Yearly Archives: 2016

Mutation Story

Science 9

 

Mutation Story
Hi, I’m Marfan. I’m the gene inside Annie’s body. Annie has always been very, very thin. Her ribs are larger than normal, she has problems with her spinal curvature and extremities considerably longer than the average and with equally long and thin fingers. Her face is narrow and long, and her chest that sinks or protrudes. Annie also has vision problems caused by a dislocated lens (ectopia lentis) in one or both eyes and defects in the large blood vessel that distributes blood from the heart to the rest of the body (the aorta). The aorta can weaken and stretch, which may lead to a bulge in the blood vessel wall (an aneurysm). Stretching of the aorta may cause the aortic valve to leak, which can lead to a sudden tearing of the layers in the aorta wall (aortic dissection). Aortic aneurysm and dissection can be life threatening. But I have something in particular: I do not affect Annie’s intelligence in any way and although their manifestations are somewhat atypical, I am one of the most common genetic syndromes. I am a strange connective tissue disease of the body that affects and causes various changes in bone structures, eyes, lungs and blood vessels, among other things, and it is not my intention to hurt Annie, but that is what I do, for that I was created. It was all caused by defects in a gene called fibrillin-1. This gene plays an important role as a fundamental pillar for the connective tissue in the body. The defect in the gene also causes excessive growth of the long bones of the body. People with this problem ( Annie ) have high stature and long legs and hands. I still do not know how the form of this exaggerated growth occurs. In most cases, I am passed down from parent to child (hereditary). However, up to 30% of patients do not have a family history, which is called “sporadic”, and this is the case Annie. In sporadic cases, it is believed that the syndrome is caused by a new genetic change.  Advances have been made in the early diagnosis and treatment of Marfan syndrome. It’s now possible for Annie who have Marfan syndrome to live longer and enjoy a good quality of life. Because Annie was properly diagnosed and treated, she may live an average lifespan.

Image result for sindrome de marfanImage result for marfan syndromeImage result for marfan syndromeImage result for marfan syndrome

Ask
-What are the main symptoms of Marfan syndrome?
-What is the treatment that one should follow when having a certain syndrome?
-What are the main characteristics of a person with Marfan syndrome?
-How do you get Marfan syndromes?
-Affects this syndrome on the child’s learning?                                                                                                                                  -How long do you live if you have Marfan syndrome?

Acquire

I got all the information from the following sites
www.marfan.org

https://medlineplus.gov/spanish/ency/article/000418.htm

http://www.nature.com/ejhg/journal/v15/n7/full/5201851a.html

CBL – Engineering Brightness Proposal

Science 9

images

index

Two weeks ago, we had a Skype chat with Eladio, Dennis, and their students Eduardo and Paulo in the Dominican Republic, Santo Domingo. We learned about light poverty and their living conditions.

Last week, we also had a Skype chat with Ian Fogarty and his class, from New Brunswick. They helped us a lot by answering some questions we had about the lights that they made. They taught us more about what materials to use and which ones not to. They clarified our questions and ideas.

Some of the information that we got from the first Skype chat was: 1/3 of the population in tne Dominican Republic has access to electricity, the communities have 3-4 hours of access to electricity . Private schools use technology as much as we do, but in Public Schools they only use books, no electricity, and sometimes ,  you can see a teacher with one computer in the class, but it’s an old one, it doesn’t really work, what makes education for the kids even worst. Then, with the students from New Brunswick, we learned what materials to use and what not to, and specific information for our projects, like where to buy all our materials, what do we need, what is better, etc.

screenshot_2016-12-01-10-48-57 screenshot_2016-12-01-10-49-19  screenshot_2016-12-01-10-53-11 screenshot_2016-12-01-10-49-38 screenshot_2016-12-01-10-55-18

So, with my partner ,  We were thinking about working with solar power, because it’s safer and easier to charge the light, we also thought that it’s really interesting and trying new stuff. We are now connecting with a company called Liter of Light to get some ideas, advices.

download

screenshot_2016-11-28-10-58-19

screenshot_2016-12-07-12-31-42-1 screenshot_2016-12-07-12-31-54-1

here’s their link : http://literoflight.org/index.php#prettyPhoto

Here’s also a screenshot from our message sent to Eladio and Dennis. We have asked them a few of questions about their ideas, and ours, and we have talked about our foundraising video.

screenshot_2016-12-06-21-08-03-1screenshot_2016-12-07-09-28-36-1Displaying IMG_3861.PNGDisplaying IMG_3860.PNG

We are also going to do a fundraising to raise some money, and for the fundraising we are going to be doing a video with some interviews to people from the DominicanRepublic .  We are now thinking about designs for LED lights.

Help us. Help them.

download

image’s link: https://www.google.ca/search?q=liter+of+light&client=tablet-android-samsung&prmd=ivn&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjhmbGUp-HQAhVVzWMKHTQvCR8Q_AUIBygB&biw=1024&bih=600#imgrc=3NQyQuj4fvx5kM%3A

https://www.google.ca/search?q=liter+of+light&client=tablet-android-samsung&prmd=ivn&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjhmbGUp-HQAhVVzWMKHTQvCR8Q_AUIBygB&biw=1024&bih=600#tbm=isch&q=republica+dominicana+pobreza+de+luz&imgrc=-J31U5TNmkgCSM%3A

 

Currents from the kitchen

Science 9

Current Electricity

Hypothesis

The strawberries will generate the most amount of voltage because they are acidic.

More acidic fruit= more hydrogen ions = more charge carriers.

Observations

img_3406 img_3411 img_3413

Our dependent variable was the voltage, how much voltage the fruit will produce.

Our independent variable was the fruits, where we used apples, kiwis, grapes, strawberries.

Our controlled variables were same size, and weight, same type of nails and wires, the environment

After we checked the final results, we saw that the kiwi produced the most amount of voltage, and I was really impressed by this. We then saw that the strawberries gave a negative number, but it was because every time you change the wires, the signs do. We then forgot that we didn’t had the same size for each fruit, what might have done some changes to the results. Because the fruits didn’t had the necessary energy to make the bulb light up, we weren’t able to make the bulb light up, to find out if electrons were flowing we just checked the voltage meter. Also, to make this work we had to do a series circuit. We think that to improve the experiment we should use the same size and weight for the fruits. We could use this for our everyday life, how? Well, you can make an emergency battery, just make sure you have a lot of fruits to do it.

Conclusion

The kiwi created the most amount of voltage. We didn’t tried the lemon, but I wish we could because it seemed to be the best in the class.

This is how it works

I did some research about the topic, and the fruits batteries work because the acid in the fruit acts as the electrolyte but the energy itself comes from the difference in potential between the two electrodes. The Zinc is oxidized inside the fruit|vegetable, exchanging some of its electrons in order to reach a lower state, releasing electrons which pair up with the hydrogens ions to form hydrogen gas. The electrons will then flow through the wires towards the copper plate, giving it a small negative charge, which in turn, attracts the positively charged hydrogen ions. The most noticeable effect is that the hydrogen bubbles will be produced around the copper rather than around the zinc, which tends to be saturated with positively charged zinc ions. The lemon merely provides an environment where this can happen, but they are not used up in this process.

I got some information from this sites

https://van.physics.illinois.edu/qa/listing.php?id=43600&t=current-from-battery

https://www.reference.com/science/fruit-conduct-electricity-debd1102edcaa360

 

 

SSEP Reflection

Science 9
SSEP REFLECTION
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Define: In our groups, we wanted to know what would be the effect of bacteria in microgravity, and if it would be the same as the one on earth.
Discover
We did some research to some groups that have participated before in the SSEP, then we did a review of them and got some new ideas, we learned about how the process would go, and what we had to do.
Dream
Then we did some brainstorms in our groups to know what biological, chemical or physical system we would like to explore with gravity seemly turned off for a period of time, as a means of assessing the role of gravity in that system. We thought that bacteria would be a great system to explore and learn.
screenshot_2016-11-12-17-20-07
Design and Deliver
We searched through a lot of websites to know more about the topic and to learn more about bacteria, we also tried to contact a specialist in bacteria, but we couldn’t contact him, so we did some experiments with bacteria from the sink, the phone, the table and the floor. Then we wrote our proposal to submit to the SSEP committee.
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Debrief
We think that maybe we could have used more time to do the proposal and examine what we wrote. And maybe we could have done contact with previous groups that have participated in the SSEP before.