Chemistry of life intro

Friday before our three day break we took our first daily question quiz.  After taking that I had you start right into the next section with the following daily questions:

Friday August 30thLet’s see what you remember from physical science!!!

The smallest unit of matter is known as an Atom

Fill in the following table matching the parts of an atom with its charge

Part of an atom....... charge

Proton........ positive

Neutron....... Neutral (no charge)

Electron.......Negative

Of these three, which is important in bonding?  electrons

As an intro I had you watch the following "movie trailer" to give you a little of the "why"

then we came back from a long weekend with the following daily questions:

Tuesday September 3^rd

All life is made up of atoms bonded together.  Which part of an atom is important in bonding? Electrons 

Products such as Gatorade claim to have key “electrolytes” these are atoms that contain a charge due to the gaining or loosing of what? electrons

Notes from Tuesday:

Characteristics of life lab

wednesday and thursday of this week we took some time to look at different characteristics of life.  I had you all swab different areas and plate them on agar dishes or transfer them to a liquid medium to see if we could see bacterial growth and reproduction.  We also looked at our little tube of organisms and tested to see if they could metabolize sugar and water.  We found that the lil buggers were indeed able to metabolize it and in the mean time were able to collect some of their waste in baloons!!!

Thursday i also gave you a chance to look under the microscopes at a human cheek cell (one of your own peers in fact!), some bacteria, kidney tissue and heart tissue.  I like this activity as a nice intro to this class so that you understand how small of a scale we will be looking at this year.

E.coli

cheek cells (3)

Heart Cells

Kidney Cells

 I also gave you a chance to look a little more at the sheep brain. Again, the reason I am letting you see this is to show you what we are learning on a LARGE scale (the organ scale) but that everything that actually happens is going on at the cellular level!!

Characteristics of life wrap up and lab prep

Tuesday August 27^th

Which characteristic is shared by all prokaryotes and eukaryotes?

A. use of cellular respiration for energy release (Incorrect:  all organisms DO take in and release energy, but not all use cellular respiration)

B. use of organelles to control cell processes (Incorrect:  while all organisms do have cells, not all use organelles)

C. ability to store hereditary information Correct!!  ALL living organisms contain DNA which is the molecule that stores hereditary information.

D. ability to move in response to environmental stimuli Incorrect, while all organisms respond to environmental stimuli, NOT all organisms MOVE!!

Every car has a VIN number that identifies it, every living organism has a molecule called DNA that identifies it.  What is one difference between the FUNCTION of a VIN number and our molecule of heredity??

While a VIN and DNA both identify a car/ living organism, only DNA can actually provide the INSTRUCTIONS for MAKING an organism.  We could not build a car with just the VIN number, we CAN determine the characteristics and "build" a living organism by knowing it's DNA.
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Today I had you finish the Car analogy determining which characteristics of life a car has and those that it does not.  Finally, you began to set up your first lab!!!  Many of you swabbed different areas and transferred that to either agar plates or to nutrient broth to see if we could both growth and reproduction tomorrow in bacteria. You also had the opportunity to set up slides of your cheek cells to look at tomorrow.  We will work through a couple labs/demonstrations over the next two days!!

Characteristics of life last day of notes

 Monday August 26^th

*A jackrabbit has large ears containing blood vessels that help it maintain a constant body temperature by adjusting heat exchange with the surrounding environment.  Which characteristic of life is BEST described by this example?

homeostasis

*Which characteristic do ALL prokaryotic and eukaryotic organisms share?

A.  Need for a source of energy

B.  Ability to make their own food

C.  Ability to reproduce asexually

D.  Need for oxygen for respiration

E.  Have feelings



Characteristics of life day 2

Friday August 23^rd

 DQ’s:

*  In order to be considered alive – all living organisms must contain at least one Cell.

*All living organisms can be classified as prokaryotic or Eukaryotic.  These names tell you the type of Cell that make them up.  Of these two types, bacteria are considered Prokaryotic.

*Whether it is prokaryotic or eukaryotic ALL cells contain a molecule of heredity known as  DNA

*An organism’s ability to maintain a constant internal environment in an ever-changing external environment is known as Homeostasis.

 

Today we continued through a couple more characteristics of life in preparation for next weeks activities.  Here is what we made it through so far and some of the examples!!

With metabolism i talked a little about morning breath, stinky feet and farts.... here is a little more info on that for ya!!

Welcome Back!!!

We made it through our first two days!!!  Wednesday was mostly a getting to know you session and I had you watch the welcome back video.

This explains most of my expectations of you but also outlines what you can expect of ME!!!  This is going to be a tough year full of MANY challenges, but you WILL be successful if you give me all you've got!!!

I also referred to last years highlight film that I showed you all the last day of school in May. If you follow this link you can watch it again.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/mn64n36btfkkmjf/2012-2013%20Highlight%20film%20-%20Medium.m4v

Hopefully we will be able to do ALL of this and MORE!!!  This summer I had the opportunity to do research at Carnegie Mellon University and develop ways to incorporate that research into the classroom.  Here are some of the things I hope to do with you guys in the second semester.

Today we had our first set of daily questions and started into our first set of notes.

Daily Questions (DQ’s)

Thursday August 22^nd

How many times can you use a hall pass in a nine-week period and WHEN during class can you use them?

3 times, First or Last 5 minutes of class.  It is IMPERATIVE that you are in class.  We have a lot to get through and missing ANY part of it will hinder your success.  I promised to do everything in my power to help you succeed..... this is one of them!!!!

Biology is the study of what?

 Life:  the term "bio" means "life" the term "ology" means the study of.  

Tell me one characteristic that you think defines “life” (What does it mean to be alive????)
At this point I had you  brainstorm things that you think are characteristic of ALL living things.  I showed you the following slide to guide your thoughts.

Some of the answers I got from you were SPOT ON, others, we will see, are EXAMPLES of a characteristic but not necessarily a characteristic of ALL living things!!

We will answer this question throughout the next couple days with some notes and labs!  This is what we got through today.

At this point I had you guys look at a sheep brain to show you how we can "SEE" an organism (I can see you, you can see me) and we can "See" an organ (we were looking at a brain in fact)

To understand how small cells actually are we went to the following website.  This is a  great animation to put cell size into perspective.  Check it out!!!

http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/begin/cells/scale/ 

KEYSTONE EXAMS AHEAD!!!! ARE YOU READY?!?!?!?!

Last minute Keystone Advice

**** Change your attitude about this. Do NOT go into this test worried about what you DON’T know – Go into this CONFIDENT in what you DO KNOW!!!! (There is a BIG difference!!)*****

* Remember, the test is not going to ask you ANYTHING that you did not learn about during Biology 1 (or sections of 8^th grade Environmental science). The biggest hurdle to get through is to figure out what they are actually asking you – they are NOT asking you about Sheep, or the respiratory system, or blood flow, or the digestive system, etc… figure out what the question is really asking. A good way to do this is to look at the answers and see what area they seem to be focusing on.

*Go with your gut!! You can generally cross off one answer RIGHT away because it does not even answer the question. When you are down to only three try to figure out which ones are trying to “fool” you. They are very accurate statements but have nothing to do with the question or the statement itself is not even true. Finally – If there are answers about things you KNOW you did not learn and one of the answers is at least something you remember learning, go with it!!

*For constructed response questions, just like the multiple choice questions, first decide what they are actually asking you then keep it simple. If you are NOT sure what the answer is, then you may just want to go ahead and put down whatever you DO know about that topic and more than likely you will eventually hit at least one of the areas they were looking for. Don’t spend TOO much time on these though, they are generally only worth 3 points

* Module A: key points Carbon ROCKS!! Because it can form up to 4 covalent bonds with other atoms (including other carbon atoms) it is the PERFECT element to make macro-molecules.

ATP is THE LIFE OF THE PARTY!!!!! If a question is about a cell using energy, most likely they are talking about ATP. If the question is about energy, the answer is probably ATP

If it’s talking about different cells (alveoli, villi) and anything that mentions increase in surface are for efficient exchange of materials – Go with it. Surface-area is a HUGE thing in biology!!

If you know about either photosynthesis or cellular respiration, then you know about the other. They are in essence the reverse of each other.

Photosynthesis: Carbon Dioxide + Water + Sunlight à Glucose + Oxygen
Cellular respiration: Glucose + Oxygen à Carbon Dioxide + Water + ATP

The products of photosynthesis are used during cellular respiration and the carbon dioxide that is released during cellular respiration is used for photosynthesis.

Both are processes that convert energy:
Photosynthesis is conversion of Light to Chemical
Cellular respiration is the conversion of chemical (glucose) to chemical (ATP)

Module B: Key points Mitosis vs meiosis: Mitosis is the division of cells to make a genetically identical copy. Meiosis is the formation of gametes, it cuts the number of chromosomes in HALF and produces 4 genetically DIFFERENT cells.

DNA is A BOSS!!!! It is the universal genetic code. ALL living organisms have DNA and in ALL organisms that DNA codes for proteins (which are made up of amino acids).

Questions about natural selection will most likely be referring to any trait an organism has that increases its ability to get food, get away from predators or find mates. Nature “selects” for two main things – Can I survive, and can I reproduce.

Evolution: The fossil record, embryological evidence, comparative atatomy and comparative biochemistry all point towards all living organisms having a common ancestor. Comparative anatomy – comparing structures, Comparative biochemisty = comparing DNA sequences or amino acid sequences comparative embryology = comparing the embryological stages of different organsism.

Wrap up translation - into mutations

Tuesday April 2nd we didn't have a daily question per se... instead we did a wrap up activity on transcription and translation with the following problems.

If you look at the Red line on problem 1 - I changed one nucleotide, which in turn, changed one of the amino acids this is an example of a missense mutation.
In the second one, I also changed ONE nucleotide, but this time it would have NO affect on the protein because it still coded for the same amino acid.  This is an example of a silent mutation.

Imagine though that I inserted a nucleotide or deleated one......  THIS is what would happen to the reading frame during tranlsation.

We then wrapped up the translation notes that you needed to finish.

Wednesday April 3^rd

A frameshift mutation early in a gene is most likely to have which effect on the protein for which the mutated gene codes?

1.  The protein will be silent

2.  the protein will have extensive incorrect amino acid sequences

3.  the protein will perform its function better than a nonmutated copy

4.  the protein will function normally because any changes will be minor

The genetic code is classified as redundant because more than one codon codes for most amino acids.  This feature of the genetic code makes which type of mutation possible?

1.  Silent      2.  Nonsense 

3. frameshift 4.  catastrophic

These two DQ's acted as an introduction to today's notes. While I had you actually go through these types of mutations yesterday, we had not yet written down the notes.  I also wanted to make sure that you understood the OVERALL processes of transcription and translation so we worked through the following diagram

This required one extra slide of notes to help you out.

We then went through the following notes on mutations: