Hunger Games Lab Analysis

1. In this lab we were all assigned a species of bird, either a stumpy, knuckler, or a pincher. Stumpies were at a disadvantage because they picked up their food with their wrists, knucklers with there knuckles, and pincher with their thumb and index fingers. Once we has been assigned a species, we waited until the food was put out by our teacher, and then we gathered as much as we could to survive. This simulated how species have to survive in the wild, with a limited food source and lots of competition to survive and reproduce.

2. The phenotype that was the best at capturing food was the pinchers. This  was because they only had to grab between their two fingers and not something drastic or hard such as grabbing between wrists like a stumpy. Pinching is a normal human, easy, and basic human movement and the rest were not.

3. The population evolved so that the recessive allele ended with the most members in it. I know this by looking at my data. In the very start of the experiment, the polulation was closed to balance with the A allele frequency being .52 and the a allele frequency being .48. By the end of the experiment, the A allele frequency was at a mere .27 and the a allele frequency was at .73.

4. In this lab, one of the things that was not random was the mating. People mated with others that they thought would give them better offspring, for an example a pincher would most likely always mate with a pincher. Something that was random in this experiment was the food placement. The food was placed in random places by our teacher, so that we had no idea where it was. If the food happened to be near you, you were lucky and if it wasn't you were out of luck and not guaranteed to survive through that round.

5. If the food had been smaller, I think it would have made it even harder for the stumpies to survive, because it would have been very hard to grab such a small object with your wrist. However if the objects were larger, it would have made it harder for the knucklers because large objects are harder to fit in between your knuckles, as it is not a large space. Since the pinchers are such an adaptable species I don't think having larger or smaller food would have affected them that much, because you can grab almost anything with your fingers.

6. If there was not incomplete dominance, the results may have been different. This is because the knucklers would not be in the population and so there would be less competition overall. There would just be competition between the stumpies and the pinchers.

7. Natural selection selects certain genes that are advantageous for survival, which leads to evolution. This is because as they pick the traits that are better suited to survive, the other traits are weeded out, and the population starts to evolve such that the population now looks like the survivors.

8. Some strategies that individuals adopted to survive were laying on top of the food to claim it, and then taking it all for themselves. This ensured that they got a good amount of food, because no one else could touch the food that they were laying on top of. This would effect the allele frequency, because the frequency of the individuals species with better strategies would go up. This relates to nature because in nature animals adopt certain traits that can help them survive and reproduce such as camouflage.

9. In evolution the species with the stronger traits for survival evolves. Natural selection acts on the phenotype because nature doesn't know your genotype, but it does know your phenotype. So the species that are better suited for survival will continue to reproduce; survival of the fittest.

10. I think this lab was very beneficial to my understanding of this topic, and I do not have any further questions remaining.

Placebo Effect Research

Over the past two weeks, I have done a lot more research and read into studies that have already happened testing the placebo effect. I am beginning to get a better sense of how exactly I will conduct my experiment, and what to expect. Some placebo effect studies tested on whether taking a placebo pill that is said to improve grades actually tricked the persons mind into thinking that it did, to studies that tested whether the placebo effect could improve medical conditions. I have learned that this effect can't be used for something big like cancer, but could very well work on smaller things like chronic headaches.

Some setbacks I have had is getting people to join my experiment. Because I can not tell people that the product they will be receiving is placebo (has nothing in it), it makes it a little tricky to find people who are totally willing to participate in your experiment. I have found two people but I hope to find more by talking to more people about my project. The next steps in my project are to find more people to participate in my experiment, and start conducting it. I have learned that science can be really fascinating, and some of the experiments I have been reading up on are very intriguing. I know that even if my experiment does not turn out the way I hope it does, I have come out of this with a good experience and lots of new knowledge. 

Unit 7 Reflection

In this Unit we focused on Ecology. Specifically, we learned about food chains and food webs, populations in an ecosystem, the overall health of our ecosystem, and ways we can improve the health of our environment. Food chains have 5 trophic levels : At the very top is quaternary consumer, then tertiary consumer, then secondary consumer, then primary consumer, and lastly the primary producer. Although food chains are great, food webs are more accurate because they show the animals eating more than one thing which is usually what happens. As we go up the trophic levels, only 10% of the energy is passed on to the next level. This means that there is a less amount of animals at the very top of the trophic levels, and much more in the bottom (producers). Next we learned about populations, and things like carrying capacity. Then we learned about how our environment is in need of help, and we enforced this idea by watching documentaries like Bag-it and Story of Stuff. We learned that if we ever want a world for the future generations, we need to start taking care of our planet now.

Another thing we did this Unit is the Conservation Biology Project. In this project we picked the Belize Barrier Reef, and did some research on it. We found that a lot of the reef was getting destroyed by pollution and bleaching. Together as a team we put together a slide show and made a video on what exactly was going on with the reef and how we could put a stop to it. Our team did a good job of collaborating, and everyone contributed in every way they could. Each person was assigned a portion of the work, and everybody did their fair share. At times, we would lose focus on our task and stray into fun and conversation, but I think our team did an excellent job with collaboration and working hard.

I learned a lot from this Unit. But some of the facts on how much we were polluting our planet were so astounding. I think we can all learn a lesson from this, and make a conscious effort to recycle more, and reuse more. Our ecosystem is precious and needs to be preserved. This unit was definitely eye opening, and I hope we can continue to learn more about this later on in the year. 

Story of Stuff Notes

Materials Economy - Not a good system because its a linear system on a finite planet, can't run indefinitely. And its reacting with society, cultures, people, etc.

First step in the system is Extraction:
Extraction trashes the planet because we are running out of natural resources. 

Next is Production:
This is where we use energy to mix toxic chemicals with the resources. Many of these chemicals mix with our environment and people and harms them. A lot of this toxic is in products but a lot more toxic is in pollution. 

Distribution:
Sell these products at stores. We don't pay for the real price of things, instead child laborers pay with their future, and the environment pays by it getting destroyed. 

- planned obsolescense means "planned for the dumps" meaning products are made so they can be thrown away such as paper cups, new versions of electronics, etc.

- perceived obsolescence means making us buy new things so we have the latest designs and so we have the "latest designs" 

- National happiness has gone down since the huge consumer boom, and half of the stuff we buy gets trashed

Disposal:
Majority of the products we buy gets trashed. Some of this gets incinerated or dumped into the landfill. Both wastes an enormous amount of energy. Incineration creates super toxins which is even worse than just plain pollution. Recycling helps but is not the solution.

Solutions:
- We can still transform this system into something that works much better
- Renewable Resources