Honey Bee Project
For thousands of years Honey Bees and Humans have lived together. Honey Bee's are a type of bee that now lives every where in the world. Today bees are mainly used for agriculture. Every year millions of bees are transported to the state of California for pollinating fruit, vegetables, nuts and other types of produce. These bees move pollen and help grow the produce, so we can continue consume these types of produce. Bees are responsible for spreading pollen to allow things to grow, and making honey, but in the last nine years bees have been mysteriously dying off or leaving their hives. Colony Collapse Disorder has spread throughout the world causing bee loss and loss of produce. Here in America beekeepers are losing thousands of bees. These missing or dead bees are not pollenating produce and beginning to affect the agriculture industry. Without these bess, common produce in America, such as almonds, strawberries and blueberries can not grow. Not only is this bad for the American dinner plates but can cause massive loss of money. CDC has no know cause or treatment, and is affecting more and more bees every year. Loss of bees in America and the world could be catastrophic.
For this project I made four small painting on mini canvasses. Three of the canvases have different pictures of what bee loss could cause. On painting is brightly colored with flowers alive and well, representing what the world would look without CDC, then two examples that show the world with CDC in varying degrees. I choose this idea because I wasn't able to do any painting for school projects this year. I wasn't very proud of my work and wish I had more resources to make my project beautiful work.
For this project I made four small painting on mini canvasses. Three of the canvases have different pictures of what bee loss could cause. On painting is brightly colored with flowers alive and well, representing what the world would look without CDC, then two examples that show the world with CDC in varying degrees. I choose this idea because I wasn't able to do any painting for school projects this year. I wasn't very proud of my work and wish I had more resources to make my project beautiful work.
Dissection
For the dissection project in the middle of the 2nd semester, I choose to do an online version of the dissection. I choose this option because I am a very squeamish person and have some traumatic experiences around dissection and things alike. The online version was a fetal pig, but even seeing it online was very hard for me to do the project without feeling sick and/or dizzy. I learned about a fetal pigs body and the main systems in the body such as the central nervous system, respiratory system and the cardiovascular system. I learned about basic organs and their primary functions. I found it amazing that a fetal pig had so many organs and how complicated the entire thing was. In this project I learned that I can not handle any type of medical, surgical or anything to do with inside a living being. This is really good for me to know so I can work on becoming less squeamish, making it easier to do stuff like the dissection process, so then I could pursue my dream of finding ways to reduce likelihood of rejection in human transplants.
Crime Scene Investigation Project
This project began on the after school began. We started by learning about exoneration. We studied the people who have been exonerated and how they did. We also watched the movie called The Memphis Three, about three teenagers who were wrongfully convicted of murder of littles boys. After that we went into our crime scene. A crime scene was given to us. My partner and I studied our crime scene for evidence. We had to then analyze the evidence to find the suspect of our crime. We learned who was killed and how. We used techniques that are really done in the professional CSI world, like DNA extraction and electrophoresis. The Crime Scene Investigation also made us use our logic skills. It required us to think about our scene critically. In our crime scene we were also learning how to turn in scientific papers.
In this project we learned a lot of sciences that are actually done in the real world. I specifically learned casting, fingerprinting, DNA analysis and Toxicology. Casting is the method of preserving impression evidence, like footprints and tire tracks we might be used to find a suspect. I learned about fingerprinting and the different method used to gather fingerprints and use those to help find a suspect. To prove our theory of a suspect we also learned how to analyze DNA to possibly identify blood or other bodily fluids. In our crime scene it was evident that our victim was possibly intoxicated at the time of death, so we learned how to find the toxic chemicals in the victims body.
The most interesting forensic science was the fingerprinting. I’ve always been interested in fingerprints and find it fascinating that no two people have the same. I thought it is kind of cool that you can gather fingerprints on weapons or other important items in a crime scene and find whose fingerprints are there. In this project I think I did well on using critical thinking in my crime scene. I used a lot of critical thinking skills in my work and allowed myself to reflect on my decisions. I could of worked on trying to turn in better quality work. My evidence reports were not as quietly as they should of been. I could have had people review my papers more for grammatical errors and critiques on content.
In this project we learned a lot of sciences that are actually done in the real world. I specifically learned casting, fingerprinting, DNA analysis and Toxicology. Casting is the method of preserving impression evidence, like footprints and tire tracks we might be used to find a suspect. I learned about fingerprinting and the different method used to gather fingerprints and use those to help find a suspect. To prove our theory of a suspect we also learned how to analyze DNA to possibly identify blood or other bodily fluids. In our crime scene it was evident that our victim was possibly intoxicated at the time of death, so we learned how to find the toxic chemicals in the victims body.
The most interesting forensic science was the fingerprinting. I’ve always been interested in fingerprints and find it fascinating that no two people have the same. I thought it is kind of cool that you can gather fingerprints on weapons or other important items in a crime scene and find whose fingerprints are there. In this project I think I did well on using critical thinking in my crime scene. I used a lot of critical thinking skills in my work and allowed myself to reflect on my decisions. I could of worked on trying to turn in better quality work. My evidence reports were not as quietly as they should of been. I could have had people review my papers more for grammatical errors and critiques on content.