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Final Written Reflection ~ Genius Hour

Pt I: Description of your Genius Hour -   What? My genius hour was the study of Dissociative Identity Disorder. I looked into many different aspects of the disorder including the history of the disorder, why/ who suffers from the disorder, the diagnostic process, symptoms and treatment of the disorder, what is happening inside the brain when someone is in a dissociative state, what the alters are like and why they exist, myths surrounding the disorder, and the differences between D.I.D. and other disorders. Where? The bulk of my project took place in class. All of my research was done in class and all of my poster materials were cut out and glued onto colored paper at school. The only thing that I really did at home was my brochure, the powerpoint, and typing up all of my research. When? I worked on my project during class and also during AP Lit because I was doing the same topic for both classes. Why? I had been reading about D.I.D. and other psychiatric disorders a

Genius Hour- Final Week!

This week I set up my poster and glued everything on, so most of my presentation is ready to go! I decided that in order to make my presentation more engaging, I will be handing out brochures that are very similar to what my tri fold looks like. Hopefully people will be reading along with me as I am presenting and they will retain more information. This weekend I just need to practice my presentation a few times and make sure everything is ready to go for when I present on Tuesday! I'm super exited to see what the other seniors have researched over the past month!

Genius Hour- Full Week #2!

All of my research is finally done and is typed up into poster format. This week I spent almost all of my time collecting my information and organizing it into the sections that it will go in. After my research was done, I designed the layout of my tri-fold and started to print out my information. Then came the tedious process of cutting everything out and gluing it onto colored paper... my favorite... not. Everything is coming together quite nicely and the only thing I should have left next week is putting everything on the poster and making the tri-fold look nice! I have started to think about my presentation and how I would like to make it interesting and engaging, but I have hit a few bumps brainstorming for this one. We'll see how it goes next week in class when I have the minds of the people at my table to help me think of some presentation ideas.

Genius Hour- Full Week #1

So at this point I have decided that I am definitely going to be researching Dissociative Identity Disorder. I have decided which aspects of the disorder I will be focusing on and those are symptoms, diagnosis, treatment, myths, why the disorder occurs, who it affects, history of the disorder, the biological reasons for the disorder, differences between D.I.D. and other mental disorders, and real stories from people who suffer from the disorder. The next step for me is obviously continuing my research and keeping it all organized. It has been a challenge trying to keep it straight which information came from which source, but so far it has not been too much of an issue. Once all of my research is done I will be able to start designing my presentation and typing everything how I want it to look on the poster. I have been running into some problems with finding pictures that are relevant to the disorder because it is so difficult to visualize, but I think that I have found a few good o

Exam Week

So this week was obviously AP Exam week and I think the exam went okay. I was very confident on the information we had covered thoroughly in class, but there were also a lot of questions on things we had never gone over before. I also wish we would have done more practice with timing throughout the entire year and not just the last week before. It would have been helpful to go through some of the short answer questions while being timed to know how much was enough to write. I was surprised and kind of disappointed that there were no questions involving chi square tests, but the essay questions really were not bad at all. For genius hour, I have decided to do something involving dissociative identity disorder. A lot of times people will describe a D.I.D. episode as being the passenger in their own body, so I would like to see if I could induce the feeling that most people have experienced when they're driving and they can not remember how they got where they are.

Heart Week!!!!

How did you do on the work? I really, really enjoyed looking at the hearts this week. It was cool to look at the demo heart and see how everything connected and how big the lungs were compared to the heart and how tiny the esophagus was. Looking at a real heart was a million and a half times better than looking at a picture of a heart or a heart replica. We also took the test this week and I think it went okay. I was expecting a lot more meiosis and heredity, but I still think I did alright.  What do you think you understand well? I think I understand how blood moves into and out of the heart. It really helped being able to see the chambers, veins, and arteries. While I was studying for the test I had a really firm grasp on the beginning of the unit (meiosis and heredity) and not as strong of a grasp on 4.11-4.12. I watched a bunch of videos to help me understand 4.12, but it still is not nearly as strong as my understanding of 4.7-4.10.  Where do you think you could improve? I

Electronic Journal Entry #8

How did you do on the work? I think I did pretty well on the work this week. My group and I had a lot of fun working on the Excretion project and I think we all learned a lot from making the little handout. We did not have any problems really finding the information necessary for the handout and it was fun learning from other groups. Super excited for heart week!! What do you think you understand well? I think I understand the methods of excretion very well as well as the information that the other groups put on their handouts. I definitely need to read over the notes that the other groups made just to make sure everything is solidified in my head! Where do you think you could improve? I think I could improve my understanding of 4.12. I still do not understand it that much and would probably benefit from re-watching it. I also would like to really spend time learning the different drawings that each group made so that I can understand each in a different way than just memorizing t

Weekly Electronic Journal Entry #4

How did you do on the work? I did well on the work this week. Nothing was overly challenging for me and I really enjoyed the work we did with genetics. I had a lot of fun with it. We spent the majority of our time this week working on the virtual fly lab which was pretty fun (except the fly noises).  What do you think you understand well? I think I understand the chi-square tests really well in addition to the monohybrid crosses. The x-linked crosses confused me a little bit at first, but now I do not have a problem with them. Where do you think you could improve? I think I could improve my overall understanding of how the inheritance patterns worked and the background information on each of them. What strategies will you use to improve? I can improve my overall understanding by rereading my notes and watching some Khan Academy videos that explain the overreaching concepts. How does the work we are doing fit into the context/narrative of the course? Inheritance patterns are cr

Weekly Reflection for Week of 20 March- 24 March

How did you do on your work? This week I think I did pretty well on my work. The Mendelian Genetics packet was pretty easy for me and I really like the work we did with the pedigrees. I still do not exactly understand the  purpose of the pedigrees at this point in time, but they were pretty fun to work with. I was pleasantly surprised with how much I remembered from sophomore year. This is definitely one of my favorite units and it makes even more sense now because of my background in stats. Sophomore year, chi square values and critical values did not really make sense to me, but now chi square tests make a lot more sense.  What do you think you understand well? I think I understand the chi square tests as well as Mendelian genetics. Punnett squares are also really fun to work with especially with the new trick we learned to avoid having giant punnett squares. Crossing over did not make a lot of sense to me in the beginning of the week, but once we started looking at the pictures a

Weekly Reflection for Week of March 5 through March 10

How did you do on your work? This week I felt pretty confident on everything we worked on in class. A lot of my time at home was spent working on typing up the PCR lab, and I felt pretty good with that lab by the time I turned it in. It was fun reviewing the stages of mitosis and looking at the different slides. The mini lab that we ran refreshed my memory on what each stage looked like and how the stages were different from each other. The packets were not too bad this week and my group was able to finish them in class. What do you think you understand well? I think I understand how each of the stages differ from each other and what they are responsible for. In addition to the stages, I also feel pretty solid with the checkpoints of mitosis which was cleared up by the click and learn. I wish I would have drawn the phases of mitosis when I was taking notes on the prezi, because it would have made the mini lab much easier. Where do you think you can improve? I think I can imp

Cancer Activity 3,2,1

Three Things I Learned From This Activity: Specific chromosomes are more frequently affected by cancers. In our group a common chromosome was seventeen.  We saw a patient that only had two gene mutations and can have cancer.  My patient had different totally genes from any of the other people in my group which showed that different genes can cause the same cancer. All of the different mutations led to Leukemia which is very interesting to me.  Two Things That Surprised/ Interested Me: I thought it was interesting how scientists are working to try and rid the body of cancer. Leukemia treatments involve taking out stem cells before the cancer treatment starts to make sure they are not affected by the poison that will soon be injected into the body. Once the treatments are over, the stem cells are injected back into the body.  I really thought it was interesting that different genes can cause the same type of cancer. It seems kind of crazy that totally different genes on tot

Weekly Reflection for Week of February 27- March 03

Weekly Reflection for Week of February 27-  March 03 How did you do on the work? Overall I think I did pretty well on the work we did this week. I understood every aspect of the lab and I had a lot of fun running the lab. I was a little disappointed that Lincoln was the only member of our group that got actual data, so I guess I should have skipped the granola bar right before the lab! Running the PCR lab gave me a better understanding of not only PCR, but biotechnology in general which I think helped me on the quiz. What do you think you understand well? I think I understand the virus vodcast well, but I definitely will need to review the information a little bit more, and study the new terms a little bit more. I understood each of the steps in the PCR lab, and after reading the whole packet, I understood why we were doing each step in the order that we did which is making the lab write up much easier. Where do you think you could improve? I think I could improve my overall

Weekly Reflection #2

How did you do on the work? I think I did pretty well on the work this week. The play dough lab really helped me visualize what was going on with transcription and translation. I was having trouble grasping what exactly was happening during those processes, but now it is much better. Vodcast 4.3 has a lot of new terminology, so it will definitely take me a little bit of time to get all of the new terms locked in my head. I probably will need to make flash cards with all of the new terms in order to really learn them. What do you think you understand well? I think I understand the genetic engineering aspect of this vodcast and the different methods used to genetically engineered organisms. I also think I have a better understanding of transcription and translation after this week’s activities which is good because that is what I was struggling with last week. Where do you think you could improve? I think I could improve my understanding of the first part of vodcast 4.3. In th

Weekly Reflection for Week of January 30- February 03

How did you do on the work? I felt like I did pretty well on the work this week. For the first portion of the week, we focused on the history of DNA and the experiments that led to its ultimate discovery. The remainder of the week was focused on the transitions from DNA to RNA to protein. The information on the history of DNA was pretty easy to grasp, we learned a lot of it in advanced bio. I really liked the DNA Family Relationship Analysis. It was cool to analyze the results of the STR and try to determine if Jeff was in fact a biological child of Mr. and Mrs. H. Once I figured out how to read the STR, that was much easier! So far, this unit seems to be much easier to grasp than the energy unit. What do you think you understand well? I think I definitely understand the history of DNA and the experiments conducted which ultimately led to the discovery of the structure of DNA. Frederick Griffith discovered that bacteria could give other bacteria heritable traits, even if they wer