Unit 3 Reflection

Unit 3 Reflection

This unit was about Cells and what is inside them. It was also about photosynthesis vs cellular respiration. We learned about the different organelles in a cell and what there structure and function is. 

In this unit, some of my strengths were learning the difference between prokaryote and eukaryote cells. Prokaryote cells have no nucleus and are typically smaller that eukaryote cells that have a nucleus. One weakness in this unit for me was learning all the different roles of the organelles and how each one is used. One topic that I completely understood was passive transport vs active transport. Passive requires no energy but active requires energy. The labs that we performed in class really helped me use what I learned and apply it in the labs. 

For this incoming test I had/am going to review all my notes and watch the hardest vodcast agin. I'm also going to read the chapter that I didn't chose to take notes on which would be chapter 8. 

Egg Diffusion Lab

 Egg Diffusion Lab

 In this lab we asked how and why does a cell's internal environment change, as it's external environment changes? During this lab we first placed the eggs in vinegar for more than 48 hours and after we took them out of the vinegar we washed them and then placed them into a different substance. The vinegar removed the membrane. 

 While looking at the class data I notice that after the sugar concentration increased the mass and circumference of the egg decreased. The change was cause by passive diffusion when an area of high concentration moves to an area of low concentration. Also more solute inside the cell 

A cell's internal environment changes as it's external changes because of diffusion. It would move from areas of high concentration to low concentration until they reach eqilibrium. After placing the eggs in vinegar, water, and sugar the eggs had shrunk and grown. After placing it in vinegar it shrunk but when we placed them in water and sugar the egg grew. 

This lab demonstrates the biological principal that a cell's internal environment changes as it's external environment changes. This lab demonstrated this principal. 

I can relate this lab to real life with examples like why fresh vegetables are sprinkled with water at markets the water is keeping the vegetables fresh with hypertonic solutions. They are solutions with less solute concentration that what is inside the cell with cells gaining water.  

Based on this experiment the next thing I would want to test would be placing the egg in oil because vinegar and oil are opposites and they don't mix so I would like to know if it would do the opposite of what the vinegar did to the egg or if it would do the same thing. 

Egg Macromolecule Lab

In this lab we asked the question Can macromolecules be identified in an egg cell? We found that for the cell membrane, there were polysaccharides and lipids. The polysaccharides turned black and the lipids turned orange. Membranes are made of phospholipids. For the egg white they had all four macromolecules, proteins, lipids, polysaccharides, and monosaccharides. The proteins turned purple and they were their because they are important for growth and development. Also enzymes are for immunity. The lipids turned orange, the polysaccharides turned black, and the monosaccharides turned green. They are all easy for growth and development. The yolk also carried all the macromolecules and they all made proteins. They turned the same colors as for the egg whites.

A few errors that we made during our experiment that may have affected our results were that when I was pouring the egg whites, yolk, and membrane into my test tubes I accidentally used the same pipet for everything but when I realized we weren't supposed to do that I stopped. I don't know if this affected our results but I won't do that next time because it might affect the data. Another error was that one of our table partners more water into the test tubes and it was inaccurate. He had pours either more or less and that might have affected our colors in the results. In future experiments I will definitely be more careful with accuracy because in some labs it can affect your data greatly. We have to be more careful when we read the directions and also try to be as accurate with the water.

The purpose of this lab was to show what kinds of macromolecules are present in different parts of the egg. I don't have much to relate this lab to but I can relate this with previously working with eggs in cooking. In this lab we went in depth on the different parts of the egg. Mr. Orre was saying that there is a thin cell membrane around the yolk and thats what keeps it together. I remembered seeing the membrane during cooking when I cracked the egg and there was a shiny layer over the yolk which now I know is called the membrane. Overall from this lab I learned a lot about eggs and what things affect them. I also learned about the different types of macromolecules in the egg and what their purpose is. I am definitely more familiar with the roles of macromolecules and that could help me on a test.

Big Questions 

Are we alone in the universe?
I chose this question because it's something I question quite often and something that really interests me. The universe is infinite and there are so many opportunities for life beyond Earth. About a year ago I watched a documentary called Cosmos and it really raised my interest in space science. They talked about how there are infinite planets in infinite galaxies in infinite universes. Something they said that really has stuck with me was "... and think about how each universe is like a water molecule in an endless waterfall." After hearing this I was quite open with the suggestion that life may exist beyond earth because I believe that all of that would not be there if there wasn't a purpose. The current hypothesis for this question is that in the next few decades we will potentially discover 60 billion habitable planets in our Milky Way galaxy alone.
Some of my questions are...

1. Is there life beyond Earth? 
2. How much more oil do we have left?
3. Is it possible to explore beyond the Milky way?
4. Can we create a man made star?
5. Can we travel faster than the speed of light continuously for long periods of time?
6. Will the sun ever blow up?
7. Will there be another big bang?
8. How much is the maximum amount of people we can fit on this Earth?
9. Are we going to bury people on top of each other?
10. Are we going to have a limit of how many kids we can have?
11. Are there unknown species on Earth?
12. How did the first humans figure out how to reproduce?
13. Has there been multiple big bangs?
14. What is the sweetest substance?
15. Will we be able to survive as temperatures quickly increase?
16. What's the longest a person can run for?
17. When is Apple going to stop making iPhones?
18. Do fish sleep?
19. How long can a human go without sleep?
20. How many species are on the Earth?

Identifying Questions and Hypotheses

This study was found to show the average of time a person is on Facebook everyday. They found that the average amount a time a person spends on Facebook each day is between 36.79 minutes to 52.28 minutes.

Question: What is the average time spent on Facebook.

Hypothesis: The average time a user sends on Facebook is greater than 14 minutes a day.

In the world today people are so connected to social media that the result of this study was not unexpected. 

Facebook has many purposes which can increase the time a person spends on the app every day. Facebook is used for school too which is adding the amount of time on the app each day. 

http://mashable.com/2010/02/16/facebook-nielsen-stats/#bQ0xkB9oDOqc

Unit 2 Reflection 

In this unit we learned a lot about macromolecules like carbohydrates, lipids, nucleic acids, and proteins. Proteins are made of amino acids and nucleic acids store and transmit genetic information. Lipids are mostly made of carbon and hydrogen bonds. Carbohydrates are the main source of energy and plants and animals use it for structural purposes. We learned a lot about enzymes and also did a lab to help understand enzymes. I learned that the pH and temperature will affect enzymes and that with the right temperature It will work at a good constant speed. Some of my weaknesses in this unit were understanding the different between the structure and function of macromolecules. The sweetness lab was quite confusing and that is something that I need to look back at for more clarification. One thing that wasn't very confusing during that lab was explaining how sweet each sugar was and which sugars are the sweetest or the most plain. A success was understanding the structure of enzymes. I can thank the teacher for drawing the structure and explaining it several times during our do now. Another successful topic in this unit was the pH scale with acids and bases. It was a successful topic because it was mostly review. A cohesion is an atttraction between molecules of the same substance and adhesion is the attraction between molecules of different substances. A capillary action is cohesion+adhesion. A mixture is material composed of 2+ elements/compounds that are physically mixed together. A solute is a substance that is dissolved and a solvent is a substance that the substate dissolves in. A polar is an unequal distribution of charges between H and O. 

Cheese Lab

In this lab the problem was that the milk had to let the bacteria digest. When we let the milk curdle we are letting the bacteria digest. We found that with a hot temperature the rennin takes 10 minutes to curdle while chymosin only takes 5, At a controlled temperature they take the same time (15 minutes), and at a controlled pH chymosin takes 15 minutes while rennin only takes 10. My recommentation is to have the enzyme condition at acidic and use either rennin or chymosin because then it will only take 5 minutes to curdle.

Some mistakes that we made were that we took a long time in between pouring the rennin into the different tubes. We also put the last tube in between our armpit about a minute after we put the other tubes in the hot and the cold. In future experiments we can have multiple people pouring the rennin at the same time to quicken the process and put the rennin in the hot and cold water at the exact same time and also in between our armpit.

This lab was done to demonstrate how cheese is made and what the right temperature it takes for milk to curdle. The cold one didn’t curdle after 15 minutes, the warm one curdled after 15 minutes, and the hot one curdled after 10 minutes. I can relate this lab to our vodcast because in the vodcast we were told that pH and temperature effects enzymes and in this lab we saw how those factors affect how long it took for the milk to curdle. Based on my experience from this lab I have a pretty clear idea on how cheese is made and how long it takes to make the cheese.

Curdling Agent:	chymosin	rennin	buttermilk	milk (control)
Acid	5	5
Base
Cold
Hot	5	10
temp control	15	15
pH control	15	10
Average of controls