Pig Dissection

Here is the link to the pig dissection video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5paw1BRoIHg

In this unit of biology, the main lab was the pig dissection video. In this lab, we got to cut open a pig fetus to see the anatomy of the pig. Pigs are somewhat similar to humans because they are both mammals, so looking at the anatomy of a pig is similar to looking to the anatomy of a human. We strapped the pig down to the tray and laid it on its back. We then cut the pig open through the center to expose its internal organs. We had to make a video showing all the essential organs to the pig. This related to our unit because we had learned about many of these organs and their functions.  The purpose of the lab was to find the different structures in the pig fetus and better understand how these organs work and how they look like inside a body. My favorite part of the dissection was opening the pig for the first time because it was surprising to see how similar it looks to a human body. The structures of the pig look like miniature versions of the human organs. I believe that the pig dissection is valuable because it is the best way to show how the different organs play together in a body. You can't truly understand how these organ systems work without seeing it in person. 

River Clean Up Reflection

Over the weekend, I along with other students from SHS cleaned up litter from a creek for National River Clean Up Day. We picked up garbage that was scattered on the floor for 3 hours. The purpose of this is to prevent the ecosystem from being hurt by garbage. Animals could eat the garbage mistaking it for food, or it might not decompose. Most of the garbage was small plastic bags and fragments of soda bottle glass. This was an opportune time to clean the creek because most of the water was gone meaning we could easily clean the bottom. We found some miscellaneous items in there such as a scooter and metal pieces that were lodged in the rocks. I liked this project and hope it happens often so that the creek doesn't become covered in litter. I have seen places in India where the creeks and rivers are covered in garbage, and I hope this doesn't happen to creeks in California.

Unit 9 Reflection

    In this Unit, we learned about the taxonomic classification of animals. Taxonomy is the classification of animals into groups that start broad and become more refined. Taxonomy helps us see the evolutionary relationships of different animals because animals that share more taxonomical levels will be more closely related and have a more recent common ancestor. The Taxonomic levels are the following: Domain, Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species. This is the current organization of animals; the original system was created by Carl Linnaeusus in the 1700s, meaning that microscopic organisms weren't considered life. The original system divided all living things into plants and animals. Another major change was the discovery that bacteria and archaea. We then learned more about Bacteria and Archaea. Eukarya was divided up into talking about the different kingdoms. We spent a vodcast looking into plantae and learning the different classifications such as mosses (bryophyta) that are nonvascular and don't have seeds, pterophyta (ferns) which are vascular but have no seeds. We also learned about plants that have vascular systems and seeds such as the angiosperms and gymnosperms, the prior having seeds dispersed in fruit and the latter having seeds dispersed in cones. Angiosperms can be divided into monocots and dicots depending on how many leaves sprout first and their structure. We then learned about Animalia. This was divided into 2 vodcasts on invertebrate which account for 98% of all animals and 2 vodcasts on chordates.
    I would want to learn more about Archaea because we didn't learn much about them and they don't seem different enough from bacteria to be a separate domain. I would also want to learn about the split from bacteria and archaea. I would want to learn more about the main kingdoms and phylum in bacteria and archaea like we did with Eukarya. I would like to learn more about protista, fungi, and plantae because we learned more about Animalia. I would want to learn more about the evolutionary timeline of the organisms we learned about and when they evolved and split from their ancestors.

    One of the main projects of this unit was the what on Earth evolved presentations (you can see mine right here). In this projects, we got to pick an important organism, and give a 4-8 minute presentation on all the information of the organism. For my organism, I chose Australopithecus, a genus of hominids that gave rise to the genus homo. I talked about the many species in the genus and their differences. The most important characteristics of this organism is that it was the first bipedal hominid and gave rise to the homo genus which eventually evolved into modern day humans. I learned a lot about my topic, but my presentation wasn't clear and I had to read off my notes. Instead of writing a post it note of what I should say, I had an entire script in my hand and made no eye contact. I should try memorizing my presentation better so that I could make more eye contact and be more engaging. I was able to not procrastinate and give late work this unit, but I am concerned about this upcoming test because of all the information condensed in this unit. Overall, though, I am happy with my progress in this unit.