Environmental Concerns

1.    Referring to the following list, what is your worldview? 

1.    Planetary management worldview: we are separate from and in charge of nature

2.    Stewardship worldview: we should manage earth for our benefit with ethical responsibility to be stewards

3.    Environmental wisdom worldview: we are part of nature and must engage in sustainable use

According to the above list, my world view in #3.

2.    Name four causes of environmental problems.

Four environmental problems are consumerism or over consumption of our natural recourses, genetic engineering producing genetically modified foods and creating waste, waste such as landfills, and carbon foot printing.  

Environmental problems is something that really interests me, however I have not spent a large amount of time researching the topic. I think this is something I will look into further in the future. I would also like to be able to teach my children about ways they can help conserve this environment we are a part of. 

3.    Think about one of the “Environmental Pioneers” described in the slideshow. If you were assigned a research paper telling the story of the career or personal life of one of these, which one would you chose as your subject and why?

Image from: http://media-1.web.britannica.com/eb-media/55/124855-004-BF9D4499.jpg

 

If I were assigned a research paper telling the story of the career or personal life of one of the environmental pioneers described in the slide show, I would choose George Perkins Marsh. I would choose him because it was due to his book Man and Nature that a decision was made to preserve national forests. After a quick Google search I learned that he, “In 1861, President Abraham Lincoln appointed Marsh the first United States minister to the Kingdom of Italy. Marsh would go on to be the longest-serving chief of mission in U.S. history, serving as envoy for 21 years until his death at Vallombrosa in 1882.” (Wikipedia par. 3) There is so many fascinating things about this man, and I believe I would learn a great deal about thoughts on early thoughts regarding ecological issues.

Another great website to visit is:

http://www.eoearth.org/article/Marsh,_George_Perkins

Wikipedia. George Perkins Marsh. Accessed May 4, 2013. Web. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Perkins_Marsh

The Giant Panda

Infectious Diseases

** A wonderful website to view when you are wondering about different types of diseases is The Center for Disease Control and Prevention website at http://www.cdc.gov/ . This website presents emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases, ideas about prevention, tips on safe international travel, new medical treatment, and much more.

Emerging diseases may affect the future of humans in many ways. One way may be that, as new diseases emerge, we will not know how to cure them. Also, these diseases may evolve to carry a resistance to our current list of antibiotic treatments. If a disease becomes resistant to our antibiotics and is a type that spreads rapidly, we may very well find our selves in the face of an epidemic such as the Bubonic Plague that “swept through Europe in the 14th century and killed an estimated 25 million people, or 30–60% of the European population.” (Wikipedia Par. 3)

Baylor College of Medicine’s website states, “The World Health Organization warned in its 2007 report that infectious diseases are emerging at a rate that has not been seen before.” (Par. 3) This website also makes note that, with infectious diseases constantly emerging and reemerging, we must be prepared for the threat of bioterrorism. (Par. 13) The is a rather scary thought, especially considering the threats that our nation has been under over the last 10 – 15 years and even the recent Boston Marathon Bombing.

As diseases continue to emerge, technology continues to advance at an equally alarming rate. If these deadly emerging infectious diseases get into the hands of the wrong people, our world may be in very real danger.

Baylor College of Medicine. Emerging Infectious Diseases. (Baylor College of Medicine: Last Modified July 31, 2012). Viewed April 29, 2013. http://www.bcm.edu/molvir/eid

Wikepidia. Bubonic plague. (Wikepidia: The Free Encyclopedia Last Updated: 29 April 2013 at 13:44. Viewed April 29, 2013. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bubonic_plague

Unit 3 Paper

Part 1

 

The topic I have chosen for this assignment is Evolution. I love the study of evolution, and I think it is amazing to see all the research pointing to every living thing on earth having been started by one single cell organism. I think theories such as the Endosymbiotic Theory are such amazing keys to explaining where we all came from. Evolution explains how we all came to be. Billions of years ago there was not a single living thing on this planet. The Earth was in constant chaos. Then, a single form of life appeared and before long we had plant life. This plant life produced a chemical we now know as oxygen. From there thing began to evolve. And today the number of species on Earth, “ range from low of 2 million to high of about 100 million.” (Pidwirny Par. 1)

Charles Darwin is a very popular figure in the world of Evolution. When he started his research, he was not a well known scientist or world know writer. He was just a man who began researching a topic that he found interesting. Today he is know for his theories on natural selection and survival of the fittest. There is a wonderful website that spells out topics behind his research. http://www.darwins-theory-of-evolution.com/

There are other theories that have arisen in the world of evolution. One of these theories is the edosymbiotic theory, which explains how organelles such as mitochondria and chloroplasts of eukaryotic cells actually were, at one point, their own prokaryotic cells that were engulfed but not destroyed by another prokaryotic cell. The engulfed cells then became a part of the parent cell and, waa laa, we had eukaryotic cells. You can check out more about this theory by visiting … http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endosymbiotic_theory

The list of information regarding evolution is never ending, however there are still groups of people that resist the theory of evolution and stand up for the theory of creation. For the scientific world, evolution is can be argued but creation cannot. Creation is based solely on ideas and no scientific evidence. This video talks a bit about the controversy found in this heated topic. 

Another good website to visit is:

http://evolution.berkeley.edu/

Evolution is such an interesting topic. The insurmountable evidence is amazing and the fossil records are fascinating! Evolutionary research has made leaps-and-bounds during this century and it seems that the informational gains will not be dissipating any time soon. Anthropologists continue to uncover bones of creatures in our past and I cannot wait to see what they will discover next!!

Sources:

Pidwirny, M. (2006). "Species Diversity and Biodiversity". Fundamentals of Physical Geography, 2nd Edition. Date Viewed April 17, 2013 http://www.physicalgeography.net/fundamentals/9h.html

Picture taken from: http://wolfevolution.webs.com/images/evolutionhumans.jpg

Date Viewed: April 17, 2013

Websites referenced:

http://www.darwins-theory-of-evolution.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endosymbiotic_theory

http://evolution.berkeley.edu/

Part 2

1.What one assignment or activity you performed in this unit are you the most proud of?

I would have to say that the assignment I am most proud of in this unit is my chicken leg dissection. With that being said, I will probably not be able to eat chicken for a while! It was so cool to see the way the muscles go together, to see the tendons, to see the ligaments, and the way the joints move. I think it was seeing the chicken leg as it relates to our own body that really got me. I have always known this, but performing this lab made it more real (if that makes sense).

2.Why did you enroll in this biology class?

I enrolled in this biology class because I wanted to further my knowledge in this field. I find biology very fascinating! I have now taken four biology classes and I hope to continue my biology adventure in semesters to come. I feel that the more classes I take in biology, the better I understand the different aspects of the topic.

3.Did you feel prepared for this experience when you registered?

Yes. I took BIO 181 last semester, which made this class much easier to understand. I have also taken BIO 160 and this semester I am also enrolled in BIO 202 (Human Anatomy and Physiology). I definably felt prepared for this class.

4.How was your experience different from your expectations?

I felt that you made things easy to understand and you were very active in our learning. I have taken many on-line classes, and, often times, instructors are almost nonexistent unless the student works to stay in contact. This class was the exact opposite. I never felt that there was a lack of information or preparation. The tools were all made available for us; we just had to be whiling to use them.

5.What can I do to help you?

You have done a great job. You always answer questions promptly and you provide many different strategies for us to use in our learning. All-in-all I have been very satisfied with my experience in this class!

Chicken Legs

LAB

Chicken Leg Dissection

 

Image Taken from: http://www.123rf.com/photo_15498129_yellow-chicken-in-green-grass.html. on April 14, 2013

Procedure:

1.     Put on gloves and collect your tools.

2.     Thoroughly rinse and dry one chicken leg. Place it in the dissecting tray.

3.     Examine the outside skin tissue. This is the epidermis and the dimples are where feathers emerged. Using scissors and forceps. 

4.     Cut the skin and peel it away from the muscle.

5.     Notice the clear connective tissue that holds the skin to the muscles. As you peel off the skin, you may need to cut away some of this connective tissue. Work slowly and carefully with scissors and forceps until all skin is removed.

6.     Describe how the connective tissue looks and feels. What type of connective tissue is this?

The connective tissue under the skin, which was holding the skin to the muscle, is areolar connective tissue. It was not very dense, but it did require the use of scissors during the removal process in some areas. It felt slimy and stringy.

7.     Observe, with your naked eye bundles of muscle tissue surrounding the bones. Separate the bundles of muscles by separating them out with your fingers. Begin by inserting your thumb into the muscle of the lower leg. You will need to push forcefully through the shiny lining (called fascia) over the muscle, but it will give way at the natural separations between the muscle bundles. Continue separating the muscle into bundles by forcing your thumb and fingers through the muscle until you are able to distinguish several separate bundles.

a.     Describe the arrangement of the muscle bundles.

The muscle bundles seemed to be small groups of long bundles connected together. The bundles did not have breaks in them… meaning that they went from one connection to the other as a continuous structure.

8.     The strong, shiny, white cords, called tendons, hold the muscle to the bones. Some of these tendons will pull away from the bone as you separate the muscle bundles. Use a probe, if needed, to find the tendons of the chicken leg. Using the dissection scissors, cut across the tendons at Line A (Figure 1). Observe the numerous tendons and pull the freed muscles down and away from the bone, as if you were peeling a banana. Careful you don't cut any ligaments that attach bone to bone. Look closely at the ligaments.

Examine the two bones in the lower leg. The large bone (Bone A) is the tibia. The small, toothpick-like bone (Bone B) is the fibula.

a.     What sort of connective tissue are tendons composed of?

Tendons are composed of dense fibrous connective tissue.

9.     Remove a single muscle by cutting the tendons and peeling the muscle away from the bone.

a.     What sort of muscle tissue is represented? How do you know?

The muscle tissue that is represented is skeletal muscle tissue. I know this because it is connected to the skeleton. The muscles also seem to be composed of long, continuous fibers, which is characteristic of skeletal muscle. It may also be suggested that this muscle is composed of slow-twitch fibers based on the very red appearance.

b.     Nerves are generally thin, threadlike white strands found between the muscle and the

nearest bone. Look for the nerve in your specimen. Did you find them?

Not sure if I found them or not. I am sure it was there but I am unclear if I identified it correctly.

c.     What is the physical difference in the tendon of the insertion when compared to the origin?

At the intersection the tendon was more narrow but also more dense. At the origin, it was wide and less dense.

10.  Remove all remaining muscle to expose the bones of the chicken leg.

a.     What is the soft material inside a bone?

The soft material inside a bone is called marrow.

b.     Name three specific types of cells present here. Do not break the bone; it is sharp!

Bones contain osteocytes, osteoblasts, and osteoclasts.

c.     Name three functions of bone.

Three functions of bone are support, movement, and protection. Two other functions are mineral storage and blood cell formation.

11.  Cut onto the hinge joint by cutting into the top of the covering of the joint from the femur side. It will become apparent that you must remove the knee cap area to expose the menisci and ligaments within. Pull up on the knee cap area and cut through it with the scissors. You will have cut through the bursa, a sac that acts as a shock absorber for the knee joint. These are found in every joint.

12.  Pull the covering back and look into the inside of the joint. You will see more white bands of ligaments holding the bones together. Observe the shiny, white layer covering the ends of the bones is cartilage. It helps the bones slide smoothly when the leg bends.

13.  Bend the specimen at Joint B (Figure 1) and rotate the femur in all directions. Remove the muscle that covers Joint B by cutting parallel to the femur, upward toward the backbone. Remove pink muscle tissue until you see a shiny white sheet of ligament that covers the joint. Present is an exterior ligament that holds the femur in the hip socket

a.     What type of connective tissue composes the ligaments?

Ligaments are composed of dense fibrous connective tissue. 

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*** This was a great learning experience, and, as a side note, I think I will be avoiding chicken for a while ***

Unit 1 Paper

Part 1. Your Interest in an Aspect of Unit Content

            I have to say that the area in which interests me the most is cellular respiration. I think our bodies are such amazing structures and it is so difficult for me to wrap my mind around the ideas around topics such as this. What I think is so amazing is that our body can take one tiny molecule of glucose, then break it down to pyruvate and continue the process all the way to the ending point of the electron transport chain. I find it even more amazing that from those original glucose molecules, we end up with nearly 36 ATP. How can all of this be happening inside my body all the time! For me, molecules are such a difficult thing to understand. I have never seen them perform their work yet I am amazed by their abilities everyday.

          

        Something that I find interesting about the process of learning about cellular respiration is the funny and creative ways that people choose to try and remember all of the steps involved. Some people work well with pictures, such as the one shown here. Where others choose to go to different extremes, such as the teacher who created the YouTube video below to help his students remember the process. 

 

 When I look at these two different sources, I can also see that people have different ideas about the complexity in which they need to know this topic. For example you can just learn the basic steps and the final outcome. By doing this, a person can understand the process and why it happens. However, a person can also dive much deeper into the topic by learning all of the molecules and enzymes involved and at what exact step each is utilized.

            To put it mildly, I find cellular respiration a fascinating topic to learn about. I find it interesting the our bodies can work with the ATP production of either aerobic or anaerobic respiration depending on the situation. I have really learned to love science over the last few years, and it seems to me that the more I learn the more I realize I don’t really know. This may sound a bit silly, but it is true. I can’t wait to learn more so I can discover even more topics that I know nothing about!

Sources

Mr. Hsu, scienceteacherhsu.Cell Respiration" - Cellular Respiration Song. Retrieved February 18,2013. Web. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3aZrkdzrd04

Image of cellular respiration. Retrieved February 20, 2013. Web. http://www.biology.iupui.edu/biocourses/N100/images/ch9res.jpg

 Part 2. Thinking About the Course

1. What one assignment or activity you performed in this unit are you the most proud of?

The one project I performed in this unit that I am most proud of is my written assignment on Autism Spectrum Disorder. This was a topic that I only new a little bit about, and the paper helped me to see a few different perspectives on the issue. What made it even better was that, being a mother, I could relate to the different ideas on the subject. Also, I generally enjoy writing papers because I feel that it pushes me to broaden my horizons on any given subject.

2. What do you now understand best about the information in this unit?

I feel that I had a great advantage coming into this course, because, thus far, everything we have been learning about I learned in my BIO 181 course last semester. So, in general, I feel that everything we have gone over has been a great review and refresher. I feel that the information we have explored thus far has really helped me to further understand the material, and the textbook puts the ideas into simple terms that make sense.

3. What actions did you take for yourself to enhance learning or enjoyment of the material?

As I said before, many of the topics we have covered thus far have been review; furthermore, many of the topics are also coinciding with the BIO 201 class I am taking this semester. With this being said, I feel strongly that when I read and review the information for each chapter, it is really helping me to know the material and really understand how things work. I have enjoyed the labs and at every opportunity I try to explain what I am doing to my daughter. Talking about the subject, even if it is in kindergarten terms, has helped me see the material from yet another perspective.

4. When did you feel most “connected” with the course? Most distanced?

Most of the time I have felt equally connected with the course. The only time I felt disconnected with the course was during the “What Molecules is That” lab. That is one moment where I felt frustrated and a bit like I did not understand the material. I feel that I could have avoided that disconnect if I had started on the project sooner and not waited until the last minute. Aside from that, I have not had a moment where I felt “most connected”. I have enjoyed the material fairly equally and all in all I feel that I have had a pretty good understanding of the material presented.

5. What could I offer you to help your understanding or enjoyment of the material?

All that I can say for this question is that I think you have done a wonderful job of presenting the material in an easy to understand method. The online learning environment can often be challenging, but I feel that you have given us great information to use in our studies. In fact we may even get a little more. Not only do we have the textbook and lectures, you also have also provided us with great information to utilize from the Internet. Furthermore, you seem to always be available for questions. In fact I do not think I can even count the number of times you have said to call or email if we have questions. All-in-all I feel that this is a great course, and the material has been presented in an easy to use and understand format.

           

Milk, Juice, Carrots

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Answers

Record your answers here, space out as needed, and copy and paste them into your blog. Include three or so photos for each part to illustrate the process of the experiment. Thanks!

Milk: Record your hypothesis, observations, explanation, and factors here.

Hypothesis: I believe that, if the milk is left in a jar in a dark warm place for three days, then it will begin to spoil. I believe that its combination of ingredients will begin to separate.

Observations: The milk that had been sitting for three days had a very thick texture and the color was almost a yellow hue. Although the texture was still pretty smooth, I suspect that it would have become much more clumpy (like cottage cheese) if I had left it there for a longer period of time.

Explanation: When the temperature of the milk was raised, it accelerated the process of spoiling.

Factors: I believe the warm temperature, and the dark environment allowed the change in the consistency of the milk. I had the jar closed, so perhaps the lack of oxygen also assisted to the change.

Juice: Write your observations and explanation here.

In jar #1 (room temperature water) the juice seemed to quickly diffuse throughout the water. After it had been sitting for a few minutes, the juice seemed to be slightly heavier towards the bottom half of the jar.

In Jar #2 (iced water), when the juice was first poured in, it had sort of a glassy appearance. Again in this jar the juice seemed to diffuse throughout the jar. It seemed to be more evenly dispersed and also the color stayed much darker than in the other two jars. I can assume that the color remained darker because the proteins or molecules in the juice were not raised to a high temperature, which may cause the structure to denature.

In jar #3 (boiling water), when the juice was poured in, it seemed to diffuse very quickly. The color of the juice in the water was just a light red and was not nearly as dark as the ice water.

In my test, Jar 1 and 3 behaved in much the same way.

Carrot:  Record your hypothesis, tightness of string and texture observations and measurements, and what type of water caused shrinkage or expansion here.

Hypothesis: I believe that the carrot in the salt water will expand and I believe that the carrot in the fresh water will stay the same.

Initial length and width of carrot pieces:

Piece 1 – 10.5 cm in length and 2.8cm in diameter (placed in the fresh water)

Piece 2 – 11.6cm in length and 2.3cm in diameter (placed in the salt water.

After-experiment length and width of carrot pieces:

Piece 1 – 10.5 cm in length and  2.8 cm in diameter

Piece 2 – 11.4 cm in length and 2.1cm in diameter

My original hypothesis was half correct. I predicted that the carrot in the fresh water would stay the same. However, I believed that the carrot in the salt water would expand. This was incorrect. The carrot actually shrunk in both length and diameter.

I am now remembering the information from our recent chapter that explained how cells in to much salt will begin to shrick because they are trying to balance the environment.