My Environmental Interactions

Posted on January 25, 2017 by liamc2016

Some things I use a lot that affect the environment are automobile travel (driving) I do this a lot because me and my family like to go out and do stuff like go down town, pick up things and go to school. The consequences of this are that there is more pollution which isn’t good for the environment. Another thing I do is using lights, I don’t leave them on all day but sometimes I forget to turn them off, this is harmful to the environment because it is a waist of resources and money. Lastly me and my family use lots of printer ink, id don’t use it as much anymore because mostly everything is online but I still use it lots and lost my dad, mom and brother and sister use it way to much for work and projects. This is harmful to the environment because ink cartridges take an extremely long time to decompose, they contain many toxic ingredients and almost a gallon of ink is used to make one cartridge. There are pros to using this, like to get your work done and on paper.

The reason I use me and my family use the vehicle so much is to get around, if we couldn’t use it, I would take way longer to get around. The reason I use so much power is to see but it is mainly my fault because I sometimes forget to turn off the light but wee do use LED lights which are longer lasting, more efficient, ecologically friendly and have low voltage. Lastly the reason me any my family use so much ink is to get our work done. If we couldn’t use it we would fail many projects and also get fired and also they are cheaper to replace and easy to refill.

Some changes that me and my family could use to help the environment with using our vehicle are, to walk more. Also to walk to school, studies show that only 13% of kids walk or bike to school, which is really bad for the environment. Changes I could use to use less power is write a reminder to make sure to turn off the lights when I walk out of the room, the average American in 2015 used 10,812 kilowatthours a year averaging 901 per month. Something that me and my family can do to help with the ink we use is to use less ink and to write with a pen or pencil.

The Environmental Impact of Ink

https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=97&t=3
http://guide.saferoutesinfo.org/introduction/the_decline_of_walking_and_bicycling.cfm

Engineering Brightness Artifacts Of Learning

Posted on January 20, 2017 by liamc2016

Taking too long?

Reload document

The experience me and my group had was fun, it is super cool how we are helping people in need and also learning lots from it. Also the experience with the skype chats were different than I thought, it was awesome to connect with people half way around the world. We connected with lots of people like the people in Dominican, other schools in our district to fundraise and also we contacted a company safely to see if they would sponsor us and send us supplies but we haven’t gotten a reply from both the school and the company. So far what me and my group did is design 2 3D models for the light, one for Mr. Robinson and one for our group to use. We have also printed one of the two and contacted a school and a company. The idea we have for the 3D light is that its going to be solar powered and also we will send it with a piece of Velcro so that they can put the solar panel on their leg, shoulder or hat so they can charge the solar panel while at work or doing anything outside. lastly we have some ideas on fundraising.

Skills I have gained from doing this project are, learning about people from other countries and interacting with them. Also I learned how fortunate we are to live in this country, also I learned how fun, cool and interesting it is to skype with people half way around the world. Lastly I learned how good it feels to make a change in the world. The way I feel that I have met my learning goals is that I have designed a better light shell via inventor (the 3D printing software) that can actually make a difference in the Dominicans daily lives, and can help them to do so many things they couldn’t do without the lights.

The collaboration went well, we learned lots from doing it and will help us when we do it again. Also it helped with our project because they gave us pointers on it, and helped us by telling us good websites to order off of. What my group did well on it making it happen, our group did lots of things, we designed 2 lights (one with the help of Kaleb’s group) and I think we did a good job on them. We also came up with ideas for fundraising but were to busy doing the lights to organize, we also contacted a company and a school on fundraising and sponsoring. The thing I think we could have done better is use our class time better, I’m not saying we used it bad because we didn’t, we just didn’t do it to our full potential, and I think we could have done even more things if we used it a bit better. Also we could have recorded what we did better, we still recorded what we did but we didn’t do it daily and it wasn’t as detailed as I wanted it to be. I really liked the connection based learning because it is very unique, I have never done anything like this before. I liked it because we get to ask them questions and just interact with them in general. I hope I do it again soon.

How Cells Multiply

Posted on January 15, 2017 by liamc2016

Asexual reproduction is a form of reproduction without sex in which offspring are made by one organism and they inherit their personalities only from their parent. Pretty much the parent makes an identical copy of its self, The main process they use is mitosis. The pros of asexual reproduction are that it is fast, only one parent is needed, all the good characteristics are passed on, they can store large amounts of food and rapid growth the cons of asexual reproduction are, adaption to environment is unlikely, they inherit the bad characteristics of parent, and lack of dispersal. Sexual reproduction is a form of reproduction in which the sperm from a male fertilizes the females eggs. This involves combining genetic information from two individuals. The pros of sexual reproduction are, a new organism is formed, fertilization takes place which mixes their genetic material together, there is a large chance of a unique organism being formed, and the new organism formed with the mixed gametes of the parents has the chance of not getting their parents diseases passed on. The cons are, that it takes longer, only 50% of the population can gestate, 2 parents must be involved, having to find a mate and reproduce, and fertilization has to take place and there are no grantees that the males sex cell will fuse with the females sex cell .

Mitosis is a 5 step process of a type of cell division that results in two daughter cells each having the same number and kind of chromosomes as the parent nucleus (making an identical copy of itself). The first step of mitosis is interphase in this step the DNA replicates itself in preparation for mitosis, the second step of mitosis is prophase This is when the chromatin condenses into two rod-shaped structures called chromosomes, the third step is metaphase in metaphase the cell’s chromosomes align themselves in the middle of the cell, the fourth is anaphase in this the replicated chromosomes are split and the daughter chromatids are moved to opposite poles of the cell, and the last step of mitosis is telophase and cytokinesis in this step the sister chromatids reach opposite poles. The small nuclear vesicles in the cell begin to re-form around the group of chromosomes at each end and then the spindle fibres begin to disappear, two nuclei are formed and the cells divide. Mitosis is a 10 step process where a single cell divides twice to produce four cells containing half the original amount of genetic information. These four daughter cells only have half the number of chromosomes of the parent cell. The first step in meiosis is interphase, the second is prophase l, the third stage is metaphase l, the fourth stage is anaphase l, the fifth stage in meiosis is telophase l, the sixth stage is prophase ll, the seventh stage is metaphase ll, next is anaphase ll, then telophase ll, and lastly cytokinesis. The difference between mitosis and meiosis is that in the process of mitosis it only results in 2 organisms when in meiosis it results in 4 organisms. Another difference between Meiosis and mitosis is that meiosis is a lot longer than mitosis. Another thing is meiosis involves crossing over and in mitosis it doesn’t involve crossing over, and the daughter cells in meiosis are not identical compared to mitosis where they are identical to the parent cell. Also the number of chromosomes in daughter cells produced by meiosis is half the number of chromosomes produced by mitosis.

An organism grows because cell division increases the number of cells in it, it is a process that takes place constantly. As the organism develops and its cells divide, most of them continue to divide. Even when they grow and develop it may look like it has stopped growing but it hasn’t, cell division is still occurring because they are losing cells also.

The longer it lives the bigger it will get because it just keeps increasing the number of cells using cell division. Then the new cells divide to create even more and it is just an endless chain of cell division, this is from mitosis. For example if someone’s bones are growing the cells divide to form the bone structure. When cells need to divide they talk with each other using cyclin signals.

Advantages And Disadvantages Of Sexual Reproduction

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_reproduction
https://www.reference.com/science/organisms-grow-770b0e831f98fbd0

first peoples principles of learning

Posted on January 8, 2017 by liamc2016

Some student involvement in the first peoples principles are what we are doing with the engineering brightness and the student spaceflight experiment.

My favorite first principle is, learning involves patience and time because it is true, you cant learn thing by saying it once you have to have patience if you are going to learn something and that takes time. I feel like this is a really good one also because it would help people in their learning. The next one I like is, learning involves generational roles and responsibilities, I really like this one because if you are a parent and you have children who are the next generation and they need help with homework it is your responsibility to help them and if you don’t have the knowledge and learning you cant do that, also we wouldn’t be where we are right now and I wouldn’t be writing this right now on my devise if people didn’t think about the next generation and come up with these ideas that we take for granted everyday. The last one is, learning ultimately supports the well being of the self, the family, the community, the land, the spirits, and the ancestors, this one is really everything, everything we have done as a community and as a civilization all our ideas all our conspiracies everything we have done. we wouldn’t have anything right now if our ancestors didn’t think about the future, about us, if they didn’t think about going into the ocean something that they had no idea about to travel across, where would we be right now?

People including me use these principles everyday. I mean they are so helpful and I really think that if everyone used these this planet would be so much better, cleaner, healthier, smarter and much better for the next generation. We used them for our space flight experiment, we thought about something that could really help us out and also the next generation and because of this program lots of great ideas have happened that can really help us in the future.

Also what we are doing with engineering brightness, we are doing it fort them but we still get stuff out of it like how to build a light and everything that goes into it and also for the experience. And so they can live a better life. I have really liked this project so far and the principles have helped me to stay motivated and do my best on the project to hopefully make a difference.

Some examples of work I have done connects with the first peoples principles of learning are, with the engineering brightness. How we are not just learning but we are putting learning and helping the people in need at the same time. Also we did the same type of thing with the student spaceflight experiments how we were learning, helping make a difference for the world not just now but also in the future.

mutation story

Posted on December 17, 2016 by liamc2016

Canavan disease
I am Canavan disease, I was made by Mutations in the ASPA gene. The ASPA gene provides instructions for making an enzyme called aspartoacylase. The enzyme normally breaks down a compound called N-acetyl-L-aspartic acid which is found in neurons in the brain. The way my carrier got me is because I got inherited from my carriers parents I was pretty lucky because there is only a 25% chance I would get inherited. He started off as a normal kid his mom had my older brother in her but his dad was fine. His parents didn’t know I was inside him until he was 4 months old, that is when my side effects started to kick in! they didn’t really notice the first side effect which is intellectual disability because he was young, but they did start to notice the next one which was me changing his behavior, he wouldn’t listen, wouldn’t eat his food without force. That is when my carriers parents took me and him to the doctor, that is when they found out I was inside him. There is no cure and no treatment for me. 6 month go by and I start to slow down essential enzymes causing deterioration of the white matter in the brain, which is preventing the proper transmissions of nerve signals. This causes his head to grow abnormally and have almost no control over it. he is having feeding difficulties abnormal muscle tone. A couple of days goes by and he is in a wheel chair, he cant walk talk or even crawl. His parents want to send him to the hospital but they still have no cure or even treatment. 3 years later and everything keeps going down hill for my carrier from now on he has developed paralysis is blind and having seizures. 7 years later… his parents decided to take him to the hospital, I have been slowly killing him and he is living his last couple of days in a hospital bed. He has lasted much longer than others, most die at 10 but he is 11 now. He was actually very smart for someone with me inside of them he would have been a smart kid if his parents weren’t German which is the most likely race to be carrying me and also if one of his parents weren’t one of every 40 Germans to have my gene. Then with his last breaths he died, living a boring life with almost no adventure and no thoughts.

1.The questions I researched are, how the Canavan disease mutation is formed, if there is any cure, what effects the mutation has on the body, how the hosts life is affected, what the hosts look like with the mutation, the average life span, what age does the mutation start to kick in, how you get the disease, the chance you will get it, what race has the highest probability of getting the mutation.

2.The digital tools I used were google, YouTube, Socratic and about Canavan disease | Canavan foundation.
3.The process I used was to search things up as I go, so in my story if I needed to find out the average age someone with Canavan disease lives I would search it up then continue with the rest of the story

4.https://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/condition/canavan-disease, http://www.info.com/Canavan%20Disease%20Causes?cb=69&cmp=321000&gclid=CjwKEAiAm8nCBRD7xLj-2aWFyz8SJAAQNala-ilggSGIU5y2HhWjm9iMXw27OSZ7ce4sWl6nZDN7wRoCOvXw_wcB, http://www.canavanfoundation.org/the_cause_of_canavan_disease, http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/canavan/canavan.htm,
5.The process went not as planned but went alright, I started off slow and rough but once I got the base facts I had a good understanding of the project. I think I did a good job on the project, but I think I could have more back story and talked about the actual carrier more.

Edible DNA

Posted on December 8, 2016 by liamc2016

in science class today we made a dna strand with marshmellows, tooth picks and liquorish. We did this to have a better understanding of a dna strand and also to have a better understanding of of the four molecules that make up a dna strand, deoxyribose, phosphate, adenine, and guanine.

Engineering brightness

Posted on December 8, 2016 by liamc2016

We talked to multiple class rooms via skype one of the class rooms were from Dominican republic the people we talked to are teachers at a private school named Eladio and dennis. The others people we talked to are from New Brunswick he is also a teacher, we skyped with him and his science 11 class. What interested me was that high school is so much different than middle school in the way that in middle school we wouldn’t be skype chatting people half way around the world! Also I find the entire project interesting because it involves helping people in need of help, learning about electronics and electricity and having fun doing it. The experience so far is great my group has been working very well together and we aren’t even half way there, I am super exited to see what we can do as a group and a class.
Me and my group have lots of great ideas some ideas we have for this project are, having a hand cranked flash light, this is a good idea because you can potentially have unlimited light but the only thing is it might not be the most efficient idea and also it will break relatively easily. Also we had the idea that we could do a solar powered light with the solar panel hooked in to the top, but we couldn’t find a small enough solar panel to fit, it also wouldn’t be the most efficient and they would have to leave it outside. The one we are going to use I came up with and it is to have a piece of velcro on the bottom of the solar panel and then give them the other piece so that they can put it on there hat so that the solar panel can charge while they work. the people that can help us are Mr. Robinson for supplying the materials.

currents in the kitchen

Posted on November 22, 2016 by liamc2016

For this experiment i worked with Gavin and Owen we all brought fruits, the fruits we brought were a orange, apple and a lemon. For this experiment we are using a voltmeter a nail to put into the fruit and a couple wires to connect verything. My hypothesis is that the lemon will have the biggest charge, because it has the most citric asid. For second i am guessing it is going to be the apple becasue the orange has a thicker shell. After doing the experiment the we saw the lemon had the most charge with 7v, just like i thought. the orange came second with 3v and the apple came last with 2v. i also noticed that the circuit has to be completed with no gaps or openings i know this becasue if the circuit is open then the it cant flow all the way through the curcuit.

poco-opolis500

Posted on November 21, 2016 by liamc2016

https://youtu.be/ JRSVCrFa7Jw

SSEP reflection

Posted on November 16, 2016 by liamc2016

define:

The problem we attempted to solve is if chemical reactions would react the same in space, if it would be slower, faster or not react at all. Also we put food coloring in the chemicals to see if it would change the colors of the reaction, do anything different than on earth or change the reaction all together. The chemicals and other supplies we used were citric acid, baking soda, water and food coloring.

discover:

we researched what chemicals that we could use that would be allowed on the space ship and wouldn’t blow it up with the reaction. We knew we were going to do a chemical reaction after we went to the SSEP information seminar. Before the seminar we wanted to do something with ice melting to see if it would be different than on earth, take longer, go faster, not melt at all. we also wanted to do something with organic chemical reactions but were not successful. We researched the question on google and YouTube to see the best possible choices eventually we found the right one in a YouTube video we didn’t know it at first but it ended up being the one we chose.

dream:

Some innovative ideas that I came up with are if the tube was bigger it could have been a bigger chemical reaction, also if we added other ingredients like any type of food it could change the experiment drastically.

design and deliver

We went from question to question answering them thoroughly spaced out evenly to create an organized flow throughout the questions and also added media. We listed all ingredients, the amount of the ingredients we needed to use and clearly listed when and what to put into the tubes. We added media.

debrief:

It started off rough because it took us almost half the time to find the chemical reaction we were going to do but after we found the reaction it went pretty smoothly, our group could of defiantly been more coordinated with everything but it ended up working out. Another thing we could have done better is picked more complex chemicals to use but the ones we chose were every easy to handle and obtain. The ingredients we used you can find at any of your local drug or grocery stores.

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