Download Bacteriology Lab

Your Bacteriology Lab has been posted; download it from the "Documents" tab. The upcoming Bacteriology Lab on Friday and Monday is on the more complex side, so we will go over the lab a day ahead. Bring your labs to class tomorrow; we will go over them briefly after the lecture.

WASC Re-Accreditation this Week

We will not have time to do the Virus Project as planned, so we'll skip it. Tomorrow, you will be watching a documentary about viruses and complete an accompanying worksheet. Those of you who will be absent or leaving early for sports can find the documentary "Understanding Viruses" on YouTube, complete the worksheet at home and submit it the next day.

WASC officials will be touring LHHS during the next couple of days. Be on your best behavior. =)

EXTRA LEARNING:
In class, we learned about the harmful and beneficial effects of viruses. In this example, scientists genetically engineered a new version of the vaccinia virus, previously used to develop a vaccine for smallpox, to now attack cancer cells (BBC Health, 2011). Here is a related article about how scientists modified the herpes virus to treat patients with head and neck cancer: BBC Health, 2010.

Virus Project (next week)

We are starting our unit on viruses. Next week, you will be doing a collaborative project together as a class to create a small "database" with information on a variety of viruses. I will show you a list of viruses to select from to do research for this project. However, if you feel so inclined, over the weekend, you can think about a virus you'd like to do research on. Then tell me on Monday. Don't panic. This project will not be officially introduced until next week and you'll have several days to complete it.

Taxonomy Lab Report Due Tomorrow

Your Taxonomy Lab Report is due tomorrow. Work on them with your partner.

We are approaching the fourth week of the quarter, which is enough time for you see get an idea of how you are doing in the class. To encourage those of you who are getting low grades to improve your scores, I am introducing "lunch mandatorial." This applies to freshmen who receive lower than an 80% and sophomores who receive lower than a 70%. Mandatorial applies if you fail to submit assignments. For every assignment that you don't submit, you will serve one mandatorial with me during lunch. This is a time for you to work on your assignments. Bring your biology textbook, any labs that are about to be due, and your spiral notebook. Students who are assigned a mandatorial have three days to clear that mandatorial, after which you are assigned another mandatorial (which means you then have two mandatorials). If you miss the second mandatorial, you will be assigned a detention. If you have a schedule conflict during lunch (e.g., you have club events to attend), then you may send an email to me ahead of time to arrange to serve it some other time. You may also request to serve a regular detention in place of a mandatorial. 

Taxomony Quiz Tomorrow

Study for your Taxonomy quiz tomorrow. Review the PowerPoint slides under the "Lectures" tab. Read your textbook for clarification. I am also available during lunch for those who need help reviewing. Secondly, your taxonomy lab report is due on Friday.

EXTRA LEARNING:
Scientists recently discovered a new (taxonomic) family of amphibians. Here is an article in BBC News. Other scientists have been able to "revive" a plant from seeds that were frozen in Siberia for 32,000 years (New York Times). Some think this is a small step toward being able to bring back extinct Ice Age plants and animals. Lastly, remember your fossil evidence lab? Here is a case of scientists trying to figure out real tracks left by animals that lived 7 million years ago, in this case a herd of ancient elephants (BBC Nature).

Taxonomy Lab Tomorrow

I hope you all had a wonderful four-day weekend. For tomorrow, download your Taxonomy Lab from the "Documents" tab. You will be doing that lab with your lab partner tomorrow. Your Taxonomy Lab Report is due on Friday.

EXTRA LEARNING:
For those of you who are interested in the phylogenetic relationship between some storks and New World vultures, Ms. Babiuk found this article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (1994). Remember, structural similarities do not always indicate that two organisms are closely related. The most reliable evidence for evolutionary relationships among organisms is at the level of DNA. For overachievers who actually read the article, look up the difference between the terms "taxonomy" and "phylogeny." =)

Extra Credit: Visit a Science Museum

We have just finished our unit on Evolution. To encourage you to further your study of evolution outside of the classroom, I will offer the following extra credit opportunity:

Visit the Natural History Museum or the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles. The Natural History Museum houses a variety of exhibits. One of their newest exhibits is the Dinosaur Hall, which opened in Summer 2011. It contains the fossils of the smallest T-Rex ever discovered as well as one of the most complete fossils of an adult T-Rex, which they named "Thomas." The La Brea Tar Pits houses the largest collection of Ice Age mammal fossils in the entire world! You can see fossils of woolly mammoths and various transitional animals that were the ancestors of modern horses. Did you know that giant lions used to be native to North America? Go find out at the La Brea Tar Pits!

You will earn 4 points if you submit to me your admission ticket stub as proof that you visited the museum. You will earn up to 6 additional points if you write a 1-to-2-page double-spaced report about your visit telling me the following: 

(1) Write down a question to which you hope you will get answers at the museum or a question that the museum visit caused you to think about.

(2) Describe the exhibits you saw at the museum.

(3) Explain what you learned from these exhibits.

(4) Make connections between what you learned at the museum and what you learned in class.

(5) Evaluate whether or not the museum visit was beneficial to your learning.

(6) Make a suggestion about this assignment that would help future students.

This extra credit opportunity is worth a total of 4-10 points and contributes to your Quiz grade and is due no later than March 19. You may not earn credit for visiting both the Natural History Museum and the La Brea Tar Pits, although I encourage you to do so to further your knowledge.

Hominid Evolution

Tomorrow, we will grade your Microevolution Quiz, then finish the NOVA documentary on hominid evolution. For those of you who are interested in watching the entire three-part documentary, the link is available under the "Links" tab. Look for the documentary titled "Becoming Human."

EXTRA LEARNING:
The most recent major discovery regarding hominid evolution was an small species of hominids, which scientists have nicknamed "The Hobbit," that once lived in Indonesia. Fossils of these hominids were found on the island of Flores that date to as early as 12,000 years ago. Other fossils such as those of pygmy elephants and giant lizards were also discovered on Flores. To learn more about these finds, here are a couple documentaries by National Geographic and NOVA. Some scientists propose that these hominids descended from homo erectus and have a hypothesis about why they were so small. Watch the documentaries to find how why.

Quiz and Notebook Check Tomorrow

Study for your Microevolution (Evolution of Populations) Quiz tomorrow. The Microevolution PowerPoint slides have been posted under the "Lectures" tab. As usual, I am available via email and during lunch if you need any help understanding or reviewing some of the concepts.

Your seventh notebook check is also tomorrow. Remember to print out the grading sheet from the "Documents" tab and include it at the beginning of your notebook for this section.

For those of you who were absent on the day the class did the Microevolution Lab in the MPR, you have until Thursday, February 16 to submit your lab report. Email me if you have any questions.

EXTRA LEARNING:
Mass extinction video clip (NOVA Science Now). While watching, think about how this documentary relates to what we learned in class about extinctions and patterns of evolution.

Study for your Microevolution quiz!

Study for your Microevolution quiz on Wednesday. Also, start organizing your notebooks. Your Notebook Check #7 is also due on Wednesday. If you want to talk with me about your Natural Selection (Peppered Moth) Lab, I am available in the classroom during lunch.

There was an extra credit opportunity announced during the lecture today to help expose you to the Hardy-Weinberg principle and solving Hardy-Weinberg problems. In a wildflower population, let's assume that the allele for pink flowers is A and the allele for white flowers is a. White flowers are recessive to pink flowers. If there are 500 plants, in which 320 are AA (homozygous dominant), 160 are Aa (heterozygous), and 20 are aa (homozygous recessive), what are the genotypes and allele frequencies of this population? Recall that p2 + 2pq + q2 = 1; p = the frequency of A; q = the frequency of a. If you choose to solve this Hardy-Weinberg problem for extra credit, submit your solution (including your work) in class on Tuesday, February 14.

Also remember to sign up for your Book Review extra credit opportunity, if you would like to participate. I have extended the sign up date to next Monday, February 20. Go to the "Extra Credit: Science Book Review" post and write your name, period, and the book you've selected in the comments section. 

EXTRA LEARNING:
One of my students asked about polar-grizzly bear hybrids. Here are some articles about the topic: National Geographic (2006) and Scientific American (2010). While reading, think about how this phenomenon relates to what we are learning about speciation.

Microevolution Lab due Monday

Remember, your Microevolution Lab is due on Monday. Those of you who were absent, work with your lab partner (and remember to contribute your share of the work) or obtain the class data from one of your classmates and complete the lab by yourself. You may email me if you need help with the lab; however, do not ask me for the class data. You should have written that down from the board. Also, for those of you who are thinking to participate in the "Science Book Review" extra credit opportunity, see the "Extra Credit: Science Book Review" post to see how to sign up. You must sign up by next Monday, February 20. Have a wonderful weekend! =)

Meet in the MPR tomorrow

Your Evolution quiz grades have been posted. I am usually in the classroom during lunch, so you may come by to check your quiz. I suggest doing so to see which questions you missed as well as to check to see if your classmate graded your quiz correctly. I would be happy to explain any of the questions to you and help you understand why an answer is correct or incorrect.

Tomorrow we will be doing a lab on Microevolution. We will be meeting in the MPR.

Lab on Friday

I hope you all studied hard and tried your best on the Evolution quiz today. Remember to download and print out your Microevolution Lab from the "Documents" tab. (The link on this post also works.) We will be doing that lab on Friday. =)

Study for your Evolution Quiz!

Your evolution quiz is on Wednesday (tomorrow). Remember to review your notes and read the textbook for clarification. The evolution PowerPoint slides are also posted under the "Lecture" tab. If you have questions or need help understanding some of the concepts, you may email me at catherine.elizabeth@uci.edu. I will also be available in the classroom during lunch tomorrow. 

Your Fossil Evidence lab report is also due tomorrow. You and your partner may turn in a lab report that you worked on together. If I discover that one of you did not contribute and made your partner do all the work, only your partner will get credit (because s/he did the work).

Extra Credit: Science Book Review

Good job on the Fossil Evidence lab today. Below is another extra credit opportunity to encourage you to do more science reading. This extra credit opportunity asks you to read a science book and write a 3-page, double-spaced paper in MLA format. More details--including the list of approved books, requirements for earning credit, and a grading rubric--can be found by clicking here: Science Book Review. If you have another science book that is challenging and relevant, you may ask Ms. Babiuk or me for approval to be included in this extra credit opportunity. This assignment is due on April 15 (electronic copy on turnitin.com) and April 16 (hard copy in class).

For those of you who would like to participate in the "Science Book Review" extra credit opportunity, write a comment below this post stating (1) your full name, (2) your period, and (3) the book you have selected to read. Sign up by Monday, February 20 if you want to participate.

Extra Learning (and potential extra credit)

We learned many things about fossil evidence and evolution today. For those of you who would like to further your knowledge about this topic, below are some links you might want to check out.

1. T-Rex Blood
This was the NovaScienceNow video clip Ms. Gwen showed in class on Friday. For those of you who want to see the full clip, here it is. 
2. Archaeopteryx feather color

This is a pretty recent finding, published in January 24, 2012 (only a couple weeks ago). Artists often illustrate pictures of archaeopteryx with colorful feathers. However, scientists at National Geographic have evidence that this transitional animal had feathers that were black. (Here is a related article about dinosaur colors.)  

3. Woolly Mammoth DNA
One of my students asked if scientists have actually genetically engineered a woolly mammoth-elephant hybrid. As of January 2011, the answer is "no."  If you find a more recent article (from a credible source), bring it up and you can present it to the class for extra credit. See details below and on the "Extra Credit" section under the "Documents" tab.
4. Tiktaalik roseae
This is a website maintained by the University of Chicago. You can click on some of the tabs at the top to learn more about this transitional fossil. In class, Ms. Gwen said that 3 fossils of Tiktaalik have been discovered. That is outdated information. The University of Chicago lists the number of uncovered specimens to be 10!
5. Charles Darwin
This is a NOVA/National Geographic documentary that gives you some context and background about Darwin and his times. In class, Ms. Gwen told you that there was another scientist who independently came up with the idea of natural selection. She mis-recalled his name as "Walton." It was actually "Wallace...Alfred Russel Wallace." You can read more about it here: Natural Selection: Darwin and Wallace (University of California, Berkeley).

If you find recent news or science articles that relate to what we are learning in class, you may ask to present it to the class for extra credit. This extra credit option is like Ms. Babiuk's "stump the teacher" extra credit and will be open throughout the semester. In a presentation that is about 5 minutes long, present to the class the following: (1) the title of your article, (2) the source of the article and when it was written, (3) the major findings of the article, (4) the implications of these findings, i.e., why this is important, and (5) your evaluation of the article's merits and shortcomings. You may present only once and if you fulfill all the requirements, you will earn 5 extra credit points to be contributed to your Test grade. You may not do both "stump the teacher" and "present a science article" as extra credit.

Lab on Monday

Good job on the Natural Selection lab today. Your homework for this weekend is to finish your  Natural Selection lab report and to print out the Fossil Evidence Lab located under the "Lab Reports" section of the "Documents" tab. We will do the Fossil Evidence Lab on Monday. Those of you who do not turn in the videotaping permission slip by Friday will have detention next week. If you do not turn in the permission slip by Monday, then you will have another detention. So get those in as soon as possible.

Welcome to second semester!

Welcome to the second semester of College Prep Biology. I am Ms. Gwen and I will be taking over for Ms. Babiuk in teaching your class. Take a moment to familiarize yourself with the contents of our new class website. Then complete this short website scavenger hunt activity to get acquainted with the format of the online assignments I will give as extra credit throughout the semester. This scavenger hunt is not a quiz. Its purpose is to familiarize you with how I give online assignments. This assignment is graded on a complete/incomplete basis.