Weekly Review for the Week of April 24, 2017

This week mainly focused on our transpiration lab. My group decided to focus on salt water to see how that would impact the transpiration of the plant. Though a little tricky at first, we were able to successfully set it up and run the experiment to see that in both our trials, it didn't take too long for our salt water plant to droop over and die. Now, the focus has shifted to our posters which will help us convey this data and will help us better our understanding of the lab. Though my group isn't too far into the poster work, I still feel the collaboration and the further explanation have really impacted my learning in a positive way.

Week Review: Heart Week Edition

     Let me start this by saying that Heart Week was easily one of my favorite weeks we've had in class this year. Something that really helped get my mind going was doing out the diagram of the heart, but what really made that click for me was the hands-on experience. Being able to touch, cut open, and jam my fingers into a heart really made the experience for me. Not only was it super cool to be able to compare and contrast Hannah and I's heart to other hearts in the room, but being able to take what I learned previously through worksheets and the diagram drawn and apply that knowledge to the physical heart really assisted my learning. Dissecting and working with physical body parts has been something I haven't been able to do since fourth grade, so being able to do so now with much greater background knowledge was really cool because I had maintained the childlike wonder of a fourth grader while simultaneously possessing the knowledge of an AP Bio student.

Weekly Review for Week of April 3, 2017

     There's not much I can say. I was only in class last week for one and a half classes due to sickness and SATs. This has not benefitted me at all because now I am very behind and very confused in almost every class, especially this one. All I really got to do this week was work on the nutrition sheet, which helped me familiarize myself with the concept and also made it easier for me to understand the other sheets done by other people.

Weekly Reflection for the Week of March 27, 2017

     This week, there was a major emphasis on review of inheritance and genetics. The activities we did throughout the week, looking at standards 4.5 - 4.9, really helped me in remembering different forms of inheritance and how they worked. This was something that came to me a little more easily because it was something I did very well on freshman year, and it's easier for me to remember things that I both enjoyed and was good at. My favorite activity of the week was working with the virtual flies and discovering the dominance and recessive patterns of particular traits. I discovered that singed back was a sex linked trait which was unintentional but good because it was similar to another example in the packet that confused me, so it was good to do it again and be reassured. All and all, I am looking forwards to getting to work even more on inheritance and genetics.

Weekly Reflection for the Week of March 20, 2017

      On Monday we wrapped up looking at cancer by doing an activity that looked at different mutations for different patients of different cancers. I thought this activity was interesting because I had a very "odd one out" kind of patient in regard to it's mutated genes. This helped me learn how different mutations of different genes can still amount to the same types of cancer, and also that although the mutations may be different, many of the chromosomes they can be found on will be consistent through many types of cancer.
     Tuesday and Wednesday we started talking about my favorite unit: genetics. I had so much fun with it in my freshman year that it was the easiest for me to remember the things that we went over in class. Reviewing standard 4.5 helped me jog my memory and reassured me on some of the things I was foggy on, like blood type and dihybrids.
     There's not much more I can say about the week because I missed the two last classes of the week, but hopefully, this week will continue my success in Mendelian Genetics.

3, 2, 1 Analysis

• Three things you learned from this activity:

1. Although there will be some overlap, not all mutated cancer genes are consistent throughout all patients with that kind of cancer.
2. Frequency in colorectal cancer is increasing in children. 
3. Many chromosomes will hold mutated cancer genes for multiple types of cancers. For example, chromosomes 12 and 17 were very common among most types of cancer.

• Two things that surprised of interested you:

1. All of this research is happening right now. When I looked up colorectal cancer, I found many articles from this month, and all of the first-page search results were posted in 2017.
2. Seeing the consistency of chromosomes with mutated genes on them, or even just other trends in general (for example, most of my colorectal group had a majority of tumor suppressor genes) fascinated me. Especially since with the particular patient I had, the qualities of his mutations seemed not to fit any trends. 

• One question you still have:

1. Are the patients we looked at in today's sample accurate to the current trends present in cancer patients? (For example, if three out of four people had the same mutated gene, would 75% of the people with that type of cancer have that mutated gene?) 

Weekly Reflection for the Week of March 6, 2017

     This week, I have confirmed to myself that I am a lot better in regard to my comprehension of material when I am working on my own rather than with other people. This is due mostly to the fact that I need to be in a more quite environment to focus and do things effectively, and when I'm with other people, I often take a lot slower because of how easily distracted I get. I noticed this especially with the two packets we did throughout the week, when I would always fall behind, but would go home and be able to finish the packet on my own in significantly less time than I ever would have been able to do in class. When I am at home, I feel like I understand things better, and in this environment I am able to go back to things that may have confused me in class and figure them out. Though my current ability to pay attention in school is something I've been working on this year, it is still something I continue to struggle with.