It’s Friday!: Marcellus Shale

Hopefully you are in class right now and it is Friday! Congratulations on completing the week…well almost. Today’s activity has you learning about Marcellus Shale, a  shale rock formation found in Pennsylvania that contains NATURAL GAS RESERVES!

Follow the instructions below to complete today’s activity.

1. Open this word document… Chesapeake Bay Activity
2. Follow the directions in this document.
3. Complete the answers in word then print out your finished product.
4. Hand me the product!!!
5. Have a great weekend 🙂

Another Quiz!?!?!

Hello all,

We have another quiz this Friday! It is going to go over everything we have covered so far in the ecology unit. Here is a list of things I would look over before then:

1. Succession (included a beautiful succession picture below)
2. Abiotic/Biotic Factors
3. Biogeochemical cycles (Water, Carbon, Nitrogen…just know the biotic and abiotic factors)
4. Biomes
5. Climatographs
6. Relationships
7. Food Webs

If you look over these topics and review your notes/homework you will be in good shape for Friday.  There are also 2 posts on this blog that have to do with the biogeochemical cycles that may help you out (just scroll down through the old posts).

In other news...  According to BBC the world’s shark attack levels are UP!

According to the article on the BBC website there were 79 unprovoked shark attacks on humans in 2010. This is up from the previous years record 63 attacks. Although the number has gone up the attack rate has not increased because the human population is increasing.

GETTING EVEN? Humans kill an average of 30 to 70 million sharks a year! WAY TOO MANY!

What to do if a shark attacks? “If a shark actually bites, we suggest clawing at its eyes and gills, two sensitive areas. One should not act passively if under attack – sharks respect size and power.”

What’s on This Quiz?

Hey Everyone,

So you have a quiz on Monday that is going to cover everything we have done so far.  Here is a list of topics I would review before then:

1. Metrics (metric to metric, English to metric conversions)
2. Scientific Method
3. Occupations
4. Characteristics of Living Things
5. Levels of Organization

If you review your notes on these things and any homework you did you should have no worries for the quiz on Monday. Because I collected your metrics/sci method homework today in class I am putting the answers up on here in case you wanted to review it for Monday. Also as I promised…my GOLDEN NOTES!!! (Both are BELOW…)I hope you all have a fantastic weekend!

Homework Answers Levels of Organization/Characteristics of Living Things

In other news… Here are some cool beaver facts!!!

• Beavers can live up to 24 years!
• While diving, the ears and nose of beavers close, preventing the intake of water.

• Beavers can stand on their hind legs when on land.

• Beavers are among the largest of rodents.

• They are herbivores and eat leaves, bark, twigs, roots, and aquatic plants.
• There are two species of beavers, which are found in the forests of North America, Europe, and Asia.

• Their lodges  are home to extended families of monogamous parents, young kits, and the yearlings born the previous spring.
• In some places, beavers are considered as pests or invasive   species (awww) because they often modify their natural environment.

Funny Beaver Video (no beavers don’t normally talk)

Welcome!

Hello new biology students! So nice to see you all today. So, as I said this blog will be a resource for you outside of class. Usually, I post things like review questions, notes, study guides, interesting facts, etc. But, this blog is for you so if you have any other suggestions feel free to let me know.

Today we went over lab safety, which although not the most interesting topic, is still very important for labs to run smoothly. This “Carol” picture is one of my favorite lab safety posters, I even have a pin of it! Some important things I want you to remember about lab safety and that may be helpful for your quiz on Thursday are..

1. ALWAYS report accidents.

2. ALWAYS clean up all lab equipment when you are finished with the lab.

3. Don’t be afraid to ask any questions if you get confused during a lab.

4. NEVER eat OR drink in lab or from lab equipment.

5. ALWAYS pour acid into water never the other way around.

The first quiz should be pretty straight forward. Just be sure to look over the lab safety packet I handed out today and review the pictures of the lab equipment. Thanks for a great first day!

 

 

Cycles of the Earth…continued

The last post we looked at the water cycle in detail, now let’s take a look at the carbon cycle. The carbon cycle is fascinating. Did you know that the same molecules of carbon in your body RIGHT NOW have been in a countless number of other organisms/molecules? Your carbon molecules could have once belonged to a tree, a fish, or even a dinosaur! The most simplified definition the carbon cycle is the process by which carbon moves from inorganic to organic compounds and back.

The cycle goes something like this…

Carbon is released into the atmosphere by…

1. Plant and animal respiration.

2. Decay of plant and animal matter.

3. Burning of fossil fuels.

4. Heating of the ocean surface.

5. Volcanic Eruptions

Carbon is stored in the atmosphere as the gas CO2.

Carbon is taken from the atmosphere by…
1. Autotrophs  take this CO2 and make carbohydrates during photosynthesis.

2. Other animals (consumers) take these carbohydrates made by plants and consume them (carbon is released from these animals eventually by respiration or after death during decay).

Below is a very matter of fact explanation of the carbon cycle and a little bit about how humans play a role in it.

Cycles of the Earth

The earth relies of two very important cycles in order to recycle carbon and water. They are appropriately called the carbon cycle and the water cycle. Today let’s look at the water cycle in a little more detail…

The Water Cycle

The earth uses the water cycle in order to recycle water. The picture below, from the US Geological Survey, shows the ins and outs of the water cycle. If you need some explanation on what is going on in the cycle take a look at the terms below the picture. If you still need some clarification look at an animated water cycle here.

Sublimation: Process of going from solid water to vapor…in this case snow to water vapor.

Infiltration: The flow of water from the ground surface into the ground.

Ground Water Discharge: Water can leave ground storage through springs, being pumped by humans, or eventually seeping into the ocean. This happens very slowly.

Evaporation: Transformation of water from liquid to gas  as it moves from the ground or bodies of water into the atmosphere.

Transpiration: Loss of water vapor from plants into the atmosphere.

Evapotranspiration: Sum of evaporation and plant transpiration.

Condensation: Transformation of water vapor to liquid water droplets creating clouds and fog.

One interesting thing to look at is how long water actually will remain in each part of the water cycle. Here is a chart I found that shows you, on average, how long a water molecule remains in one part of the cycle.

Patterns of Evolution

Today you learned about the basics of evolution and adaption. I thought I would take the time to go over the patterns of evolution you were introduced to today. Hopefully, it will give you a good idea about what these different patterns of evolution look like.

Directional Selection

Definition: Directional selection favors those individuals who have one extreme variation in a trait within a population.

Example: A great example of directional selection can be seen in the evolution of the horse. Overall, the horse evolved from a small animal built for moving through woodlands to its current long-legged form that is built for speed in the open grasslands. The evolution of this animal favored the directional selection of an animal with longer legs and more specialized hooves. The graph labeled directional selection would be an example of the horse population and how it changed from a small woodland creature to a larger meadow runner.

stabilizing Selection

Definition: Stabilizing selection favors the norm, the common, average traits in a population.

Example: An example of stabilizing selection can be seen in bird clutch size (number of eggs). Too few eggs would mean that the bird has less reproductive potential whereas too many eggs would mean fewer fledglings would survive. This situation favors an average clutch size.

Disruptive Selection

Definition: Natural selection that favors the extreme values for a trait over the intermediate value.

Example: A good example of disruptive selection is sexual dimorphism. Sexual dimorphism is when male and females of the same species look much different from each other. One sex may be larger, differently colored, have horns…etc. Look at the peacock for example. The male has that famous tail whereas the female is brown with no fancy tail. The process of sexual dimorphism is disruptive selection because it operates in opposing directions which gives us the two different looks in the species.

Genetics is Everywhere

So we are just about wrapping up your study of genetics and  I thought I would take this time to give you some information on a couple of topics you all seemed interested in. I’m going to go over eye color inheritance and genetically modified food.

Eye Color

I know a few of you were interested in how eye color is inherited and especially what color eyes your children could have. I found this website  that has a good interactive tool that you can use to predict your kid(s)’ eye color(s). If you go HERE you can play around with  eye color inheritance and even read about how exactly eye color is passed down.

Remember someone asked why are babies born with blue eyes? Well…

Eye color is determined by the amount of melanin deposited in the iris. So babies are born with blue eyes because they have not yet begun to produce melanin in their irises. After a while though, some start to produce more melanin and their eye color changes.

Genetically Modified Food

We don’t need to know this! GAR! You personally may not use genetics first hand in your life post LS Biology but are most likely eating GeNEtIcALly ModIFied FoOD almost everyday! Shouldn’t you know a little about what you are ingesting? This website has an interesting interactive tool that deals with genetically modified food. Click HERE to explore it. An even better site is one through PBS. HERE you can genetically engineer food yourself, learn about the different viewpoints on GMO (genetically modified organisms), and even watch videos on the topic.

 

Have a great weekend! -Miss Kelley

Hey all,

This week we went over monohybrid and dihydrib crosses! Below you will find my notes for these two topics as well as 2 sample problems (1 for each cross). I would recommend reading the problems and trying to solve them first without looking at my answer keys! I think this will really help you out. There are also some key terms on the first page you may find useful. Just like the photosynthesis notes, you can look at the notes on the website below or download them to print them out. Have a good weekend 🙂

Here they are in PDF form for downloading/printing:

Page 1

Page 2

Page 3

Page 4

Transcription/Transation

Hello!

I am so impressed with how easily you all got transcription and translation on Thursday. The only thing that I think confused some of you was the role of the tRNA molecule. So, to clarify this I am going to use the help of YouTube, PBS, and this great picture below.

This picture shows the overview of transcription and translation. Remember transcription is DNA to mRNA and translation is mRNA to amino acids (this is where tRNA comes into play). To help you understand the role of tRNA watch the video below. If you want to do an activity like the one we did after the notes check out the PBS online activity.

Here is a great video of how tRNA works in translation.

This is the link to the great interactive transcription and translation exercise through PBS (it’s under DNA workshop activity). Online Activity

Finally, I posted some poll questions for you that go over what we have learned so far about DNA, RNA, transcription, and translation.