Unit 6 Reflection

In this unit, we learned about the skeletal system, which include joints and diseases of the skeletal system. First, we learned about the different classes of bones, which are classified according to their shape (long, irregular, flat, etc.). Next, we also learned that the main functions of the skeletal system include support, movement, and blood cell production. We also learned about osteocytes, which are mature bone cells that create the ring shape that is seen in bone under a microscope. I also learned about the role of osteoclasts and osteoblasts in the process of bone remodeling; osteoclasts break down the bone and osteoblasts rebuild the bone after an injury or physical stress. Then, we learned about the different types of skeletal diseases, such as scoliosis and rickets. Scoliosis is the most well-known out of the skeletal diseases we learned, since children are checked for it every year during their doctor's appointments. Rickets is a disease that usually occurs in children, and softens the bones so one's legs bow outward.

Lastly, we learned about joints and how there are some immovable, slightly movable, and freely movable joints called synarthroses, amphiarthroses, and diarthroses respectively.
Here is a video that we watched at the beginning of the unit to give us a general idea of bones:

I want to learn more about how a bone's shape affects its function, so more about why bones are shaped differently depending on their function and location. I also wonder more about the different bone diseases, and if there are any cures for them; can metal rods be inserted in bones to straighten them out or harden them?
Overall, I feel like this unit has been quite comprehensive and I have learned a lot. I wish we had more labs to complete that were more hands on, but the owl pellet lab (http://jhan496.blogspot.com/2016/02/owl-pellet-lab.html) that we conducted was very fun; I felt that during that lab I was more focused on completing the task, especially since we started the lab with little time left during class. Also, because I did not want to break any bones from the pellet, my partner and I separated the feathers from the bones very carefully, and that required a lot of my focus. Compared to first semester, I feel like I have to manage my time more efficiently due to 20 Time. In first semester, the Monday Wellness project was not an ongoing project all semester, but 20 Time is a project that spans across the entire semester, so I must balance my 20 Time blog work with my class blog work as well.
When I look at my New Years Resolutions, I feel that I have been slowly but gradually improving my first goal of putting my full effort into this class. I try to finish my homework the day it is assigned, and make sure that I finish it with detail so I do not have to study or write as much in preparation for the tests. Furthermore, I have also improved on my second goal, as I can fully run through my entire cello movement without stopping and can play the hard cadenza in the beginning of the piece quite well. Overall, a very satisfying and important unit!

20 Time: Project for this Semester- Teenage Depression

For this semester, I will be conducting a 20 Time project revolving around the subject of teenage depression. 20 Time is essentially a project or idea that an individual works on in order to reach a goal, taking up about 20 percent of class time, hence the name 20 Time. This idea was popularized by Google, since many of Google's famous and important programs have been created during 20 Time; 20 Time offers a creative outlet so an individual's innovation is not limited. My essential question that is going to be answered once I reach my goal is: What are the hidden symptoms and methods of alleviation of depression? I specifically chose teenage depression out of other forms of depression because teenage depression is the most prevalent; adolescence is a time of lots of change and therefore discomfort or emotional instability. For example, our school now holds a "Speak Up For Change" week every single year, a week during which students speak up about usually stigmatized issues like depression and eating disorders. This event was not held even a few years ago, but is now focused on heavily because of its prevalence in our highly competitive community. For this project, I will be making a drawing book that will document the symptoms, causes, and "cures" for depression. This book will not contain complicated or scientific language, so it can be easily understood by people of all ages. Furthermore, because it will be easier to understand than scientific books and studies about depression, younger and younger kids can be exposed to these issues and learn how to prevent them. By spreading awareness of the symptoms and "cures" of depression, especially that of teenagers, I hope to answer the essential question and get rid of the stigma surrounding depression. While working on this project during class, I plan to first come up with a story that is easy to follow and relatable to teenagers from all kinds of communities. My progress will most likely be measured in a quantitative format, conflating the number of pages I have completed to my level of progress. As I am writing this blog post, I have not yet started my project. From now, I plan to decide first how long my story should be, so I do not overwhelm myself with an unnecessarily long story. Hopefully this drawing book will spread awareness about an issue that needs to be talked about more!

Owl Pellet Lab

On 2/23/2016, I conducted an owl pellet lab with a partner. The objective of this lab was to determine what animal the owl had eaten based on the bones from the owl pellet.

In this lab, my partner and I slowly dissected the owl pellet with a probe and forceps into two piles, one with only feathers and one with only bones.

Then, we used diagrams and pictures of the major bones of typical animals that an owl eats, such as a vole or a rat. After comparing the bones that we found and the pictures of the major bones of the different types of owl prey, we concluded that our owl ate a shrew. A determining factor in deciding that the prey was a shrew was the pelvis. The vole, shrew, and mole have very differently-shaped pelvises from each other, so it was easy to tell which pelvis we had. Since the pelvis we had was quite vertical and had two large holes on each of the pelvic girdles, we decided that our pelvis came from a shrew.

Furthermore, the back lower leg that we discovered had quite a distinctive look as well; the end of the fibula of a shrew is quite large compared to those of voles and moles, so we decided that the back leg also came from a shrew. Considering that we did not have that many bones in the first place, we concluded that all the bones came from one animal. Because we had two distinctive factors that pointed to a shrew, we decided that the owl ate a shrew. We could not use the dichotomous key because we did not find a skull in our owl pellet, but there ended up being other distinctive factors anyway.

Compared to the skeleton of a human, the shrew has similarities and differences to the human skeleton. For differences, first off, the human pelvis is more horizontal than the shrew pelvis which is more vertical. This is a result of the way we walk; humans walk upright on two legs and shrews walk with four legs on the ground, so our pelvises will obviously be shaped differently. Second, shrews have very sharp teeth at the front of their mouths/skulls, so as to bite, and all of their teeth are quite spiky. On the other hand, the human skull is rather round, kind of like a circle, and we also have canines at the front and molars at the back of our mouths.

 Lastly, the scapula of a shrew has two protruding bones from the main shoulder blade. On the other hand, the human scapula is just one flat bone, with no protruding fragments.
For the similarities between the shrew and human skeleton, our back and lower leg bones (tibia and fibula) look quite similar, as they are fused at one end. Furthermore, the tibia is also a bit thinner than the fibula, as it also is on the human skeleton. Second, the shrew pelvis also has two large and noticeable pelvic girdles that look similar to those on a human skeleton; the pelvises of the vole and mole do not have as noticeable pelvic girdles. Lastly, my partner and I discovered many small bones that look very similar to each other, and concluded that they all formed the vertebral column. After looking at a diagram of the vertebral column of the human skeleton, I noticed that the individual vertebrae look almost exactly the same as the vertebrae of the shrew spine.