Unit 10 Reflection

          Unit 10 focuses on important systems that regulate our bodies and help keep our bodies function properly. As a class, we started off learning about homeostasis, which is a process that maintains stability in our bodies. For example, when our body temperature is below the average, we start having goosebumps and start shivering. Homeostasis includes behavioral response, such as animals undergoing hibernation, and physical responses, such as humans shivering and sweating. The next lesson we learned is circulatory and respiratory systems, which work together to maintain homeostasis. Circulatory system transport blood, nutrients, and gases while respiratory system delivers oxygen and expels carbon dioxide along with water. These two systems help transport inhaled oxygen throughout our bodies. Another system we learned is nervous system, which controls reflexes, movement, thoughts, muscle contractions, and basic life functions. We also learned about endocrine system, which controls growth, reproduction, and metabolism.

http://image.slidesharecdn.com/homeostasis-121117100359-phpapp02/95/homeostasis-7-638.jpg?cb=1353146781

         The main lessons that helped us on our pig dissection are learning about digestive system, immune system, and lymphatic system. Understanding the structures that make up these systems made us better prepared for identifying organs in the pig's body and their functions. Lessons about these systems help us recognize the importance of the organs, such as liver, stomach, small intestines, large intestines, and allow us to identify the locations of these structures in the body.

http://www.sciencekids.co.nz/images/pictures/humanbody/humanorgans.jpg

       Something I want to learn more about is the nervous system. I want to ask about how the flight or fight response works. I also wonder how certain chemicals can help treat depression.

        Throughout the second semester, I was able to learn so much information because of the great lessons and projects Mr. Orre provided! In the last few months, I was able to understand important concepts through the convenient, helpful vodcasts. I was also able to learn the concepts through experiments and videos. Aside from learning about biology, I was given a chance to use technologies to submit assignments and more importantly, record my progress as I acquire skills and knowledge in the class. This is an amazing, unique experience that really allow me understand how the Internet can potentially help students as they share their ideas and track their work.

       This experience has helped me create many educational posts on my blog. One of my favorite include Pig Dissection post, which includes a summary and a video of our group showing the functions of the organs in pig's body. I really like this post because it records my awesome experience of dissecting a pig. Another post that I like is the 20 Time Final Post, which summarizes my hard work and my passion for psychology. This post also includes a video showing the ted talk I did in class. This is also another unique experience that helped me grow as a student and a public speaker.

     To wrap up this post and this year of biology, I want to thank Mr. Orre for being such a passionate and helpful teacher. His fun, interesting teaching style really helped me improve my skills in delivering speeches, presenting ideas, creating a great presentation, and communicating with my peers. I am so thankful to have been able to participate in various activities with the class and to learn so much information about biology. I am very happy to be able to see my improvement on different skills and to also see my growth as a freshman in high school. Mr. Orre, thank you so much! I will use all the skills and knowledge I acquired in this class and I will definitely continue to improve as a student as I continue with my study.

http://www.biology.iastate.edu/files/styles/announcement_full/public/announcement/images/biologywebbanner.jpg?itok=LyCH1WMZ

Pig Dissection

I think the purpose of the dissection is to help students identify the organs, tissues, and structures in a living thing and to help students learn the functions of different systems through this hands on activity. This dissection relate to our unit about immune, digestive, respiratory, circulatory, lymphatic system because it helps us understand the organs that make up each system and how they work cooperatively to allow the body to function properly. The dissection also reviews the order in which different processes, such as digesting food or breathing air, work. Furthermore, it shows how each organs actually look like and exactly where it is located in the body. My favorite part of the dissection is definitely dissecting the body and actually being able to see how the organs look like. I was so excited when I successfully dissected the heart and saw the chambers and the inner structure of the heart. I was also very excited when I was able to identify the structures in the body and correctly state the function of that organ. This dissection is absolutely the best part of the biology class! It was both a fun and educational activity. As a group, we were able to learn so much by looking at the actual structures as opposed to the boring textbook illustrations and charts. We were also able to see how the the food goes down from our mouths through the esophagus, to the intestines, and eventually being eliminated from the body. It was definitely a helpful, valuable, and unique experience for all of the biology students!

20 Time Final Post

     The Ted talk went pretty well for me. My final product is actually a pamphlet, which was suppose to be a guideline designed for PTSD patients. As you can see from the picture, it includes some of the professional treatment, such as the cognitive and exposure therapies, and some information about PTSD in veterans or children. On the back of the pamphlet, there is a plan filled with advices from patients or therapists.

Here is the front, where I included professional therapies and information about the disorder.

Here is the back, which includes the treatment plan I created. 

       Preparing for the presentation was extremely stressful for me mainly because I keep on forgetting some parts. I had to really try my best to not feel so anxious and to really focus on delivering good amount of detailed information. During the presentation, I was, of course, very nervous and worried. I was afraid that I wouldn't get all of my information across within the 4 to 5 minutes zone. I was also very scared that I would mess up somewhere in the presentation and forget the information I was suppose to say. Despite the anxiety, I was able to finish the presentation before 5 minutes and I was able to share all of my experience with everyone in the class. I was satisfied with my presentation because it went pretty smooth and was very detailed and educational. Something I could have worked on more is having a confident tone and having all parts of the speech memorized. When I was presenting, I was rushing the entire time, which causes my voice to sound unstable and shaky. I was also forgetting some of the parts, which caused me to pause and look at some of my notes. If I were to grade myself, I wouldn't give myself full point on many parts of the rubric, such as the memorizing speech part. However, I would give myself a good overall score because I was able to deliver all the information and my personal experience to the class.

      Through this experience, I really got to learn a lot about my weakness in giving speeches and what qualities make a student a great speaker. I am really thankful that I got to do a project on something I am very interested and that I was able to acquire the skills needed for creating and delivering a short, informational speech. I am also very thankful to have been given a chance to practice public speaking and presenting my work in front of students without reading off from the powerpoint. Twenty time is definitely one of the most interesting and educational project that I've done in freshman year.

20 Time Individual Reflection

My 20 time project was inspired by the stories that I heard from PTSD patients. By doing my project on this topic, I challenge myself to conduct surveys and interviews, and  to fully understand the lives of those being diagnosed with PTSD. I chose this challenge because I am very interested in psychology. I also wanted to improve my skills in conducting various activities and producing desired product. My goal for this project was to raise awareness among the student body and to educate people about this commonly heard disorder by providing a treatment plan with detailed information about PTSD. This was my goal because I love helping people who are diagnosed with different disorders. I really hope that I could produce a meaningful work that can help others understand how PTSD, and also other mental disorder, has brought a significant impact on a person's life. In the past few weeks, I have successfully conducted surveys and some research. I was also able to educate my relatives or friends about the disorder based on the knowledge I've gained from visiting official websites for PTSD. However, I wasn't able to get as many people as I had originally expected to participate in the surveys. I also wasn't able to interview anyone who has been diagnosed with PTSD. I am especially disappointed about interview because I have always wanted to talk to a PTSD patient about the details of the symptoms or effects of the disorder. Another disappointment is that I am a little lost about doing the brochure or the poster for this project. Despite the success or failure in some parts of the project, I was able to learn about the symptoms, diagnosis, statistics, and real life examples of the disorder. If I could do this project again, I would definitely spend more time on finding people for interview and finding students to take the surveys. I would also come up with a better plan of creating a visual product for the class. My next step is definitely sharing the information about PTSD patients' experiences and treatment. I would also like to start a new challenge of studying other psychological disorders.

Plan:
Begin the presentation by describing the life of a PTSD patient. Start the sentence with "Imagine..." and try to catch the attention of the audience as I describe the panic and the fear that patients have been going through. Then introduce the topic of the disorder, describing the symptoms and the diagnosis of PTSD. (1.5 min)

Middle: Talk about inspiration for my project. Talk about my passion for studying psychological disorder. Talk about what I have done to raise awareness. Talk about my goals and the ways to achieve them. Describe the problems i have encountered during the process. Talk about  my personal experience as i read stories about other people's PTSD symptoms.
describe what i failed to complete.  (1.5 min)

End: describe how i use the knowledge i gained from the research and surveys to help other people. Talk about the taiwan trip and how I educated my relatives. Talk about how I can help the community. Talk about what I believed is the most valuable thing that I learned from the 20 time project. (1.5min)


Rough Draft:

Title: 

Introduction: 

Attention grabber- Imagine you woke up and changes

Unit 9 Reflection

           Unit 9 provides detailed information on the evolution and classification of different organisms. To avoid confusion with different names of organisms around the world, scientists develops an effective system through taxonomy, which is the study of naming and classifying organisms. This system, which is called the Linnaean System, shows relationships by integrating the genus and species of the organisms into the name. For example, we can tell that polar bear, which has the name of Ursus Maritimus, is closely related to grizzly bear, Ursus arctos, because they are in the same genus. Aside from the naming, scientists also developed taxonomic levels to classify organisms into groups. The levels are kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, and species.

Credit: http://www.slideshare.net/mrtangextrahelp/06-6-kingdoms-and-3-domains

           There are three domain, Eukarya, Archaea, bacteria. Domain Eukarya includes protists, fungi, plant, and animal. It includes both unicellular cell and multicellular organisms. Archaea are organisms that live under extreme condition. Domain Bacteria includes bacteria that produce antibiotics, live in guts and help with digestion. These Domains are then divided into kingdom, one of them being animalia. Kingdom animalia includes phylum chordata, which contains invertebrates and vertebrates, phylum Cnidarians, which is the oldest group containing specialized tissues, and phylum molluska, which have a complete digestive tract. Each phylum can then be divided into smaller groups called classes.
             In this unit, we've also watched My Inner Fish, which is a series of videos that show us the evolution from fish to mammals. The videos helps us understand the similar structures that we share with fish and with other organisms. We can also see how humans share characteristics, such as large brained and complex thinking, with other mammals. It is fascinating to see how our beginning embryo stage looks almost exactly like those of reptiles, fish, and other species.
            Something that I want to learn more about is the way human evolved from other species. I want to ask the question that "How did our large, complex brain evolve?"

Credit:http://www2.hawaii.edu/~pine/book1qts/embryo-compare.html

            The What On Earth evolved project was a fun, educational presentation. Although I was very nervous in the beginning of the presentation, I enjoyed the process of teaching the class about my topic. One thing that I believe I did well is making the presentation interesting and easy to understand. Students seemed to have paid attention to the presentation and have displayed their interest of my topic by being engaged in asking questions. However, I believe I still have to work many parts of the presentation, such as elaborating my points instead of just saying the ideas written on the power point. When I was presenting, I simply said the ideas that was memorized. I should learn to talk as if I was having a interesting conversation with the class. Therefore, for the ted talk that is coming up, I am going to practice sharing my ideas without just stating the points. I am also going to make the tone of my voice sound more exciting and engaged. Overall, I learned a lot from students who are superior at giving presentation. I was very thankful for having the chance to practice my public speaking.

Here is my presentation for What On Earth Evolved Project!

My Inner Fish Blog Post

The video "My Inner Fish" reveals evidences of the evolution from fish to humans. Through analysis and comparison of different organisms' structures,  the paleontologists display the structures that us humans have in common with our distant ancestor, fish. Some of the similar structures are that we both have are backbones and same nerves. Another evidence is how fish embryos resemble human embryos in the early stage. The similarity in the embryos proves that reptiles mammals, amphibians are all descendants of fish. It also shows that as the offspring develops in an embryo, genes responsible for turning on traits will make us produce structures different than those of reptiles, amphibans, and fish. In addition to those evidence, it also can be seen that human's testicles were in the same place as the fish, which shows how our structures evolved from fish. There is also evidence that the digits of our hands evolved from the bones in fish's fin. This shows where and how our fingers develop. Through years of study of the evolution, scientists have also found genes that are responsible for producing several traits. One of them being them being the Sonic Hedgehog gene, which generates the pattern of digits. The increase in this gene is the reason why mutations occur, giving people 6 fingers instead of 5. Another gene is the EDA gene, which controls how many teeth we have and how our skin develops. Without this gene, our skin would not function properly and would lead to development of certain disorders. In conclusion, there are many evidence proving our evolution from fish.

4th Blog Post: 921 Earthquake

For the past several weeks, I've been trying to find people diagnosed with PTSD. Unfortunately, I've encountered one of my biggest setback, which is not being able to get any patient for interview. I am very disappointed at myself for not being able to do anything about that. However, I am still trying and asking mainly because I really want to know how these patients feel. Aside from that, I've also looked more into articles, news, and websites about this disorder. I've found that  many people who witnessed 9/11 terrorist attack had been diagnosed with PTSD. I think this one of the reasons why the disorder PTSD sounds familiar to many of us. When I researched this disorder in Chinese, I've found that the government had been giving huge support and financial aids to PTSD patients who had been affected by 921 Earthquake, which is the second deadliest earthquakes that happened in Taiwan. After reading about this news, I immediately asked my parents, who were victims of this earthquake, about PTSD. They said that they've heard of it on the news during that period of time, but didn't know anyone diagnosed with it. Now I am trying my best to contact my relatives and friends and ask them about people diagnosed with this disorder. This will be my plan for next week. Also, I've started on the brochure that I am making for this project. I will be working on it at home throughout the week. I hope that my project can really raise awareness among the students and also help those patients, especially my friends, relatives, or family members, who suffered from natural disaster.