Category: Grade 9
Skype chat with Charis Walko
Today in my science 9 class, we prepared a skype chat with a lady named Charis Walko. She works for a company called Stem Cell technology where they study stem cells. She talked to us about stem cells. She informed us about the three types of stem cells and what she does work wise in relation to stem cells. Our class asked her several questions that we came up with the day before.
Some of out questions
- Are there other way to obtain pluripotent stem cells? Answer: the only way to obtain the cells are through a human embrio, how ever you can obtain certain cells such as skin cells from the skin, or blood from a bloos cell etc.
- How do you made the medium for the embryo? Answer: when you are a baby in your mother’s stomach, she provides things like certain essential sugars. The medium that send signals to the cells to grow, contain those same sugars and things
- How long does it take to creat a sheet of cells? Answer: It is a difficult process and takes around 45 days.
Unfortunatly, my pictures were not uploading BUT you can go to this link to see some of my friends pictures
http://myriverside.sd43.bc.ca/alysony2015/
Gene Mutation Project
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Hi there! I am a gene mutation.
I cause colour blindness. Unfortunately i am a negative mutation and i effect many people. You see, i am located in the X chromosome. Males have one x chromosome and females have two. That is why my gene friends and i effect 1/12 men and 1/200 females. I am a photopigment gene. When one of my bases were removed, i became a mutation. I was caused by deletion. I received the defect from my mother because colour blindness is genetic. Some cases of my gene, are severe. The most common type of colour blindness is red and green colour deficiency. This is bad but manageable. This is when my host cannot see the colour red or green.
My host had red and green colour deficiency. One day his boss ran in late for a meeting. He threw him his keys and said “go get the green parked truck.” My host had only worked there a few days and had to go and get it. When he realized that there were 7 trucks that looked greenish, he had no choice but to try the keys in each one. By the time he got to the third truck, a parking police had caught him. Luckily his boss came to the rescue.
Colours are all over, and for those who have troubles seeing them can be put into some very tricky situations. Imagine not being able to see the colours you learn in kindergarten, or see the traffic lights clearly! A world in back and white, with the occasional colour. When you are colour blind, depending on the severity, you can see many colours to no colours at all.
There is no way to cure colour blindness because 99% is cause from my gene friends and I. The only way we could really cure my mutation is to receive some sort of gene therapy. Luckily for my host, there are some types of glasses that are capable of enhancing certain colours or shades through the lenses. They do not give my host the ability to see colours perfectly, however they can see them better, and make out the difference between colours that otherwise would look the same.
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The questions that I came up with were:
-How does the mutation work?
-How do you receive the mutation?
-What does the mutation effect?
-Is it a positive mutation or a negative mutation?
– Where in your body does the mutation work?
– Is there a way to cure the mutation?
-How would this mutation effect someone’s life?
I have successfully answered all of my question using sites such as:
– Wikipedia (Internet site)
– www.colorblindawarness.org (Internet site)
– www.color-blindness.com (Internet site)
-www.lifenoggin.com (Youtube Video)
To retain information, I used Youtube, the internet, and i also talk to my family and friends.
These are some pitures I took to show you what it is like to be colour blind:
The plan I had:
My plan was to answer all my questions (the questions above) and truly understand my gene. Then using the facts I obtained i would write a few paragraphs about it. All the sites i used to answer my questions had quite thorough answer and were able to allow me to really understand my gene.
I think that the process went really smooth and it turned out just the way i planned. I incorporated all the information I was planning to and the outcome was great. Next time I would try to incorporate more stories to really give my audience a clear picture of my gene and how it effects people. By addinf more stories i mean to find more stories on how the gene has personally effected people and their lives. I believe that colour blindness is something people should know about because it effects so many people!
Edible DNA model
Today in science 9, my partner Alyson and I created an edible DNA model. What we did was used we remebered that A<—>T and G<—->C
Here are the steps used to creat the model:
– We had to figure out the corrisponding bases
– We had to find out how many we needed of each colour marshmallow
– We collected our materials
– Finally we assembled our structure
We found this activity fairly easy. All it needed was a little bit of planning
Here are some pics from the project:
Taming of the shrew stop motiont induction scene project
Taming of the Shrew Stop Motion Induction Scene Project
In the induction of the play “Taming of the Shrew” by William Shakespeare, a homeless man with the name of Christopher Sly is drunk in a bar. He is arguing with the hostess refusing to pay for his drinks. But when he passes out, a lord finds him and thinks of a brilliant prank to play on him. He is taken to the castle and is dressed up as a king, and is convinced that he is a king when he wakes up. Some players come to the castle and ask to give a performance in exchange for shelter and food, which is where the inset starts. In our recreation of the induction in a stop motion video, we used the app iMotion. The process was really simple, all we did was take numerous pictures after every little movement of each character. After we did voice over, it resembled a movie. Soha, Jaya, Raiyah, and Darrion were in our group. We started off with a written plan on paper. We figured out the characters, backgrounds, and props. Then we equally split the work to create the stop motion video, which was difficult because we did not have Lego for the main characters. We overcame that problem by drawing our characters. Although the outcome was not as professional as we wished, it still turned out nice. We learned how to use iMotion, and we also learned how to upload videos onto YouTube and add music.
Space interview
Today in science 9, my class mates and i had an interview with someone who works on mars projects full time to answer some of our questions. We connected through video chat, and i really loved this method because it was like having a real conversation, even though she was in another part of Canada! We asked her many well thought out questions, the they were all generally answered successfully. An example of some of the questions we asked are:
– How did you become interested in this field of work?
– What planets other than Mars are capable of sustaining life?
– Can Mars rovers be brought back to Earth?
– How much does a Mar rover cost?
– What do you do specifically?
All of us understood what was going on and the questions were answered quite thoroughly. I learned that video chat is a great method to contact someone, and I look forward to using it in the future. I learned quite a few new facts about space, and about some of the cool programs we have here in Canada.
I am not sure why the pictures turned out sideways, but i am sure you get the just of it.
Currents from the kitchen
in this experement we tried to light a 2 volt led light bulb with a lemon, an orange and a potato.
Unfortunatly out result was that nothing lit up.
An observation that i have is that even though the lemon had acid, just like batteries have batterie acid, nothing happened on the light buld. However there were some movment on the voltage meter. I belive that there was a charge under 2 volts there for not being strong enough to light the bulb.
1. A complete circut will light the buld.
2. You can use the voltage meter to s ee if the electrons are flowing.
3. The bulb didnt glow because there wasnt enough electicity.
4.we can use bigger vegtables with higher voltage to improve out chances.
5. The trasition metals are what are causing the electrons to flow. The crocodile clips help transfer the power to the bulb.
6. If you were camping, or there was a power outage, or a situation where there wasnt enough electricity, you could uuse this method as sourses of electicity.
7. This method was discovered a while ago and there arent fruits and vegetables big enough to power lightbulbs requiring 60 volts, let alone a whole city.
Electricity condutor
My partner Alyson and i, have decided to bring in a lemon as out fruit/ vegtable because of the level of acidity.
Our hypothisis is that the higher the level of acidity, the higher amout of voltage.
PoCo-Opolis 500
Electricity
I know very little about electricity but I added some pictures in the mind map because I associate those things with electricity. I don’t generally know how they work, but I am excited to learn all about it in our new unit.
- What is electricity?
- How does electricity work?
- Is there different types of electricity?
- Can humans make electricity?
- What is the source of electricity?
- What conducts and stops electricity?
- How was electricity discovered?
- Who discovered it?