20 Time Individual Reflection

    In the beginning, when I was deciding on what I should do for my project, I chose programming, and decided to make a final project at the end demonstrating what I learned throughout the year. But now, I don't think that I can follow through with that idea. Although I am probably not going to do the final project, I did learn a couple of things during this 20 Time project.
    I choose this challenge because I sort of liked programming, and I wanted to try a coding language that I wasn't very comfortable with. I was focused on self-improvement and learning new things.
    My initial plan to achieve this goal was to learn something new every class, and then make a final project at the end of the year with the stuff that I had learned.
    Learning the different algorithms went fine, but I was kind of confused at times, since I was more used to programming in C++. I also did not have time to finish the final project that I had planned on doing at the end. This is probably not going to be a life-long project.
    I learned how to use good websites to find information. I also learned how to write more algorithms in Java. If I had the chance to do this project again, I would manage my schedule better so that I could fit in the project at the end. I have learned, about myself, that I sometimes do not have very good ideas for projects.
    I might continue this challenge, and make a project, such as copying some game.

Unit 9 Reflection

    This unit was about the classification and evolutionary relationships between different organisms. We learned about how scientists classified things into different categories, such as taxonomic levels (domain, kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species). The classification system changed from a five kingdom system into a three domain system after scientists discovered the Archaea. The kingdoms of Animalia, Plantae, Fungi, and Protista were combined together and put under the domain of Eukarya. We also learned about bacteria, which could be classified as gram-positive or gram-negative, based on the peptidoglycan. We learned how different bacteria helped in different circumstances. Viruses are non-living organisms. They infect their host cell and go through lytic or lysogenic infections. Fungi are heterotrophs. They contain a hyphae, mycellium, fruiting body, and spores. They can be classified as sac fungi, bread molds, club fungi, and so on. We learned about different ways to classify plants. They could be classified as bryophytes, pterophytes, gymnosperms, or angiosperms, based on whether they had a vascular system, seeds, and/ or flowers. Then, we spent multiple vodcasts talking about animals. There were invertebrates, such as the porifera and platyhelminthes, which existed before vertebrates. Then there were arthropods, which included insects, crustacea, and echinoderms. Next, there were chordates, which included agnatha, jawed fish, and amphibians. Besides those chordates, there were also ones with amniotic sacs, including reptiles, birds, and mammals.We learned about how to find the differences between the all of the organisms.
                                        
                                    

    Besides the vodcasts, we watched a video can "Your Inner Fish," which talked about how we were related to fish. We also did a Geologic Timeline Project, and worked some more on the 20 Time Project.
    I would like to learn more about how birds transformed into dinosaurs, because I find that kind of fascinating. I wonder about how scientists decided to categorize all the organisms based on this way.
    I feel like What on Earth Evolved Presentation went fairly well. But I did not prepare very much, so I had to rely on looking at the slides during the presentation. Besides that, the presentation went fine, although I do not like doing those types of presentations very much. From this experience, I can learn that I should prepare more before I present.

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."

Hunger Games Lab

1. In this lab, we experimented on how populations evolves and how allele frequency changes. In the start of the experiment, we had around equal amounts of the three types of birds, and allele frequencies. After a while, the stumpys died off, but eventually came back through the mating of knucklers. This simulates the process of directional selection, as the birds population consisted of more and more pinchers.
2. The pinchers were the best at gathering food, because they could use their fingers to pick up food, which is what humans have the easiest time doing, instead of using knuckles or wrists.
3. The population evolved, because it consisted of more pinchers than it did in the beginning. The "a" allele in the gene pool changes from around 50% to 5%.
4. The process of mating was not random, because everyone wanted to produce more knucklers. The distribution of food was both random and not random. It was random, as the food was spread out evenly in terms of around the circle. It was not spread out evenly in terms of where the food was placed.
5. If the food was larger, the stumpys would have a better time collecting food, and if they were smaller, then the stumpys would have a harder time collecting food. This would affect the survival of the stumpys and the gene pool. This might happen in nature, such as for birds, the beaks would evolve bigger to be able to pick up the big food better, or evolve smaller to be able to pick up the smaller food better.
6. If there was not incomplete dominance, then the "A" allele would be a bigger part of the gene pool, as it wouldn't be selected against as much, as the "Aa" organisms would be pinchers.
7. Natural selection can lead to evolution. Organisms with the traits that are selected against would die off, and the organisms with the traits that are selected for would prosper. The population would then evolve toward being more like the organisms with the food traits.
8. Some people cheated, and used their hands in order to have a better chance of survival. Some stumpys scooped up their food to gather them more efficiently. This would have affected the allele frequency of the population to be more like the ones with more efficient gathering skills. This could happen in nature, if the more fierce and competitive organisms gathered food better.
9. In evolution, the population, and not the individual organisms evolve. Natural selection acts on the phenotype, because the ones with more physical capability can survive better. One example of this is that if heterozygous organisms were pinchers, they would not have a disadvantage towards the homozygous pinchers, and therefore would not be selected against.
10. What happens if the "A" allele dies out completely, and then nature selects against the "a" allele after all the "A" alleles are gone?

    

    Allele Frequency Graph

20 Time Project with Java Post 2

There are many different algorithms in the programming language which can help facilitate the run time of a program, make the program easier to read, or have other benefits. I have been studying Java for the past few weeks, and I have been studying different algorithms with the traits as described above. I have been studying the method called Depth First Search (DFS), which I have already learned in C++, but I am learning to incorporate it into Java. I have some setbacks in mixing up the code for C++ and Java, so I sometimes get confused. The next steps for my 20 Time project is to finish learning about DFS and continue onto BFS. I can apply this to me because I like programming.