Hunger Games Final Analysis

1. In this lab, we divided ourselves into three groups: the stumpys, the knucklers, and the pinchers. This simulated three different alleles in a population. We had to collect as many corks as possible in a limited amount of time which represented collecting food.We needed a certain amount of corks to survive and reproduce, and we got to choose whom we would reproduce with. This process simulated evolution and natural selection because only the strongest survived.
2. We found that the pinchers were the best at collecting food because they could use their entire hands which made it easier to collect a lot of food at a time.
3. Evolution is defined as a change in allele frequency, which means that in our simulation, the species evolved. By the first two trials, the frequency of recessive "a" alleles grew from 52% to 96.67% which is a clear change in allele frequency.
4. One non-random factor was that the everyone tried to mate with the pinchers so that their offspring was more successful. This made the evolution to pinchers much faster. One random factor is the distribution of food across the field. Stumpys made a comeback because they had food closer to theme but this was not because they were better at surviving.
5. If the food was larger, the knucklers and stumpys wouldn't have had as hard of a time to pick up food which would of made the allele frequency closer to 50%. If it had been smaller, the pinchers would have been the only ones that could survive and the other populations might have completely died out.
6. There would have been more pinchers because "Aa" is a pincher. Stumpys would have died out.
7. Natural Selection favors individuals who are the best at surviving and reproducing which means that they have more alleles and the allele frequency increases. This means evolution has occurred.
8. In the beginning, everyone wanted to mate with the pinchers so that there would be more pincher offspring. This is why in the first two trials, the other species almost went extinct. Stumpys made a comeback, however, because people wanted there to be more successful. This could be related to sexual selection because people wanted to mate with a certain individual not because of their survival skills.
 9. Natural Selection works on phenotype because you can be heterozygous but the natural selection only cares what trait you have and not the alleles. Evolution occurs in populations and not individuals because individuals stay with whatever alleles they have but because there is a preference of a certain allele to survive, populations tend to look like the most successful individual over time.
10. I still wonder how this simulation can become more realistic such as how to make more species and have more people do the lab.

Unit 7 Reflection

In this unit, we learned about Ecology. Ecology is the study of organisms interacting with each other. There are 2 big ideas in ecology: Homeostasis, and Interdependence. Homeostasis is the concept that environments and ecosystems are healthiest when they are in balance. We learned the difference between a habitat and a niche, a niche being the ideal factors for a species to survive in an environment, while a habitat is all the abiotic and biotic factors that affect an organism where that organism lives. We leaned abiotic factors which are nonliving, and biotic factors, which include other organisms. We then learned about the 6 levels of organization: Organism, Population, Community, Ecosystem, Biome, and Biosphere. We then learned about food chains and food webs. A food chain is a way that energy is passed from organism to organism. A producer like a plant makes energy from abiotic factor. Then, Something eats the producer, and something eats that consumer and so on so forth. There are 4 types of consumers: Herbivores, Carnivores, Omnivores, and Decomposers. Food chains are inaccurate because it only shows one possible scenario of transfer. A food web shows you all the possible ways energy is transferred from one organism to another. The energy going up the pyramid decreases by a factor of 10 as it goes up the pyramid. For example, a producer can make 100,000 units of energy (like Joules) and the 3rd level above it would only have 100 units of energy. This is why there are less predators than prey. Population Ecology is the study of populations of organism reacting to their environment. Two important concepts are the difference between exponential growth and logistic growth. Exponential growth is when a population is growing at an increasing rapid rate. Logistic growth who's how after some time of near exponential growth, the curve plateaus. It plateaus when it reaches its carrying capacity, or the amount of organism the environment can support. Factors for this carrying capacity include the following: Immigration, Emigration, Births, Deaths, Disease, Predators, Abiotic Factors, and Population Density and Dispersion. A healthy ecosystem is shown by the amount of tertiary and quaternary consumers there are. Biodiversity is essential for maintaining a healthy ecosystem. Habitat Loss, Introduction of exotic species, overexploitation, and climate change are all causes of species extinction and endangerment. We must protect Biodiversity hotspots through conservation because we need to save them from species loss. Sustainable Development is essential for this to be true. Our group project was a success and we worked together as a team. There was barely any fighting or disagreement and everyone did what they had to do. I hope to learn more about realistic solutions to conservation that can be applied fast. Overall, this unit has been pretty strong for me and I am meeting my goals.

Story of Stuff

We live in a market economy which is a system that is dependent on us buying things. It starts with us extracting natural resources from the Earth. Then, we manufacture goods in factories. These goods are sent to stores for people to buy. People buy these goods to use for a short amount of time. This is then disposed of by piling it all in one place, or incinerating it. This process is unsustainable because it is linear and not a cycle. A linear system is infinite, but we do not have an infinite amount of resources. There are many flaws in this system. Extracting natural resources causes a lot of harm to the environment and destroys the local ecosystems. Manufacturing uses thousands of chemicals that could be harmful to make products cheap. Both of these steps are usually in a third world country with lax human rights laws which allows kids younger than I to work in unsafe toxic conditions for many hours and very low wages. Buying things in stores is because of the massive propaganda through advertisements that convince us that the more new things we have, the better our lives are. Once problem is the meeting with corporations and the government in the 1950s under President Eisenhower. He wanted to encourage growth in the economy, and he figured the best way would be creating a need for short term goods. This would be achieved by convincing people to keep on buying goods that would need to be replaced in a few months. This would create and endless cycle of buying that would push our economy forward. By making products either look outdated, or making their lifespan short, we would create this constant demand for new products. This is also coupled with the constant bombardment of advertisements that condition us to think that we need new things and it creates societal pressure for us to conform and be a part of the endless cycle of buying. If we have outdated products, we will be scorned by society because it is outdated, regardless of whether or not is still functions. Another issue is external costs. When we buy a product, it is usually a lot cheaper than it should be. The example shown was a radio that costs about 5 dollars, even though there are a vast amount of products used to make it found on opposite sides of the planet shipped from one place to another. This product should realistically cost a lot of money. We keep prices cheap by sacrificing parts in the other steps of the cycle. Examples of this is the poor working conditions of workers and child labor. Disposing is also a problem because leaving it in one place will destroy the ecosystem that live there and incinerating will force us to inhale the chemicals in our products. Recycling can work in a small scale, but it is inconsequential compared to what manufacturing produces in waste. In summary, the material economy has many flaws and is unsustainable.