letter to biology student

Hi my name is Tyler Prowse and I am a 9th grader who came from Redwood middle school. Coming into freshman year I was really looking forward to MAP because I really like videos and group projects. This year I took English 9 Map, study hall, Spanish 2, Lifting, Biology, and geometry. Outside of school I am a three sport athlete and those sports include Football, basketball and baseball. On the first day of school I expected everything to be cool and be interesting on how my Biology teacher is also my lifting instructor.

Mr. Orre expects everyone to pay attention in class and for to NEVER repeat himself more then twice. Also he expects that no one is a "rookie" and to take out your notebook everyday when you come to class and do the do now. A typical class day in Mr. Orre's Biology class is we first do the do now and then review our vodcasts soon after and after that we either work on a lab, blog post, or activity in class. How is everyday and is on canvas where you watch a vodcast of Mr. Orre explaining the subject and you writing it down on a handout or in your notebook and then the cfu right after. homework taks around 15-20 mins. Quizes and tests are pretty fair if you pay attention and watch the vodcasts and due the cfu's. The notebook is the thing that you do all your homework in and all of your do nows in. The Blog is something you make in the beginning of the year and posts blogs on. Your blogs are about your labs, the reflections of the units, 20 time and other activities he would like you to do on the blog. Your blog changes over year adding more and mor3e things and getting more in depth on you assignments. http://tylerprowsebiology.blogspot.com/ on this has my The hunger games lab whuch would have to be my favorite because it was class activity that we all participated in and was a fun lab where we learned about evolution and how humans infect the environment infecting evolution by dumping plastic into the ocean or throwing it in the trash instead of the recycle. I personally changed over the year by focusing more in class and reviewing all my work. I also changed my going more in depth and elaborating more on my blog posts.

Mr. Orre does not like when people get on his nerves by asking him something that he already answered twice. He also hates it when people do water bottle flips in class. To get a good grade in this class all you need to do is all the homework and do good on the labs and tests. Like if you get an 100 in the homework and labs section and cfu section and get a 80 in the tests section you will end the class with a A. To do well on the test just go over the cfus because those have half the the answers that will be on the tests and they are basically mini quizzes that are not graded. To get the most out of this class I recommend listening to all the vodcasts and doing all the homework and cfus and in class the next day to ask questions if you have any. This year I made a mistake on turning a lab in late getting a 0 on it which brought my grade down 4 percent because each lab is 50 points. Another was doing bad on some tests. Also I messed up and didn't do everything in my notebook for the notebook check and got 60/80 which brought my grade down as well. But I grew from those experiences by never procrastinating and always doing my homework and study for the tests.

Overall this class was a good class that others have in the past. I liked that the labs and projects were in groups and were allowed to work with people that were your friends(as long as they were in your group). Next year I will be taking Chemistry because Chemistry honors is to hard and science is not my best subject. In Biology we learned a lot on evolution and Dna and Rna and how everything happened in life since the big bang theory.

Pig dissection Relate and Review

In this Lab we did a dissection on a fetal pig. THe essential question in this Lab to me was, What are the different organs of the pig and what are the functions? To me it was a very interesting lab that had everybody in mixed feeling. In my situation, the first day I was definitely a one glove person for about half the class and then I started really getting into it nd making the cutting of the skin and muscle. When I was the one gloved person, every time I touched the pig I would cringe and be disgusted. By the second day I was taking charge doing must of the dirty work. Starting to do the vodcast, I was the pointer and I would point to all the different sections and organs while Kole was the person explaining all the organs
                                                                                   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fMkyxJDFf4
and their functions. My favorite part about this lab is when we did the disection of the pig cutting it open finding new things and what the organs actually look like close up and in poerson. This Lab gave a new perspective on life and how our body works. It showed me what our heart looks like and the four different chambers, and the large intestine compared tot eh small intestine. I feel like the most disgusting part was when we started cutting open the pig and then all of the sudden blood started gushing out of the body. Also I found it disturbing when on the second day we got our pig and the pig was drowning in this liquid of some sort. But overall it was a great lab that was very eye opening and made me learn a lot. This relates to me because I have a lot of the same organs as pigs do. And now if I ever get surgery in the stomach area I know what they are doing an what is around my stomach.

20 time individual reflection

Ao for our project I wanted to do something a long the line of levitation while m partner wanted to something with sound. So we collaborated with one another and came up with the idea to create something new and have our project on sound levitation. Our goal was to have one base liquid(water) over a loud speaker, while we place droplets of water, oil, and syrup using a pipette. For my project our goal was to create something new using things from my house: including a plastic cup, speaker, water, syrup, cooking oil, and using a pipette from Mr. Orre. WE wanted to create an instance where we can levitate water, oil, and syrup by sound energy.

Our enitial okan was to have a tub of water and a huge speaker uder it, but when trying it it didn't work out one bit so we had to go smaller on the tub and have a louder speaker. In the beginning we also used a suringe that would act as a pipette but didn't work out to do the droplets were to big and would just sink into the base. Our project went well, though I feel like we could have done better and gone farther with our project if we had a louder speaker and may have done it in a different area also using a different tub. We had many fails while doing this project and very little success but at the end it was all worth as I saw the levitation between the base liquid and the droplets.

During this project I learned how to work in a group and help my collaboration skill with a partner. Also helped me understand science to a whole new perspective, also allowing me to so while being with a friend and having fun doing so. If I had a chance to do this project differently I would probably not use the same speaker and go with one that produces louder sound. Also if I had the chance I would want to see what other liquids could have worked and made my search more broad. While doing this project I have learned that science can be a fun time while learning something new. I have learned how to collaborate well with others and have also learned something every time I met up with my partner to work on the project, weather it was the sound pf the speaker and what sound to make, high or low, or even just what kind of water to use, tap or filtered, all were different variables that could have changed the project majorly.

I will be starting a new challenge. A challenge on how to get my self in shape with what kind of diet. I will be recording my self in the summer on what I ate and how many calories I consumed a day and see how much weight I lost per week. Each week I will be trying out a new diet. This project will a fun and life lesson project that will tell me what my body likes and doesn't like and how my body will look after the summer is over.

River Clean Up Reflection

For this extra Credit assignment we were allowed to do a river clean up in a nearby city. This was a great opportunity to give back tot the community and help the environment stay clean. For the assignment we were given this clinchers that can pick up trash and recycle and we would put it in these trash bags. It was a pretty fun experience do to the fact that I was hanging with friends while doing something to help the environment. For the clean up I went to the one in Cupertino. In Cupertino I met Charlie, Robbie, and Gabby and we were all in a group and we just went around the creek picking trash up. In my opinion the most commonly found item that harmed the environment was definitely glass bottles and broken glass. the down side to the cleaning the creek was getting eaten by  bugs, but besides that it was fun. Everyone only stayed for about one hour. the only people who stayed were Charlie and I and we had a pretty good time just talking and cleaning the creek. I would definitely due it in the future. Something that I really took form doing this is that we need to treat our environment better and recycle and not dump whatever we want into the wherever we want. we need to treat the environment with care, because it is only hurting us in the future.

unit 9 reflection

In this unit we learned about classification and evolution. Some of the themes and and understandings in this unit were about classifying groups. Also we learned about kingdoms and domains and bacteria and viruses, plants and animals. We learned about the evolution of the planet from the first organism to humankind. we learned how the different evolution of animals and the evollution of humans through out time.

I really would like to learn more about humans and how they evolved from monkeys. I would like to know how the evolution of mankind cancelled  out the tail of a monkey but kept similar features. I would also like to understand more on how different species and how they tie back to their kingdom. How does the human evolve into something so different then the chimpanzee? I wonder Earth really did start from a virus.

In this unit my presentation was on the banana. For my presentation I feel like I did really well on the content and information on it. but the one thing that I really struggled with was keeping my eyes up and interacting more, even though it is difficult for me to speak in front of crowds and have a little bit of stage fright. For future presentations I will work on talking more in front of people and just pretend that I'm talking one on one with someone.   https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1ZMW-2XkVaMr7krdXsQiE9QAxLWi_79T8vK70JzP6P-A/edit?usp=sharing

geological timeline Reflection

In this Reflection, we were asked, "describe three major events in Earths history". I found that 3 major events that have happened are the dinosaurs and how they lived in this planet when all of the sudden a meteorite came out of no where and created a mass extinction killing the Dinosaurs and other species as well. Another event is when marine life went on to land which help create land animals. Another one includes the different evolutions in this planet for example monkey to human, wolf to dog and many more. This data shows 3 major events overtime and how it helped develop our world today.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/9a/PreCambrian_Era_Geological_Timeline.png

Earth is approx. 4.6 billion years old. Since the beginning of time on Earth when the Earth was covered in rocks has evolved so much overtime. Now there are animals, oceans, plants, electronics, and many more. One thing that surprises me the most is that Earth is really old, yet humans have been on this planet for so little compared to other species and the time of how old Earth is. Homosapiens are around 4 million years old which is only 0.00086956521 or 4/4,600 of Earths age.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Human_evolution_scheme.svg

As humans we have had such a huge impact on Earth both good and bad. The good things are is that we have farmed and know how to survive and also we have had a industrial revolution and a technological revolution. The bad things is that we are causing global warming and are killing our planet.


https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hartmann_Maschinenhalle_1868_(01).jpg

I inly have a few questions that are on my mind, which are, What came first in time Fruit or vegetables?  Also, When the meteorite killed all the dinosaurs, how did the meteorite affect the Earth otherwise? Did the Earth have many Earthquakes? Were there tsunamis?

Unit 8 Reflection

In this Unit, Unit 8, we were taught about evolution. The major themes and understandings to help us better understand evolution was Natural and Artificial selection, the 4 different types of isolations, being reproduction isolation, geographic isolation, behavioral isolation, anat one extremed  temporal isolation. We were also taught about the different selections, being Directional selection which favors phenotypes, stabilizing selection which favors the intermediate phenotype, and disruptive selection which favors both extreme phenotypes.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Drosophila_speciation_experiment.svg


https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Selectiontypes-n0_images.png

In this unit I would like to learn more about why a species ant reproduce with each other after going through geographic isolation. I have one unanswered question which is if earth is 4.6 billion years old then how old is the universe? I wonder what the max of how many times a species evolved before the species went extinct? An example of when I was assertive is when I beat this guy in basketball and he still said he was better then me and was really annoying me and making me angry and instead of saying your the worst and stuff like that, all I said was ok maybe next time you will beat me ad then I just walked a way. But I can definitely be more assertive by being more respectful when angry.

Hunger games final Analysis

1. In this unit we did a lab that represented evolution and growth over a period of time. This lab simulated over time how populations survived and reproduced and how they evolved.

2. The knucklers were the best for capturing food because they didn't die off and they reproduced a lot.

3. The population evolved because the different birds and their population size either increased or decreased. The knucklers evolved the most because they survived the most and which meant that they reproduced the most giving opportunity for their species and other species to grow. For example knucklers population size was the most at the end with a total of 14 while the pinchers had 6 and the stumpy's had 1.

4. Year one, instead of having all food their was plastic which really made it random and changed the population size of everything. Also the location of all the food and if it was spread out or not was random.

5. Yes it would have been different. I feel like if the food size was differnt it could have really effected how the population grew and ate. It would have been easier for some and difficult for others deoending on the bird itself. THis could have happened in nature like if a animal can't eat another animal anymore casue it went extinct then they woud have to try a differnt sized animal which would be differnt and more difficult.

6. THere would definetly be a difference if there was incompoleyed dominance. THere could have been a huge change in the fact that if there was less knucklers to start out with and more stumpys and different amount of food it would have a lot of change.

7. The relationship between Natural selection and Evolution is that without natural selection then evolution would change. natural selection plays a huge part in evolution because animals adapt naturaly to the different areas that atural selection gives.

8. Individuals will survive by having  job and paying for their food and will reproduce by having a mate that they will live with.

9.In life plants and animals evolve. Evolution occurs with both phentotype and genotype because reproduction changes the genotyoes of the new born and the phenotypes are the physical characteristics.

10. I have no new questions that we have already learned

Unit 7 Reflection

In this Unit the main topic was about Ecology. Ecology is the study of how organisms interact with one another in a Ecosystem. In this Unit we learned the different levels of organization and how those levels contributed in the world. We learned about food chains and food webs and how Primary producers are at the bottom of the food chain. We also learned about populations an d hoe each population can reach a carrying capacity. WE also did some worksheets in class and also a project which was based on a ecosystem somewhere in the world and we had to list the food web its threats, the animal and plants, and what we as humans do to help. WE recently watched a movie in class called Bag It which was a movie about plastic. It told us how plastic is used inour everyday life and is really harmful to the environment. It also tought us that if we don't recycle it it would be even worse and becaome a manmade toxic called doxinide. It also said the different types of percentages in what gets recycled of the stuff tht we think is recyclable. THe lowest I saw was 0% and the highest I saw was around 24%. It was amazing the percentage of plastic that doesn't get recycled which ends up harming our environment.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recycling_symbol

I want to learn more about plastic and dit's chemicals and what species have gone extinct because of plastic. The thing I still have a question on is where does all the plastic go because if allthe plastic goes in the dirt then where does that dirt go? I wonder how is plastic really that usefu when it is harming our environment so much.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_ecosystem

We recently did a project on enviroments and their ecosystems and for my group we found out some really mid blowing information. Are project was based on the coral reefs in Fiji. We found out that Fiji has a lot of threats where most of them are because of man made activities. The thing that went well in our project was how we collaborated with one another and helped each other out in areas we needed help or wanted help. We also came to agreement on many things and were all happy about the outcome. Our collaboration was good. We talked about everything that we were doig and diciussed it woth out group members to better understnasd the project and the Fiji Coral Reef. In my "test" I got results back theat told me I was  alittle aggressive and a little passive.

unit 6 reflection

In this Unit we learned about Biotechnology. Biotechnology is a very complex science that has been going on for centurys. It hasn't just started in the 21stcentury. Biotechnolgy includes genetic engineering which is a procces of cutting and pasting DNA strand strands together and recombining. We also learnedabout gel electrophoresis and pGLO. We learned about how biotechnology is how we we made cuires for diseases and sicknesses. WE learned about the technologies to Biotechnology and also bioethics and the explanation which also included recombinant DNA. In this unit my setbacks were that I my group wasn't very collaborative and I didn't really collaborate as much as I should have. But my successes out reach my setbacks. In this unit I did really well on my labs and blog posts and did all my cfus and got full credit on my vodcasts. In this Unit I have really done my part and gogt to know more information. I truly believe I focused more in class aswell.

In class we did two different kinds of labs.The fist on was a gel electrophoresis lab where we used electricity currents and candy dye. While the other lab is called a pGLO lab which was a two day process where we had bacteria and would use pGLO to see if it would glow green and the end. Because of these labs I learned moreabout the topic itself and learned more from it. Labs help me understand more because I'm doing myself and with others in erson up close.
 

I want to learn more about genetic engineering. there is really one think I don't quite get and that's recombining DNA. I wonder how genticengineering can help mankiinf and strive manking to greatness.

For my nw year goals. I followed them like planned and I payes attention more in class and wasn't talking as much and did my homework and didn't procrastinate.

pGLO Lab

pGLO Observations , Data Recording & Analysis

1.

Obtain your team plates.  Observe your set of  “+pGLO” plates under room light and with UV light.  Record numbers of colonies and color of colonies. Fill in the table below. Plate Number of Colonies Color of colonies under room light Color of colonies under   UV light - pGLO LB 1 huge colony faded white faded white - pGLO LB/amp 0 white white + pGLO LB/amp 10 white white + pGLO LB/amp/ara 15 bright white faded green Neon green

2.	What two new traits do your transformed bacteria have? one trait is that it is resistant to ampicillin the other is that it glows green under UV light.
3.	Estimate how many bacteria were in the 100 uL of bacteria that you spread on each plate. Explain your logic. in the trillions because one e-coli is one micrometer cubed. There are 100 microleters on a plate. that totals up to an equal to 100 trillion e-coli
4.	What is the role of arabinose in the plates? The arabinose is a sugar which makes the e-coli glow a neon green color
5.	List and briefly explain three current uses for GFP (green fluorescent protein) in research or applied science. There have genetically engineered fish that are able to glow green under flurescent light. scientists have made away to make glowing genes that made a pigs nose turn neon orange scientists have made away to have glowing chickens
6.	Give an example of another application of genetic engineering. scientists have made a bionic chip which hooks up to the nerve system in the mody os small animals and are able to control them.

Candy Electrophoresis Lab

1)  Our experimental dyes and the reference dyes did not match up the same. They were very close but no the same.a) The blue reference dye was larger than the experimental dye, while the the orange experimental dye was larger then the orange reference dye.b)The blue reference dye is a darker blue then the experimental blue, aswell as the orange experimental dye was a little darker than the reference dye.c)For the experimental dyes, the orange and yellow dyes are in the same row.d)no.2) THe fast green FCF because it looks articficial towards the others. 3) to make the owners think that its real vegies in the dog food instead of artificial ingriediants.5)the two factors are the length and the density.6) THe element that helps move the dyes through the gel is the current of electricity.7)Electricity becasue it sneds currents and makes it move and expand.8) you would go from 5000 to 600.

New Years Goal

1) My first goal is to really learn the material this semester. I don't care about the grades as long as I really understand it. My action plan for this goal is to really pay attention and focus in class. Also to learn from my mistakes and ask questions when confused.

2)My second goal is to be less annoying in class. My action plan for this is to only use my water bottle for drinking purposes. Also to be less energetic. I will also only talk when I am supposed to/ told to. I will also help in anyway I can.