competition is in the picture below, which shows two male deer competing during mating season.

          Another type of community interaction is commensalism. Commensalism is a relationship between 2 organisms where one organism benefits from the other, but the other organism is not harmed but also does not benefit from the relationship. An example of commensalism is like the relationship between the sun and the plants. The plants benefit from the sun's sunlight, but the sun does not benefit from the plants, nor is it harmed by the plants.

           Mutualism is the relationship between two organisms, where both organisms benefit from each other. An example of mutualism would be like birds flying in formation. They all benefit from each other. When the leading bird gets tired, it flies to the back of the formation and the next bird takes over. They continue this and benefit from this because they can fly longer and farther in formation.

           Predation is an interaction between organisms where the predator feeds on its prey. The act of predation always results in the death of its prey and the eventual absorption of the prey's tissue through consumption. An example of predation would be like a lion, the predator, feeding on a Cape Buffalo, the prey, shown in the below picture.

           The last type of community interaction is parasitsm. Parasitism is a type of symbiotic relationship between organisms of different specieswhere one organism, the parasite, benefits at the expense of the other, the host. An example of parasitism is like fleas on a dog. The fleas won't kill the dog, but the dog will have to be cleaned and treated.