Survival Of The Fittest 10/29/17

Survival of the Fittest - Skeptical Science

Summary:Survival Of The Fittest was thought of by Charles Darwin in 1809. Survival Of The Fittest is the theory is a way of explaining the works of natural selection. Natural selection is the process in which organisms get random mutations that are randomly chosen by nature in a way that makes sense even though it’s random. In other words when an species changes to adapt to its environment it becomes a inheritable trait for its offspring. Soon most of that species population will have that genetic change that will help it thrive more in the wilderness. As for those who did not inherit the mutation then they are at risk in the wild.

SP2: Developing and using models:

We created a comic strip demonstrating how Natural selection worked and how mutations were passed on too offspring. We also included how they would adapt to their environment. They would adapt when there would be a change in the environment which puts them at risk. Then natural selection happens and a species will inherit a genetic mutation that will spread throughout the species giving them more chances to thrive.

Evolution & Mutations 10/20/17

Summary: Mutations are a change in DNA. DNA is what gives the living thing its looks and characteristics. Mutations can be beneficial ,harmful or neutral towards the animal or living thing. They are quite random which makes it pretty difficult to handle or notice. Somatic mutations are types of mutations that affect the living thing but it will not pass on to offspring. Mutations that make the organism die are called  - Lethals.  Not all mutations matter to evolution, Somatic mutations don’t help with evolution because the mutation the living thing has will not be passed down to the offspring. The only mutations that will matter and possibly help towards evolution will be those mutations that have the ability to be passed down to offspring which could impact the next generation and possibly cause evolution.

SP1: Asking questions and defining problems

We asked questions like "Do mutations have anything to do with evolution." and our answer to that was yes and no. That is because not ALL mutations are inheritable to their offspring. ONLY somatic mutations can be passed on to the offspring of the affected organism which could lead to evolution in the long run.

Weekly Blog Sun.Oct.15

This week

Geological Time Project Blog

Summary

The geologic time scale is a record of all the different life forms on the face of the planet. As well as geological events from earth long history. The Mesozoic Era was divided into 3 different time periods. The first one was the Triassic period when life outside the oceans started to diversify. The period after that was the  Jurassic period where the dinosaurs took over most of the land. Lastly the Cretaceous period took place with the mass exception ending the Mesozoic Era.During the Mesozoic Era the supercontinent Pangea was still intact for a while. But after anger started to drift apart forming the worlds oceans in between. Another big event was the major creation of mountain ranges in North and South America.

Backward-Looking:
I didn't know anything about this subject before we learned about it. I had always thought that time was time and that there wasn't any time periods besides the Jurassic Era and the beginning of time. I never really knew there were Era's or Eon's. But this project taught me lots of information about life and time before today.

Inward-Looking: 
How do you feel about this piece of work? What parts of it do you particularly like? Dislike? Why? What did/do you enjoy about this piece or work? I feel pretty good about my work. Except for the fact that my group didn't really put much color into out design. I liked our information that we put because I really think we got some cool facts into our poster board. I disliked the fact that my group didn't notice we put our time periods in the wrong order. I enjoyed drawing our little flip up cards during this project because it let me show a bit of my artistic side.

Outward-Looking: If I were the teacher, I would say that my groups board wasn't very colorful. It did have all the correct facts and information but an issue was that my group had put the era's in the incorrect order. We put the era that was supposed to be first, in the last era column.

Forward-Looking: 
One thing I would like to improve upon is our board setup because is was kind of scrambled here and there and it was not really colorful like the other boards and presentations. And I would also like to reflect on the amount of time we had. Most of our time we spent drawing and I wish we used more time to research more facts than try and perfect how our board looked.

Weekly Blog 10/1/17

The mesosoic era was the era in which