Final Reflection

    This semester in biology has been a stressful one but it had allowed me to see what my major weaknesses as a student are. My major weaknesses in this class was my time management. I would always wait until the last minute to finish my projects. If I would have completed them earlier when they were assigned, I probably would've gotten better grades on them.

    The class in general wasn't very hard but the most difficult topic was probably the one dealing with mitosis and meiosis and genetic traits. This topic wasn't very hard to me but it was the most challenging out of all of them. 

    I enjoyed this class overall. It's not like other classes. You are actually engaged in learning and there are many projects which give you a better understanding of the topic. The projects weren't very hard but required you to do a lot of work to get a good grade. 

   I wouldn't take away anything that we did in this class. The reason being is that everything we did seemed to be helpful with whatever topic we were studying. All of the work and projects gave us a better understanding of the current topic being taught. None of the work given to us seemed pointless and it all helped us throughout the class. 

    Overall, I really enjoyed this class. It wasn't very hard but all of the work that was assigned throughout the course made it seem more difficult than it really was. This class was very interesting and I think the people being introduced to this class will enjoy it. 

Field Journal

Last week (May 9th) I went and collected several kinds of leaves such as Red Maple, Holly, and Frasier Fir. I started pressing some of them the next day.
May 11th: I went and collected many more leaves which brings up to 21 leaves. Some of those include Cedar, Wild Cherry, Bradford Pear, White Pine, Crab Apple, Dogwood, and Redbud. I will be finishing collecting, my pressing and my presentation this week.

Dissection Labs

This week in biology has been a very eventful one. During the middle of the week we started our worm dissection lab. We had to cut the worm in half and identify the different organs. Some groups didn't finish so we had to finish those the next day. Then on Friday, we dissected frogs. We also had to cut it open and identify the different organs. 

Genetic Disorders Project

This week we didn't have school on Monday so we had a shorter week. On Tuesday, we started presenting our projects on different genetic disorders. The presentations were good overall. My partner and I researched Huntington's Disease which is a disorder where the nerve cells in your brain eventually disappear. Our presentation consisted of a prezi, a game where everyone had to make a model of a part of the brain, and a kahoot. We now have a new project which will be like a press conference and we have to talk about different biological problems in the world. 

Genetics

This week we started learning about DNA. We learned several things throughout the week: DNA is a double helix, RNA is a single helix, DNA is made up of 4 different nucleotides (adenine, thymine, cytosine, and guanine), and how to use a codon chart. The nucleotides bond in a certain way, A-T and G-C. We also have a project dealing with genetic disorders due on April 1st.

Mitosis Lab/Ecosystem Project

This week we had to present our ecosystem projects. The projects ranged from the Great Barrier Reef to the African Plains. My group, Branden, Tanner, and I had the Sahara Desert. I feel like our presentation went well. I learned a lot from the research we did. Other groups had some very good projects with very well-made models to go along with them. Today, we did a lab about mitosis. We used microscopes to look at the cells in the roots of an onion. We did this so we could observe mitosis, since that is what we are studying right now. By looking at the cells, we could see different stages of mitosis; prophase, metaphase, anaphase, and telophase. Also this week, is our unit 2 exam which will be on Friday.

Microscope Lab

This week in biology has been a pretty interesting one. Wednesday we started a new lab about plant and animal cells. During the first part of the lab,that was completed on Wednesday, we had to get  a small piece from an onion and a cilantro plant. We then put those pieces on slides on looked at them through the microscope and sketched what they looked like. Then on Thursday we finished up the lab. One of us in our group had to scrape the inside of their cheek with a toothpick and put it on the slide along with methylene blue. The methylene blue was used so the cells would show up. We also had to sketch what the cheek cells looked like.