Interesting Plants

A cool plant I found is called Dracunculus vulgaris (Dragon or Voodoo Lily).

This flower is originally from Greece and goes by various names.Things such as: 

Dragon Arum, the Black Arum, the Voodoo Lily, the Snake Lily, the Stink Lily, the Black Dragon, the Black Lily, Dragonwort, and Ragons. The Greek thought it resembled a dragon hiding in the spathe. The plant can be 2 m high. This plant is known for it's striking beauty but it has a nasty smell of rotting meat is designed to attract flies for pollination. Fortunately the smell usually lasts for only one day. It is a poisonous plant that animals do not approach. 

 

Pinecone vs acorn

The difference between an acorn and a pine cone is that pine cones are produced from oak while acorns are produced from oak. Also pine cones have multiple seeds while acorns just have one. Another important difference is that acorns are dispersed by animals (either bury them or they eatvthem and grow once they go to the washroom). Pine cones disperse themselves by releasing pollen into the atmosphere. 

 

Moss Compared to Fern Project

Jaime, Nica and myself decided not to do a poster for this assignment but a google doc instead. We found this much easier to do our divided parts in the comfort of our homes without having to meet up somewhere. Hope you like it :) 

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1Juj9KS3d4lZyaaOveNVAvyKILcUL-m_6NB0bFutuyD0/edit?usp=docslist_api

Midterm Evaluation

Biology 11 topics- What I am proud of:

Classification and Taxonomy: For this I chose the big project of creating our own animals and naming them> This showed my creativity as well as my understanding of Taxonomy (names). 

Also, I would like to add the blog post of the 5 different animals we had to choose, and then comparing their domain, kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, and species. 

Post of the different animals.   My comparison of the animals.

For Evolution, The main project I am proud of Is the Evolution Video we made. This might actually be one of my best projects in Biology so far because of all the effort and information me and my partner put into it. 

( unfortunately, I don't have a link for this because it failed to upload to YouTube many times)

For the virus section, I am really proud of a research blog I did. It was the Virus Questions as well as Information on Smallpox. I was so genuinely curious about this virus that I continued to research it after.

Virus Questions and Answers  Smallpox Research 

Finally, for Bacteria and Protists, I chose the quiz that we did. I feel like I tried my best and tried to put in as much information as I could.

Just because this is a general quiz, I'm also going to mention the play dough cell lab as well as our protist microscope lab. I loved making the play dough cell because I'm a hands-on learner, therefore it was an excellent way for me to understand and engrave the names onto my brain. Looking at the protist on the microscope was really interesting. I thought everything looked so cool and beautiful in a weird microscopic way (especially the volvox) 

 

Play Dough Cell blog post

I think that I am a good student. I finish my projects in time and try to engage with the class in my own way. I really do enjoy this class and put a lot of effort into my work and projects. I think that just being in this class has been a powerful learning experience. I am a learner that likes to be on my feet, using my hands and stimulating my brain. Sitting in a classroom copying notes from a Powerpoint everyday doesn't help very much. This class is great because not only are we doing all these activities, but were learning by discussing in class and voicing our opinions. I feel that everything we do in this particular class has so much effect on my learning outcome (in a good way). So as you can see, its really difficult to chose a specific event when the whole experience has been full of learning, but if I had to, I would chose searching up for things we pass by everyday. For example, how slugs mate or why does a goldfish turns white in the dark, or even the fact that people name organisms after celebrities.  I also feel like I'm doing very good in this class and learning so much. Because of this, I want to give myself an A or specifically 90-95%. The rest is all up to Ms.Phillips. One thing I definitely don't want to do is push my mark where it shouldn't be but from all the projects and labs, this is what I hope to receive as my midterm report card grade for Biology 11. :) 

Celebrity bugs

My bug is named after Arnold Schwarzenegger. It's called Agra Schwarzeneggeri and it doesn't have a lot of information because there have been a minimal amount of appearances in the past 3 decades. It is a species of the Carabid Beetle. The main reason it's named after this fit actor/ boxer is because of its markedly developed middle femora which resembles the actors built physique. So in other words, the bug looks like it's really fit and built so it resembles Arnold's abs. :)