Unit 7 Reflection

The main topic about this unit was ecology, which is defined as the study of interactions between organisms and their environments. We learnt about the factors that take a big part in a certain ecosystem. The different levels and what would happen if one of them went out of balance. The way things were affected was by there different abiotic factors. Abiotic factors affect living organisms and the functioning of ecosystems. We looked the difference between a habitat and a niche. A habitat is where an organism lives, while a niche includes everything an organism needs to survive, such as food and water. One of the big ideas from this unit was interdependence. In other words interdependence means that all living things depend on each other, this is how balance is kept. This topic was presented when we delve into the topic of food webs and food chains, and how the size of different levels can affect each other.

In the conservation project each table group picked a ecosystem and set out to research about it. My group chose to do our project on the Arctic ecosystem. In this collaboration I felt frustrated most of the time because I had to keep pushing people to do work and carried an unevenly distributed amount of work. I felt this was unfair as I had taken on a bigger work load than my whole group. I ask my group to write 1/3 of the script we were going to use each. I wrote 1/3 of the script as well, but when editing the movie we made I found that my groups script did not fit the criteria that was asked. I was frustrated because I had to keeping pushing them to do their work. Since I agreed to taking on a bigger workload I expected them to complete there task given to them in a thorough fashion. Although I felt a strength of ours as a group being productive when shooting our video in class. At the end of this project/unit as a class we studied the kind of person we are. The best way you could behave would by being an assertive person. We took a test and I found myself to be an aggressive assertive person. In the future this information will help me to manage myself and my group better.

This is our conservation project on the Arctic:

Candy Electrophoresis Lab

None of our dyes had moved  in the wrong direction or mixed colors. The differences that had occurred between the reference dyes and the ones that we were testing there were that our red and orange were darker than the reference dyes, but for blue and yellow reference was darker than ours. However, I think this can be attributed to the amount of dye we extracted from the candy. 


I think that citrus blue 1 will move similar to red 2. Red 40 goes as fast as carminic acid. Yellow 6 goes as far as FCF. I think that yellow 5 should go as far as betanin. I chose this to be my hypothesis because although they may not be the same color and be the same size. The order of the dyes were random but stilled corresponded to betanin and the other reference dyes. Although the chemicals won't go as far as the dyes, they would order up.


Things like colored goldfish would probably contain food coloring to entice small kids into eating it. Most crackers does not contain food coloring and flavors. The company uses flavoring and colors so the kids eat it up.

I found all of those dyes in some cereal and sauces (tomato ketchup). I was surprised to find those dyes in my food and even found those done in the lab. I also found some natural color dyes annato extract color, and turmeric extract color. I learned that there are 7 dyes permitted in the US and I found most of them in my pantry at home.

There are  2 main factors that control the distance the dye travels is the dye's size, and how long you leave the gel in the electrophoresis box. I also think that the overall charge of the dye must also play a part in the direction it travels. I think this is by chance and can't be replicated exatly.

The force that moves the dye through the gel is the electromagnetic force. It sends a current through the gel and that is caused by the voltage .

The smaller dyes  traveled faster because of the holes that were in the gel. Smaller molecules move faster throughout the gel as they can fit through the holes easier.

I think that the gel should have been running so it would have been easier to see the difference in the lengths. Then we could see the DNA molecules of this size are so much larger than the dyes, I expect them not to travel as far.