Geologic Timeline Individual Reflection

In this project, we learned about the history of the Earth. We found that there were several major events in Earth's history, such as the first traces of life, occurring in the Proterozoic Eon. This is significant because we would not exist without life. The timeline supports this because it shows that life happened near the beginning of Earth's history, making it have more impact than the events happening later in Earth's history. We also found that the existence of plants, happening in the Ordovician Period was also very significant. This is because plants started to produce oxygen, enabling other things like animals to survive. The timeline supports this because it shows that plants started to exist before animals did. A third important event that happened in Earth's history is the breaking of the supercontinent Pangea. This is significant because it is why our planet looks like the way it is today. The timeline supports this because it shows that Pangea broke apart before present time. Earth has had a very long history, and each of us live for much less than a "second" of the Earth's "day." I was surprised by the fact that Earth was formed such a long time ago, and that there were many mass extinctions in its history. My thoughts on our impact is that it is a considerably big amount of change for such a small amount of existence.

Earth's history

20 Time Project with Java Post 3

I have had multiple discoveries and setbacks in my 20 Time Project. I have finished my program that uses DFS to compute the shortest distance from one point to another. Now I am working on the program that uses BFS to do the same thing, and after that, I will use dynamic programming (or some other algorithm) to so the same thing again. Some setbacks were that it was kind of hard to program in Java since I am more used to the C++ syntax. I plan to handle this setback by being more organized when I am programming. One discovery is that the two languages are not too different, so it isn't too hard to go between the two. I have gradually regained my memory on how to use Java. I can apply this to myself by finding the shortest path form one place to another.

Unit 8 Reflection

Include 2 photos/videos

    This unit was about evolution. We learned about Darwin and what he did with evolution. He sailed around the world in his H.M.S. Beagle and discovered many interesting things, such as finches with many different types of characteristics on the Galapagos Islands. He found that populations, and not individuals, evolved through natural selection. This was when a group of organisms with variation have different levels of fitness, making the more fit organisms more able to survive and reproduce, changing the gene pool of the population. There also can be gene flow, changing the gene pool through ways such as immigration and emigration. Also, we learned about different types of evolution, such as directional selection (ex: Hunger Games Lab) where organisms evolved towards one direction, stabilizing selection where organisms evolved toward the middle, and disruptive selection where organisms evolved toward the two extremes. Artificial selection was the results when humans chose the traits they wanted. We studied different causes of speciation, including behavioral isolation where two species had different behaviors, geographic isolation where two species where separated by a geographic feature, and temporal isolation, where two species have different times for mating. We also discovered different ways of how we could tell that organisms descended from a common ancestor. These ways included embryology, where scientists found that many species with common ancestors had similar embryos. Another way to tell ancestry was vestigial structures, structures used by the ancestors of certain species but not used by the current species. Fossils were also used to show how organisms evolved throughout the years.

Different types of selection

    I would like to learn more about how life began to exist. I have an unanswered question of how Darwin actually noticed that all the birds from the Galapagos Islands were related finches, and that they came from the South American mainland. I wonder about what would happen if a lot of the penguin population turned into black penguins.

Black Penguin

    Since the Unit 7 Reflection, I have said what I wanted more and had more eye contact in my conversations, to be more assertive. To be even more assertive, I need to stand up straighter and "fake it 'till I make it."