Geologic Timeline

There are lots of significant events in history but I find that there are three major one that I'm going to point out to you. First off I'd like to talk about the Periman era this was when the large extinction happened. This time was when most off the work was covered in many different marine communities. However the mass extinction at the end of this era was the largest ever recorded, which was extremely important because it created many niches is which the could dinosaurs could take over. If that extinction had never occurred we not be here as the world could still be ruled by many marine communities and good animals. Secondly, the Cambrian era which was a series of important sub events rather than one big one. Over the years of this era helped to give birth to many different species which led to the ones we have today. During this era there was a big explosion called the "Cambrian Explosion" where a huge amount of life changed over a short period of time. Finally, the huge and famous mass extinction happened at the end of the Cretaceous which wiped out most of the dinosaurs and led to us humans. This event was definitely the most important because this explosion and era led to us humans. It's also important because if this didn't happened then the world right now would be ruled by dinosaurs and we wouldn't have dominated the food chain - then once wagon would not existed.

Hunger Games Analysis 

1. In this lab, we as a class became a population of organisms trying to survive by collecting food (corks) and making offspring (flipping coins with specific alleles). This simulated natural selection and the change it has on species over time.
2. The best phenotype in my opinion for capturing food was the "aa" alleles (the pinchers). The pinchers has to pick up food between their thumb and index finger. I know this because when I was a pincher vs. a knuckler I found it easier to pick up more corks with my index finger and thumb then with my knuckles. Even though I wasn't a stumpy I still know it would be hard to collect food because the populations of stumpys went down significantly over time because they found it hard to gather food.
3. The population definitely evolved, since the allele frequency saw a dramatic shift towards the small "a" allele. In the beginning, there was a 64% to 35% relationship between the big "A" and the little "a" allele, but after 6 rounds, the small "a" allele controlled 83% while the big "A" had only 17%. Every round, the stumpies were contained to a population size of 1 or 2, while the others had numbers between 10 and 20. The population definitely evolved, since the allele frequency saw a dramatic shift towards the small "a" allele. In the beginning, there was a 64% to 35% relationship between the big "A" and the little "a" allele, but after 6 rounds, the small "a" allele controlled 83% while the big "A" had only 17%. Every round, the stumpies were 
4. There were some factors that affected our procedure, the biggest one probably being the way the food was laid out. Some years all the food would dumped into little piles, and other years it would be placed in a wavy line. However, there were many non-random factors as well. Like for example, the fact that everybody every year had to stand around the same circle and were not allowed to look at where the corks were scattered. Although there were many non-random factors they did not have much of an effect on the eventual outcome of the population. It still molded to look like the "winners", knucklers.
5. If the food was a different size, I think that the results would be different because then the different species advantages would change. For example, if we has used softballs instead of corks then the Knucklers would be at a disadvantage and the stumpy would have an advantage. This is because one of regular size can't pick up a softball with just their knuckles. 
6. If there was no incomplete dominance in the community, then the knucklers would not exist, and the pinchers and maybe even the knucklers would have become the dominant trait across the species, since there would be no mixing of genes to produce the knucklers. 
7. Natural selection is what causes change in the population, which relates to evolution. When the better traits are selected, the organisms that have those traits survive while the others die out, and so over time the population begins to only look like the organisms with the better traits. This is natures way of rewarding the best and killing of the worst. Its like survival of the fittest.
8. Some of the strategies that people used were that they would turn out their sweatshirts over at the bottom to make a pocket/bowl. There were also cheater that would while no one was looking, scoop up the corks with their arms in order survive. Those that had enough food to survive applied and adapted different strategies in order to pass on their traits and survive. 
9. In evolution everything evolves not just one specific species or trait, the whole population evolves. Natural selection acts upon both phenotype and the genotype. The new generation's genotype consists of the dominant allele and the majority of phenotypes is the dominante phenotype. In this case, it would be the pinchers.

Rising Water: part 2

2 week progress report

           Over these couple weeks I have been doing a lot of research, reading articles, looking at graphs, and watching videos made by Nasa. I've learn that our sea levels are eventually going to rise rapidly, faster than we think. Around 2030 San Francisco may be flooded. There is a couple ways to stop this from happening. This is for people to start using less things that create pollution and in affect make green house gases. The other way to prevent this from happening is to build a levy or a super dam in the bay to stop the water from flowing  in the city. We actually have plans for the levy and super dams but that is more of a last resort plan. My next steps is to see if I can find someone in this field or area to give me some more information and give me some advice on what I should do to help this cause. I'm also planning to go out and complete some community service in order to set an example to my peers and spread awareness. Hopefully I can also get some of my friends to join in on the community service.

A video on the Arctic melting:

Bird Beak Lab

In this lab we were asked the question, "How do changes in selective pressures affect the evolution of that species?" We found that through natural selection, and through different beaks, that the population changed to have significantly more spoon billed birds. Our data clearly showed that the spoon beaked bird had the most offspring. The spoon beaked bird had 26 offspring, the binder clip beak had 20 offspring, the tweezer beaked bird had 12 offspring, and the scissored beaked bird had 14 offspring.  The spoon billed beak made up 36% of the total offspring and the binder clip beak made up 27%, but non-the-less the spoon billed bird still had the most offspring. This data supports our claim because the trait of the spoon birds had extended through the population in such a short amount of time and the population had begun to look like them, or the "winners".

Some potential errors that we could have had would definitely be the variation in the amount of food. Obviously, some of the beaks were better suited to picking up different types of food. Some group had many rubber band seeds, and some had many macaroni seeds etc. For example, I found that picking up rubber band seeds and the macaroni seeds were most easy as I played the spoon billed bird. Our group in particular had many many rubber bands and that is partly why the spoon billed bird excelled in the kind of environment. Another potential error that we could have had could have been the amount of offspring produced per food. We had one offspring for every 5 pieces  of food that were collected, and the second time for every 10. This is not a real example of what would happen is the real ecosystem. 10 pieces of food does definitely not guarantee one a healthy offspring. There could have been a lot of variation, like the bird not being able to find a mate, or maybe the ecosystem was out of balance and there were to many predators.

This lab was done to demonstrate how natural selection and changes in the environment can affect the evolution and traits of a population. I learned from this lab that there are many different variables that help contribute to making just one offspring. Also, just one trait of a species chooses how successful they are in surviving. Based on my experience from this lab, I now know that evolution is really not such a complicated process. It is really just natural selection, and the kind of ecosystem.

Graph #1

                    Graph #2

Different kind of bird beaks

Rising Water

20 Time is a project made for students to take 20% of their class time and to spend it learning about something that interests them. Students have a chance explore what they are passionate about and love what they are learning about. The essential question that I asked was what can I do to make people more aware of global sea level rises. I, a student in Mr. Orre's, till the end of the school year, will work on raising awareness and learning about about sea level rises and global warming. I chose this idea to be the topic of my project because I find that this problem is growing and not much by authorities is being done to try and solve it. I'm not sure that many people know how serious this problem is, so my job is to point out facts and things that will happen if sea levels do rise, educate them on this rising problem. My goals are still being set, but it will try to go out and educate people locally. How? I'm still not sure, this also means that i'm not quite sure how I will measure my success. I'm going to move forward by deciding if i'm going to run a test and record my data that way. I'm also working on spotting a mentor to help me brainstorm ideas and out them to use.

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.