Week of June 1-5

This week we talked about how molecules work in different situations.  We did an experiment where Mr. Finley had a test tube and he put water in it.  He put the test tube over fire and we had to explain what was happening.  I thought what was happening was that all of the water molecules were heating up because of the fire.(P.S. we also learned that fire or heat is not a thing even though people talk about it like it is, like gravity.  But heating is a process so I was allowed to say what I just said).  The molecules at first were vibrating at a normal pace.  Then, because they were over the fire they heated up they started to vibrate faster and faster until they were popping out of the water.  They also wanted to be evaporated so they were going up.  The cork eventually couldn't hold the pressure and popped off.  The next day the bottom popped off too so that was cool.  We also had to say what happens in a thermometer.  I get what happens there.  The mercury gets the heat from the sun and whether it's hot or cold it goes up or down because if it's hot the mercury expands.  If it's cold it shrinks.

May 18-22

This week we worked on more about evolution and what causes it.  We talked about mutations which are random occurrences that cause a change in the DNA.  Selective breeding is when people make two things to mate to get a desirable trait.  Natural selection is just when an organism adapts to survive in its environment.  Genetic engineering is when scientists make a mutation forcefully so that the organism can have a desirable trait.  Gene flow is when there is a change in the gene pool in an area because some organisms have come to that area when they are different.  Genetic drift is when a whole trait goes extinct because of a random chance occurrence.  We also learned that there was another person besides Darwin who had some theories about evolution.  This created the Lamarckian theory which states that if work hard enough you can change your genes and pass it on.  Like if a really skinny guy worked out a lot and became muscular then he could pass it on to future generations.  More recently we are learning about hominids which were early humans/apes.  These hominids were the common ancestors of humans and apes.  But only one kind of hominid survived, homo sapiens, which are what we are. 

May 4-9

This week we concluded the cockroach experiment. We concluded that they maybe colorblind, it prefers rough surfaces to climb on with its suction cups. They prefer darker areas, but to walk on it doesn't prefer any surface. Also hissing only occurs with physical provoction not emotional provoction. Smaller roaches run faster. Finally they are able to move two times their own weight. After this we moved into the evolution unit. We did three simulations to understand evolution. One simulation was with a blue jay was trying to eat moths. That we could understand was focusing around how moths were adapting to a dark brown color and not white. If it were white then it would be seen more easily and eatin more often. So more moths were being dark brown like the tree so they could survive and hide in camouflage. It was the basic idea with the other two simulations. After we finished the simulations we talked about how if the organism stays in an enviroment its most suited in it will live and reproduce and prosper. If its not in the right enviroment they will most likely die and not reproduce. But the gene of that organism might be past down to other organisms if the new organism is heterozygous.

April 20-24

All this week we focused on the cockroaches. We had to figure out what kind of experiment we were going to do. First we observed the bugs to see how they acted in this envirement and then we had to come up with an a question to test in an experiment. My group observed that the cockroaches stuck to your hand. Also when you tried to get them off it was a little hardere than expected. So our question was, "What can cockroaches stick to?" Our hypothesis was that they could stick to everything we tested them on using the suction cuo like things on their feet/legs. We tested plastic, glass, wood, cloth, computer screen, and dry erase board. We put the object at a 90 degree angle so we could see if stuck or not by it falling if it did not stick. The independant variable was the materials. The dependant variable was whether they stuck to the object or not. And the control variable was the cockroach. In the end they stuck to everything except the dry erase board. I think we did this experiment to better understand the cockroach. If we know what it could stick to maybe we can better understand what kind of nvirement it lives in. Since it stuck to the wood we can tell that there are trees in its natural envirment probably. We can also ask more questions and conduct more experiments. One question like why do they stick to things and maybe we could test thet and get more questions and experiments from that and so on.

Field Trip

On this field trip we went to camp Spears. It was very educational. I learned about bogs, lakes, and teamwork, but I'm only going to talk about the bog and the lake. At the lake we caught a frog. Then some people caught leaches. I caught some bugs and learned that they were I think stone fly larva. They were swimming and didn't know that larva could swim. At the bog I saw that the land looked like you could stand on it but as we learned from the counselers said that a kid stepped down in the bog moss. We also learned that there is a tar substance in there so it's impossible to swim. So if you fall in you couldn't get out without help. That's what happened in England where there was a man found in a bog and because of the tar it mummified him in a leatherly layer of tar stuff. He was so preserved people thought that it was a murder that might have happened 3 weeks earlier. But it turned out he was hundreds or thousands of years old. And that he was part of a sacrifice ceremony. The last thing I learned was that the bog we visited was actually the largest bog in North America!

Genetic Variety

Genetic Variety is where there are alot of different genes. Like when you have genes from your mom and dad. You also have genes from your grandparents and great grandparents and so-on. Genetic variety played an important role in our reebops by making all of the different traits. Your F1 bug could be totally different than your F2 bug. But your F3 bug could look almost exactly the same as your F1 bug. Like with me, my P1 bug has long legs, but my F1 and F2 have short legs. You could see the variety by looking at the genotypes on the back of the bugs. Each color represents a gamete coming from someone. You could have not of come in contact with that person and have their gene in one of your bugs. Most people in our class had one of almost everyones genes. Without genetic variety the bugs would be all the same and boring.

March 23-27

All week we worked on our genetic projects. You had to do things like write summaries and blog about the bugs that everyone did last week. We also researched agenetic disease and made a wikipage. I did alzeimer's. We also had to make a recording on how to use a punnet square. This helped us understand genetics more.