Mitosis (10/10 - 10/13)

Image Source: https://goo.gl/fDKOK7

Summary:

      Cell replication, or also known as Mitosis, is a process in where one cell replicates itself to make another copy of itself. Mitosis is used for things such as healing. When you have a wound, your body closes it off by replicating cells and covering up the wound. There are 6 stages of Mitosis: Interphase, Prophase, Metaphase, Anaphase, Telophase, and Cytokinesis. The first phase- the interphase, is where the cell grows to its mature and proper size and makes sure that it has the right amount of organelles. The cell also makes a copy of its DNA and Centrioles. The next step is the metaphase. In the metaphase, the nucleus replicates itself and the centrioles go to opposite sides of the cell and create spindle fibers which go across the cell. The spindle fibers stretch and pull therefore having all chromosomes line up at the equator of the cell, each being attached to a spindle fiber. The next phase is the anaphase. In the anaphase, the centrioles pull, splitting the chromosomes into chromatids and pulling them to opposite ends of the cell. Once that is done, the Telophase happens. In the telophase, the centrioles pull away from each other until the cell is nearly split. For each newly replicated cell a nucleus is created. The final step of Mitosis is cytokinesis where the cells pinch inward dividing the cytoplasm into two. The DNA is also replicated in this step.

SP6 - Constructing Explanations:

     This week I evaluated information to explain each process of the Cell Cycle/Mitosis. I also explained how mitosis works through a flip-book. In the flip-book it showed the 6 stages of the Cell Cycle animated (kind of). It showed what happened in each step and how each step leads up to the cell eventually splitting into two. Prior to making the flip book, I did some research about Mitosis using Gizmo to simulate cell division. One part of my research I illustrated each step of cell division, explained what happened in each step, This infornation helped me out when making the flip book later on.

XCC - Stability and Change:

       One system I've noticed was the Cell Cycle. This system occurs normally when the body is physically injured. Once the body is injured, cells split themselves into two and duplicate them selves to cover up the wound. When the wound is fully healed, cells will stop duplicating. This is one of the systems I identified this week. This system is usually stable for everybody. However, it can go unstable. The Cell Cycle is usually monitored and is controlled. butut if it not controlled, the cells will duplicate at a fast rate without ever stopping. This causes many diseases including cancer and is deadly to those who have it. 

The Osmosis Experiment (10/3 - 10/7)

Image Source: https://goo.gl/18VsrL

Summary: 

     Osmosis is the movement of cells from a lower concentration to a higher concentration. For example, if you put an egg into a certain liquid, the egg will grow or shrink depending on the solute-solvent ratio on the outside the egg and inside the egg. If the egg has more solutes in the inside than in the outside, the water or liquid will go in the egg to make the solute-solvent ratio equal to the outside. If the egg has less solutes in the inside than the outside, the water inside the egg will go out of it to make the solvent-solute ratio equal. If the solvents in the inside of the egg is equal to the solvents on the outside, nothing will happen since they are already equal. Another thing kind of related to osmosis is mitosis, which is the splitting of cells. When you get injured, how does your body heal itself? Mitosis is the answer to that. In an injury, cells split and create more of themselves to fill in the cut/injury. If the splitting malfunctions, it non-stop rapidly grows into the body and causes what is known as cancer.

SP3 - Conducting Investigations:

    This week, I conducted investigations when I first identified the question : Is a skinned egg soaking in Gatorade a Hypertonic, Hypotonic, or Isotonic solution. Then my team and I created the hypothesis that the answer to my question was a hypotonic solution where the Gatorade goes inside the egg and the egg gets bigger. After that, we identified the variables. The manipulated variable was the liquid we were soaking the egg in, which was the Gatorade. The responding variable was the size of the egg. The controlled variable is the jar since nothing would happen to it since it is holding everything. After my team and I gathered all this information, we started on the experiment. We first recorded the initial weight of the egg and recorded it. We then put it in a jar and filled the jar with Gatorade. In the past 24 hours, the egg got bigger, just as we predicted.

XCC - Cause and Effect:

      A Cause and Effect relationship I noticed with the Egg Experiment was why the egg got bigger. The reason the egg got bigger was because it had more solutes (salt, sugar, etc.) inside. The Gatorade, however, had only about 30 calories inside it which meant that it had not a lot of solutes. When we put the Gatorade and the Egg inside the jar, the Gatorade went inside the egg to equalize the amount of solvents inside of it. This makes sense because if you add more of a solvent that has very little solutes in it to an egg with more solutes but very little solvents, the solvent-solute ratio will dilute in the poured in solvent. This is how the egg got bigger after being put in the Gatorade.

Respiration, Photosynthesis, Diffusion and Osmosis - (9/26 -9/30)

Image Source: https://goo.gl/s75hvN

Summary:

      Diffusion is the movement of particles moving from a high concentration to a low concentration. For example, if you drop a drop of food coloring into water, the food coloring will stay in one place shortly. That place currently has a high concentration of food coloring. But as time goes by, the food coloring will move around and dissolve in the water until everywhere in the water has an equal amount of food coloring in it. Osmosis is the kind of the opposite of diffusion. Osmosis is when particles move from a low concentration to a high concentration. For example, imagine that you have a bag. That bag is filled with water and a little bit of salt. If you put that bag into a jar of water that has a lot of salt in it, the salt from the bag will move out of the bag into the jar with more salt. The bag with a lower concentration of particles move into a higher concentration of that particle. The opposite happens when there is less salt in the outside and more salt in the inside. 

 

SP6 - Constructing Explanations and Designing Solutions: 

     This week, I mostly explained things such as the photosynthesis cycle instead of designing solutions. I explained how photosynthesis and respiration work together to function through creating a fold able of the two processes. One half of the fold able said the name of the process, the important information about it such as the function, organelle the process happens in, and the formulas for the products and reactants. Another thing that was added in the fold able was an illustration which explained what starts the process, what the outcome is of the processes, and how both processes work together. I also filled out a worksheet explaining the outcomes of scenarios using Osmosis and Diffusion, such as "If you put a bag of 97% water and 3% salt into a Beaker with 90% water and 10% salt, where will the water move?". I explained how osmosis and diffusion play roles in scenarios such as the example. 

 

XCC - Scale, Proportion, Quantity:

     One thing I noticed this week was that Diffusion and Osmosis depend on the quantity of the concentrations of the solvents and solutes and the size of the item that is hosting the solvents and solutes. Think back to that food coloring and water example in the summary. In that case, the food coloring dissolved until it was equally spread around the jar of water. If it was tried in real life, you could see that after the food coloring was dissolved in the jar of water, the water turned into the color of the food coloring dropped in. Now instead of having a jar of water, what if you added a drop of food coloring into a lake? The food coloring would still be equally spread across the water, but the lake would not even change color because each water molecule holds a very small amount of food coloring. What I am saying here is that the scale of the host (anything that holds the water) determines how much of the solute is spread around each water molecule. The same goes for osmosis. If the cell or the water around it is bigger, it affects which direction the water goes.

 

 

 

 

 

Macromolecules - 9/19 - 9/23

Image Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3d/Structures_of_macromolecules.png

Summary:

     Macromolecules are organic molecules that are needed to support life. Examples of macromolecules are lipids, proteins, nucleic acids, and carbohydrates. Macromolecules can be found in many things that we use everyday. Lipids can be found it waxes, proteins can be found in meat or fish, nucleic acids can be found in DNA and RNA, and carbohydrates can be found in bread, pasta, rice, vegetables, etc. The simplest form of macromolecules are called monomers. The monomer for lipids is fatty acids, protein monomer is called amino acid, carbohydrates monomer is called saccharides, and nucleic acids polymer is called nucleotide. Macromolecules have their own functions as well. Proteins regulate growth and development, lipids store energy in the cell, carbohydrates are essentially energy, and nucleic acids provide instructions for life (DNA and RNA)

SP7 - Arguing From Evidence:

     This week, I used the ACE strategy to answer questions in my work. On one assignment, I was given a set of 4 food items' nutrition facts and I was supposed to fill in the information on table. After that, I was given scenarios and I was supposed to find the food that would be best eaten for that scenario. For example 'If you wanted to heal or build up body mass, which food would you want to eat(from your food set)?" In that part of my work, I answered the food that I thought would best fit the scenario, cite my work by giving out the nutrition facts (carbs, protein, etc.), and explain how the food would help. In the example question above, I explained that my food had the highest in protein and that protein regulates development and growth. This one example of how I ACEd my answers in my work.

XCC - System and System Models:

     One system I noticed this week was a system involving macromolecules and living things. Macromolecules provide the necessary things for life such as Nucleic Acid which creates DNA and RNA for the living things to function. Proteins are needed to regulate growth and development, and Carbohydrates provide energy for the cell. Living organisms such as animals and plants consume or use macromolecules such as carbohydrates and proteins in food such as bread or meat. The two parts of this system- the macromolecules which helps support life and the things that consume the macromolecules- living organisms work together to help the living organism work.

           

Final Cell Wars Blog - Project Reflection

My Website: https://tackk.com/mne5wy

Summary:

     All organelles have different functions to help the cell. The vacuole holds in waste and helps plants grow. The ribosomes create proteins which creates hair. Lysosomes breaks down waste, the golgi body sorts, modifies and delivers components for the cell, and peroxisomes breaks toxins such as hydrogen peroxide. The cell wall protects the cell and keeps the plant together, and the cell membrane is basically another layer of cells and protects everything. The cytoplasm moves materials and information and fills up the nucleus and the endoplasmic reticulum transports proteins to other cells.

Backwards Looking:

     Have you done a similar kind of work in the past (earlier in the year or in a previous grade; in school or out of school)? Yes, I did do a project that covered the topic of cells and organelles. This project was called 'The Organelle Trail'. In this project, you were assigned a partner and an organelle. With your partner, you must make a wanted sign for the organelle. In your wanted sign, you must have the 'Wanted: [Organelle]' text, a picture of the organelle, its function(s), its location in the cell, what it contains inside the organelle, and a brief description of it. In this project, I learned about the Cytoplasm and its properties and functions.

Inwards Looking:

     How do you feel about this piece of work? What parts of it do you particularly like? Dislike? Why? What did/do you enjoy about this piece or work? I thought that this project was pretty fun to do because I got to learn about the organelle that I was studying about (the mitochondria) and apply the information about the mitochondria into my posters, smears and video. The part that I enjoyed most in the project was making my smears and because I got to put my creativity into the smears (especially making the memes for the smears) and research and learn more about each organelle. I also enjoyed making the posters since they looked really nice at the end and gave information about the mitochondria. The part that I didn't really like was the creation of the video and presentation because the work on the video was a bit tedious and repetitive and I feel like I didn't really do a good job at editing it.

Outwards Looking:

     Did you do your work the way other people did theirs? In what ways did you do it differently? In what ways was your work or process similar? For the most part of the project, yes. I did do the project similar to other students. One thing that I did differently was instead of making a video informing people about my organelle, I made a song/video of my organelle. I saw that no one else made a song for their organelle. Another thing that I did that was different from classmates was that I didn't name my organelle. Many teams gave their organelles a name, such as Perry the Peroxisome, Camillo Golgi, etc. My team and I didn't really give our organelle a name. Again, for the most part of the project, we did the same things as other classmates. I made smears with memes and sources, posters with the same format (which was "Vote for [organelle]- [organelle does this and that]").

Forward Looking:

     What would you change if you had a chance to do this piece over again? If I was to do the Cell Wars project again, I would change a couple of things. One thing that I would like to change is the video type. The type of video that I made was a song, which didn't satisfy me. This is because I am not used to making songs and I feel like I would have done better on the video part of the project if I did not do a song, but instead a news report or skit, since I am pretty good at writing scripts for those. Another thing that I would like to redo for this project is the smears. I would've liked to make more smears, since I feel like I didn't make enough smears (I only made 2).

Vote:

      My vote for the Cell Wars is the Golgi Body. This is because the Golgi Body sorts, modifies, and ships proteins and components for organelles all around the cell. Although Golgi Apparatus causes Androgenesis, it is really rare. Without the Golgi Body, there is no protein packaging. Without protein packaging, organelles such as lysosomes would not have enough enzymes to function, and waste would build up in the cell.      

Cell Wars: Posters & Video - 9/5 - 9/9

Image Source: http://www.lhsc.on.ca/_images/Genetics/mitochondrion_000.jpg

Summary:

     The Mitochondrion is the power house of the cell. It provides energy to all the organelles around it. Without the Mitochondrion, many animals and plants would not exist since they require a lot of energy, and most living creatures would be bacteria. The inner membrane of mitochondria is folded and creates cristae. Cristae increases the surface area of the inner membrane, and allows the matrix, the part that is inside the inner membrane, to work at its most. The outer membrane of the mitochondria acts like skin, protecting the mitochondria.

  

SP7 - Arguing From Evidence: 

     This week, I argued from evidence and attempted to convince the class that mitochondria is the best organelle in the cell. In the video that my team and I were making this week, we said that mitochondria is the power house of the cell and nothing big would survive without them. We also explained the structure of the mitochondrion, and said that the mitochondria has two things: the inner membrane and the outer membrane. The outer membrane acts like the skin and the inner membrane is folded to increase surface area and maximize productivity. We also explained the function of the cell. The mitochondria collects sugar and organic molecules, chemically digests them into energy, and it is given to all organelles.

XCC - System and System Models: 

      This XCC is similar and kind of adds on to what I put in my XCC concepts in my blog two weeks ago. I noticed a similarity to an electronic device and a cell. A cell has its parts and its functions, such as the mitochondria, vacuole, lysosome, nucleus, etc. All these parts work together to achieve one or more things. An electronic device does the same thing. Take a computer for example. A computer has a hard-drive, a battery, screen, a sound card, a motherboard, etc. All these components of a computer work together to accomplish the things a computer does. The parts on a computer are also comparable to those on a cell. The battery is similar to the mitochondria, providing energy for the computer, the CPU is similar to the nucleus, acting like the brain of the cell, etc. In conclusion, cells act similar to electronic devices.

Cell Wars: The Mitochondria - (8/29 - 9/1)

Image Source: http://goo.gl/MbxUlK

Summary:

     Mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell. It takes sugar and organic molecules, (chemically) breaks them down and produces rich energy for all organelles in a cell. Think of the mitochondria as batteries. Without batteries (in this case mitochondria), no living thing would function. The shape of the mitochondria is meant to make the most out of itself and maximize its productivity. The inner membrane is folded to increase surface area inside the mitochondrion, giving it more space to work with. If a cell is too weak, it can produce more mitochondria to give itself more energy

SP7 - Arguing From Evidence:

     This week, I participated in the Smear Wars on Edmodo. In the Smear Wars, I pointed out the flaws and negative things that some organelles cause, and also defended the organelle I was campaigning for; the mitochondria. In the Smear Wars, I gave an explanation as to why a certain organelle should not be the new ruler of Cell Land, either for that specific organelle causing a severe disease or the vulnerabilities of the organelle. For example, the Cell Wall has holes in it, which allows a lot of water to escape from the plant. After explaining the flaw(s) of the organelle, I provided sources to back up my claim.

XCC - Structure and Function:

    In class, I noticed a Structure and Function with the mitochondria. The structure of the inner membrane of the mitochondria is folded to create more surface area and space. The more space given to the mitochondria, the faster and efficient it works. This is one way the structure works with the function- the structure maximizes productivity of the mitochondria. The outer membrane also provides a lot of space for the inner membrane to work in.