Pig Dissection

The purpose of this Pig Dissection was to understand the body structure. This unit was about homeostasis, the digestive system, the circulatory system, the respiratory system, the nervous system, the endocrine system, and the immune system. After cutting open the pig, my group and I identified the specific parts of our pig. We also cut the heart open to identify the four parts of the heart, which I learned in the circulatory and respiratory system vodcast. Oxygen-poor blood enters the right atrium from the body through the superior and inferior vena cava. From the right atrium, it then goes to the right ventricle through the tricuspid valve. Then, it goes to the lungs through the pulmonary valve to the pulmonary artery. Oxygen rich blood from the lungs enters the left atrium and goes through the left ventricle and leaves to the body through the aorta. My favorite part of the dissection was before the pig was cut open because I got a little bit dizzy when i saw the pig get cut open. I think this dissection was a valuable experience because it proves that I will not be a doctor when i grow up because I can not handle blood or cut open organs.

Here is our youtube video:

20 time individual reflection

Our 20 time project was about pollution. We gathered information to see how many people knew that pollution was hurting our Earth. At first, we tried to raise money by selling boba at our school. We planned to put stickers about pollution on the drinks, and donate the money to a pollution fund. We could not do this because we had to be part of a club to sell anything at our school. Instead, we made posters and a survey. We placed the posters around San Jose. Over 150 people took the survey from across the country and Hong Kong. I had many friends from Texas, New York, Florida, and many parts of Southern California take the quiz and a lot of them had no idea how bad our Earth was doing. I asked a lot of people from tennis to take the survey and most had no idea how much the world was being polluted. 52% of the people surveyed were a little concerned about global warming. 69% of the 150 surveyed said they wanted to help save the Earth. About 3/4 of the people knew that the living condition of the environment would be worse for the coming generation. 84% believed that the global temperature had risen from the 1800s. If I could do this project again, Vivienne and I would definitely set up a clean up to raise more awareness. After learning about pollution, I cut down on how much trash my family and I produce, trying to use less plastic and recycle more. I have learned that batteries are actually recyclable. Before this project, I put used batteries in the garbage.

Vivienne and I will continue this project by raising more awareness and possibly scheduling a clean up.

Unit 9 Reflection

http://bit.ly/2r1bqcm

This picture shows the diffferent levels of taxonomy.
The levels get smaller near the bottom because it is
more specific towards one species

http://bit.ly/2r82L4r

This shows the historyof the Earth in a 24-hour time period

Unit 9 was called "What on Earth Evolved". I learned about the different levels of taxonomy. The taxonomic levels are (from most inclusive to least inclusive): domain, kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species. The three domains are: bacteria, archaea, and eukarya. Protists, fungi, plants, and animals belong to the domain eukarya. The kingdom protista are diverse, unicellular or mulitcellular, plants or animals. Some examples of protists are:  slime molds, red algae, paramecium, and amoeba. The kingdom fungi consists of heterotrophic decomposers that can be unicellular or multicellular. They can bee found in all habitats on Earth (ex. mushrooms, yeasts, molds, and lichens). Non-vascular, vascular seedless pants, and seed plants make up the plantae kingdom. Mosses, ferns, lilies, and oak all belong to the plantae kingdom. The kingdom animalia consists of multicelluular consumers and heterotrophs. Some examples are: sponges, jellyfish, earthworms, sea stars, fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals.


My previous post was the "Geologic Timeline Reflection"( http://monicabio9.blogspot.com/2017/04/geologic-timeline-reflection.html ). This post explained that the Earth is 4.543 billion years old. Many animals existed before humans. Humans have only been on the Earth for 200,000 years. Animals like the tiktaalik lived 375 million years ago. Dinosaurs lived between 230 and 65 million years ago. Humans are just a small fraction of life.

I am still a little confused about why scientists some scientist like to clump species together, while others like to have subspecies. I think it would be a lot easier if there were no subspecies because it gets very confusing.

I think I did pretty well on my What on Earth Evolved presentation. Mine was about the tiktaalik, which was one of the first land animals. I think I could have made my speech a little bit longer, but other than that, everything ran smoothly. This was a really good assignment to practice my public speaking. In the future, I think I will elaborate more on my slides and not read directly off the slides.


Here is my What on Earth Evolved Presentation: