Eucalyptus leaf beetle invasive species project

http://cisr.ucr.edu/images/eucalyptus_leaf_beetle/04_eucalyptus_leaf_beetle.JPG

Summary: 

        The eucalyptus leaf beetle or the eucalyptus tortoise beetle is an invasive species to California. This species is native to Australia and it came to California in about 2003. This beetle can come in many colors such as red, brown, grey, etc. and it is also a beetle that is about as small as a tic tac. This beetle eats the leaves off of eucalyptus plants and it don't have many predators in California because it is an invasive species. When the beetle eats some of the leaves it damages them and is not good for the plant and the leaf. This invasive species is being biologically controlled so that people can help to make this invasive species less of a problem and a threat. 

Backward-looking: What process did you go through to produce this piece?

        To make this piece we had to first come up with the animal or the invasive species that we wanted to do by looking at a long website with lots of different species. We choose three each as a partnership and then did a little background research. Then together we had to choose the species that we wanted to do. Once we did that we both choose a job and did the research for that job. Then we did research together and we made our poster. Once we made our poster digitally we then printed it and presented.

Inward-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?
        Personally I liked this piece of work because we got to learn more about what an invasive species is. I liked that we got to choose if we made a poster or a flyer or a video etc. because I feel like it gave us some room to be creative with it and to have more fun with it. I did not like that we only had about 5 in class days to work on it because it was hard to have to do the research then make a way to advertise it then present it because to me it was slightly hard to do. I enjoyed this piece of work because we had a variety of species to work with and to choose.

Outward-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?
        I did my work like some of the class but some of the groups were not teams of two but of three and when there was a group of three they got to work on the endangered species project. ours was different because lots of people choose different species to study and to advertise. Ours was also different because we did not make a brochure or a video or a website but we decided to make a poser/flyer. They were all similar because we all got to advertise a type of living creature and they all related because invasive species can cause or become endangered species.

Forward looking:One thing I would like to improve upon is ...
        One things that I would personally like to change or improve in our project is that we made a poster/flyer and the things that we knew about the species. I would like to do this because I feel like I did not know a lot of things about the species and it made it so that our presentation and product was boring. I also feel like if we made something like a website it would be more interesting and more interactive so that it could have drawn in the viewers . I wish that the end product that we made looked better and was more interesting to the people that looked at it.

Weekly blog invasive species

http://cisr.ucr.edu/images/eucalyptus_leaf_beetle/01_eucalyptus_leaf_beetle.jpg

Summary:
          An invasive species is a species that lives in a natural area or place and then moves to another and can cause lots of problems. Some of the problems that can come out of an invasive species is a mess up in the food chain and overpopulation because of no or little natural predators. There are lots of invasive species around the world and some of them are plants, snails, insects. The eucalyptus leaf beetle is a beetle that eats eucalyptus leafs and is an invasive species. The eucalyptus leaf beetle is a type of beetle that originally lived in Australia and was introduced to California in 2003 and became an invasive species there.

S&EP: Conducting investigation:
          I got a packet of questions about the forest ecosystem and some of the food chain in the forest. I had to use gizmos to investigate what would happen if you lowered or took away the population of certain things. I also had to find if things were decomposers, producers or if they were consumers. Most plants are producers, most animals are consumers and fungi like mushrooms are decomposers. A producer is an organism that can make its own food, a consumer has to eat other organisms for energy and decomposers break down dead organisms.

XCC: Cause and effect:
        The cause and effect in food chains can be major to if organisms survive. Invasive spices can make a major effect because they can take away a certain food source from another and then there is not enough food. The invasive species can also overpopulate because of not having a natural predator in the food chain. The invasive species can cause other problems to food chains because they are not part of that natural ecosystem so when they enter they can make the food chain get messed up which is not good for the organisms in that food chain. When a invasive species come it can cause a bad effect.

weekly blog energy pyramid and the food chain

https://c1.staticflickr.com/4/3680/13578545323_cdb82a80ba_b.jpg

Summary:
        The energy pyramid and the food chain relate because in a food chain you have to have the parts of the energy pyramid. There are usually decomposes in a food chain and those are things like mushrooms and bacteria. There are producers which are things that are able to make their own food and don't have to eat other organisms like plants. Consumers that are the things that need to eat something to make their energy like how we are consumers and so are mice and other animals. When you are on the top of a food chain that means that you are only a predator and you are not prey to other animals. Humans are at the top of the food chain now but it wasn't always that way. The nitrogen cycle and the carbon cycle are two cycles that start as a gas and end as a gas.

S&EP: SP3: Planning and carrying out investigations
        On gizmos to investigate and experiment to see what happens in a food chain when you change different parts. Sometimes we might make a diseased animal that was sick or we might take away a certain amount of the animals. We would sometimes predict what we thought was going to happen and then we would test it out to see what actually happened. As well as the gizmos we played a board game of the carbon cycle and the nitrogen cycle. Some things that happened to me is I was in an animal and then it disposed, then I went to the surface water after I dissolved. a plant needed my nutrients to it took me, then the plant died then I decomposed. There was a forest fire so I went to the atmosphere,etc.

XCC: Cause and effect
        In the food chain every animal depends on another animal to be healthy and for them to have a large population. In the food chain if you did certain things like if you made it so that the producers all died then the rest of the food chain would die because the consumers need the producers to survive. In a food chain when you wipe out a animal or plant it would effect everything else as well and the population of things would go wild. The food chain might seem sad but it is very important to make sure all of the animals stay at a steady population and they don't over populate or go extinct. The food chain can be very delicate but sometimes with major disturbances the populations will go wild but eventually even out.

Genetic Super hero Project

https://drive.google.com/a/oakgrovesd.net/file/d/0B_cxd3Aa1R5faGlsc215YnkteHM/view?usp=sharing

Summary:
        Genetic traits are passed down from each parent half and half. You can use punnet squares to see what possibilities of traits a child has by taking the parents traits and filling in the array. Your life choices and things that you are exposed to can cause you to have problems like if you are getting too little sleep you can get breast cancer, etc. A genetic mutation can be caused by someone getting exposed to something that causes their DNA to get modified. Some ways that you can get a genetic mutation is you can have insertions, deletions or substitutions. Insertions are when your DNA has extra bases added to your DNA and that can cause a genetic mutation. Deletions are when some of your bases are deleted and substitutions are when bases are paired with the wrong other base. Most of the time when people have mutations is is neutral and it doesn't help or harm the organism that it is effecting.

Backward looking: What process did you go through to produce this piece?:
        To make this project it took a long time. The first thing that we did is find out what animal we wanted our hero to be based off of and find what super powers it has. Then we had to create the rest of the concept work and we had to draw what we wanted our super hero to look. After that we had to learn more about genetic mutations and create the origin story about how our super hero got their powers. Then we got to chose a villain of the opposite gender and make a love story about how they met. Then we created their child and decided what the child was going to look like by using punnet squares. Then we did epigenetics for the kid and we used a coin to see how healthy our child was going to be based on the choices they made. Then we created our animator and out villain work on their looks and how they changed. Last we made how they became rivals and then we put all our work on a poster or trifold.

Inward-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?:
        This work took a long time and it was a very fun project and I liked that I got to be super creative with this project. To me I think that it was good project and it was a great way to learn about things like genetics. To me I enjoyed getting to do the work for the villain because we had to go into more depth about how the organs changed to give the villain the powers that they have. I also enjoyed getting to make the animator and getting to make the trifold or the poster. To me the thing that I liked the least is when we had to make the love story and how we had to choose a villain that already existed to be the mate but I still liked it and I liked everything else as well. I loved this project and that everyone's was unique and was special.

Outward-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?:
        Everyone's work was different and it was similar in some ways and they were all unique. My work was like  the others because when we set up the poster everyone's looked similar and was formatted in a similar way. I also had the same as as others and we all had to make a super hero, villain, offspring, a animator, etc. We all had the same instructions but mine was different because we all choose different animals to make the super hero based on. Everybody's offspring, villain, poster, etc. was different because we got to be as creative as we wanted and we got to make lots of choices and we got to decide a lot even though we had instructions it still allowed us make it unique and be creative. 

Forward-looking:As you look at this piece, what's one thing that you would like to try to improve upon:
        I personally think that there is a lot that I could have improved on and I think that I could have done better. The main thing that I would like to try and improve upon is that I with my drawings were better and I also would like to do more research about things like how genetic mutations and GMO's are caused. I wish I knew a little more so that I could have a better origin story. There was lots of things that I could have improved on and I wish that I did a little better but I am pretty pleased and happy with what I did. The main things that I would want to change or improve upon is my understanding of GMO's and genetic mutations and I would also like to be a little better at my art and how I drew all of my characters.

Weekly Blog 1/30-2-3/17

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9b/Wikipedia_mobile_en.svg/2000px-Wikipedia_mobile_en.svg.png

Summary: 
        To make a QR code from a google document you first have to publish the document you want to make a QR code to the web and get that link. Then you open a tab and type in goo.gl and then you shorten your url. After you have got your shortened url you copy that into a new tab and before you hit enter you type .qr after your shortened link. When you hit enter it should take you to a picture of a QR code and then you can copy it into another document and print it if you would like or you can just scan the code. To scan the code you must have an app on your phone to do that. Then you can scan your code or have others scan it to get to the google document you want.


S&EP: SP2: Developing and using models:
        I started to make  a poster and a tri fold to organize all of my drawings and the super hero work that we all did recently and earlier. I am modeling all of my work on a tri fold so that I can present it at the exhibition night and so that all of my pictures and stories are all organized and easy to show and to look at. I had to make the QR codes so that if people have any apps on their phone they can scan the codes to get to my things like my origin story and so that they can get to the love story. I have to put all of the things on my trifold like my drawing of my hero and the drawing of her daughter and the drawing of the enemy or the villain of my hero and how all of the villains organs change when she changes her modes. 


XCC: Cause and Effect
I wrote a story about the cause and effect of why my super hero and my super villain are such rivals and why they are each other's enemy. They are enemies because the villain used to be a bully to the hero and when they got super powers they became even more of villains they started to fight because the villain started to use her powers to do bad and the hero wanted to fix it. Now they both fight and they are both trying their best to win against the other. The cause of them being enemies is because the villain used to bully her and they got powers and the villain used them for bad and they effect is now they are enemies and are trying to stop each other.

Weekly blog 1/23-27/17

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9e/Lungs_diagram_simple.svg/2000px-Lungs_diagram_simple.svg.png

Summary: 

        There are super powers that may be possible if you changed some of your organ systems. A way that you can see better in the dark is if your pupils got larger than usual because your pupils let in light and when you are in the light you have smaller pupils and if you are in the dark you have larger pupils. If you had pupils that were extra large you could let more light into your light you can see in the dark. You can also have lager muscles in order to do more and so that you can be a stronger person. There are many things that you can change of your body to make it better and more powerful.

S&EP:SP2: Developing and using models:

        I drew a super villain that is made up to be the enemy of our made up super hero. They have to have two modes a normal and a nefarious and in nefarious mode their organ systems change to give them powers. We had to draw the organ systems before and after. For me I changed the eyes, lungs, ears and muscles. The eyes change by making the pupil larger so that she can see in the dark, the lungs got larger so she can hold her breath longer, her ears got curvier and larger so she can hear better and she got larger muscles so that she is stronger and can do more.

XCC: Structure and Function:

In order for people to see in the dark their pupils have to grow larger to let in more light and the larger the pupil the more light you can see. If your lungs were larger you would be able to hold more air in your lungs for a longer time and you could do more stuff like be more active and still not be out of breath. If your muscles are larger than you become stronger and this means that you can do more things like lift more weight, jump higher, run faster, etc. If your ears got rounder and larger than you could hear more than you usually would and your ears are what make is to that you can hear so much in the first place.if you had rounder ears you could hear more like when you put your hands around you ear.

Weekly blog 1/13/27

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cb/Translocation-4-20.png

Summary:
        There are many kinds of genetic mutations. There are also many ways to get genetic mutations. You can have an external or an internal factor which means external is something that is outside that make you have a genetic mutation like toxic chemicals and an internal factor is when something inside goes wrong with cell duplication. You can have insertions, deletions or substitution, insertion is when you have an extra base added to your DNA, deletion is when you take away a base and substitution is when you have the wrong base with the wrong base. Most of the time when people have mutations it doesn't help them or harm them and it is just neutral to them but in rare cases the mutation can help the person or it can harm them.

S&EP:SP1: Asking questions and defining problems
        I asked the scientific question of what causes genetic mutations and what causes GMO and what is the difference? I found that GMO is when someone modifies their DNA on purpose and they do it when they want and they get to make the decision. Genetically modifying your DNA is when you don't get to make the decision and it happens when your cells duplicate wrong or when you have external factors like toxic chemical or somehow some outside force effects your DNA. The main difference is that one is when you choose and if you want it and one is just natural and you do not get to chose if it  happens.

XCC: Cause and Effect
        I had to find out what the cause and the effect of my my super hero got her powers. I got to make up the story and I had to have some scientific explanation behind it. the cause of my super hero getting her powers was she was investigating a recent case from her job as a police officer and when she was exploring she got bit by a pit viper and accidentally got some of the toxic chemicals in it. This causes her genes to have extra bases added to her DNA and so that is what caused her to get her power. There are many other ways that people can get genetic mutations and most of the time genetic mutations do not help. The cause and effect was she get bit and then she got an external factor or the chemicals into it and so then she got her genes to have insertions and so she had extra bases and she got her power.