Green Human Project

https://docs.google.com/a/lajunta.k12.co.us/present/view?id=df5mtmq_3grg2x9dx

Poisons: Chokecherry

CHOKECHERRY

The Chokecherry also known as the Prunus Virginiana comes around usually in August.  The one thing you want to pay attention in the word chokecherry is "choke" because the name comes from the symptoms you get when you eat.  When you eat this plant it affects your respiratory system which makes you have rapid breathing and it feels like you are choking.  That's where the name chokecherry comes from.  This plant is from North America and not eaten it these cherries are very small and contain hydrocyanic acid.

Chokecherry very small and known for its tiny white flowers

Chokecherries are very dangerous but they can also be made into food too such as jelly.  You must be very careful with these although they are very delicious.  Once you pick the cherries you must squeeze out all the juice and get all the acid out of it.  After you follow the instructions for the delicious recipe you will get your now edible, delicious jelly.

Chokecherry Jelly

Chokecherries are not only bad for humans but they are also very bad for animals such as livestock.  When there is a drought in the ranges of the livestock they start to feed off of twigs and other plants and usually there are chokecherries.  Livestock can be harmed by the cherries when they eat large quantities of it in a short amount of time.  The death by these cherries is common in sheep and cattle.  Sheep love to eat the cherries after they drink some water and the cattle are just attracted to the leaves which have the most poison on them.  The symptoms for livestock after they eat the cherries is respiratory failure and the symptoms hit fast and death may come a few minutes after eating.

http://aden4lyons.tripod.com/poison/choke.html

http://www.wildfoods.info/wildfoods/chokecherry.html

http://webecoist.com/2008/09/16/16-most-unassuming-yet-lethal-killer-plants/

Basic Cell Structure

http://goanimate.com/movie/0pmfrf8tyTa4?utm_source=linkshare&uid=0jymuYHkOtuw

Microscope Lab

Day 1!

For the past week we have been working with the microscopes.  I have worked with microscopes before but usually just cells that the teacher had for us.  This time we were able to see the bacteria in the pond water and we were able to come up with other things on our own to work with.  First we tried some of our hair which the microscope showed the real color of our hair.  Then my group tried the pond water which we saw bacteria moving around and then we let it sit there and it dried out and we couldn't see anything anymore.  After the pond water we just messed around and started trying random stuff.  Like the leaf root which we could see the lines that took the water up the leaf.

Day 2!

The next day we were trying actual cells so we took some from our cheek.  All we saw was some black spots everywhere it actually looked pretty GROSS!!!  After that we messed around with our fingernails and it din't show much but the dirt under them :)...  After we did the live cells we tried the onion and we could see the little circles that looked like live cells from our cheek.

I found a picture on the internet that looked like what our cheek cells were like and i found this one.  It is almost identical to the our cheek cells but ours were a darker.

I went and found another picture of a picture that looked similar to the onion we saw.  This is pretty much what the onion looked like that we had.

Cystic Fibrosis

Cystic Fibrosis is a disease that form because of a mutated gene.  Usually the lining cells pass through the airway and keep the mucus moist, well when you have this disease it does the opposite.  It blocks the channels in the airway and dries out the mucus.  This disease is usually inherited but you can catch the disease to where you can have  longer life span.  There are some treatments and its usually antibiotics or therapy.

SYMPTOMS

•                very salty-tasting skin;

•                persistent coughing, at times with phlegm;

•                frequent lung infections;

•                wheezing or shortness of breath;

•                poor growth/weight gain in spite of a good appetite; and

                     frequent greasy, bulky stools or difficulty in bowel movements.

This disease also causes your body to form a mucus in your lungs.

membrane poster

By:  Vanessa, Desi, Brianna, Ashley, and David.

This poster is of the structure of the membrane.  In this project I learned the names of the parts of the membrane and what a membrane looks like.

oligosaccharide- helps maintain stable blood glucose levels

glycolipid- they provide energy

hydrophobic cc helix-common structure for membrane proteins.

integral protein- A protein that is firmly anchored in the plasma membrane via interactions between its hydrophobic domains and the membrane phospholipids.

phospholipid- 

1. Act as building blocks of the biological cell membranes in virtually all organisms

2. Participate in the transduction of biological signals acroos the membrane.

3. Act as store of energy as with triglycerides.

4. Play an important role in the transport of fat between gut and liver in mammalian digestion.

cholesterol- Cholesterol is a waxy, fat-like substance that is made in the body by the liver

Carbohydrate Lab

The first mixture was the one on the far right and it was iodine mixed with starch and it came out to be polysaccharide because it did not come out to be orange it came out to be brown and it was not boiled.  

The second mixture was starch and benedict and it came out to be a polysaccharide because it came out as a glossy clear blue and it was boiled.  

Our third mixture was flour mixed with benedict and it came out to be a polysaccharide because it came out to be a foggy blue and it was boiled.  

Our fourth mixture was iodine and flour and it came out to be a polysaccharide because it came out to be a darker color not an orange and it was not boiled.  

Our last mixture was the one on the far left and it was a mixture of glucose and benedict and it is the only one in our lab that came out to be monosaccharide because it came out to be orange and it was boiled. 

All in all we learned that carbohydrates always have monosaccharides when they are put together in a chain they make bigger chains called polysaccharides.

Notes

I learned that macromolecules are the main molecules and they break down into monomers and polymers.In these notes I also learned that there are four different types of macromolecules.  One is protein which is very important to all living organisms, two is lipids which are fatty acid ester, they are the building blocks or biological membranes as well as energy storage,  3 is carbohydrates which are organic compounds, examples are sugars, starch, and cellulose, and the 4 is nucleic acids which are the basic classes of macromolecules studied in biochemistry.  


I also learned that carbohydrates can not be made by using acids because the acid destroys the carbohydrates.  For example when Mr. Ludwig showed us the sugar mixed with the Sulfuric acid the acid took over and destroyed the carbohydrate.

acids and bases

What makes an acid an acid?  Well after I was asked this question and I went online and looked up what the definition of an acid was.  Well the term acid comes from the Latin word acere which means sour.  It named a couple of acids and one of them was vinegar which we used in our lab recently.  See in our experiment we mixed acids and bases.  What we did was take the vinegar which is the acid and the tablets which is the bases.  See when the bases are mixed with the acids it becomes less and less of an acid as the article said that i read.  That's exactly what happened in this experiment we did.  When we took the Ph of the  vinegar in the beginning it showed that it was an acid well the numbers changed once we added the tablets so instead of it staying an acid it changed into more of a base.

acids in your stomach lab

<iframe src="https://docs.google.com/present/embed?id=df5mtmq_03fx54zd6" frameborder="0" width="410" height="342"></iframe>

Water article

http://goanimate.com/movie/0kdrlJvVpfbg?utm_source=linkshare&uid=0jymuYHkOtuw

Water Properties

Surface Tension on a Penny


Recently we did a lab about the properties of water.  What we did was take water and used it in it's different forms and structures. The one that I found most interesting is the lab with the penny.  How did that little penny hold so many drops!!!  After I watched he video about the water properties I found that a little penny like that can hold so many drops by surface tension.  Surface Tension means the energy needed to increase the surface area of a liquid by a given amount.  In this case it means that the surface area expands the surface area so that it makes a spherical form.  So when you put the drops on the penny it makes a bubble like structure on top of the penny.

Second we took a string and water and put another glass at the other end and poured the water down the string. I thought it was crazy how it just stuck the string and ran down into the glass.  So I went to the video again and I couldn't figure out what property it was but then as I watched it over and over again I found it similar to cohesion.  Cohesion means an attractive force between similar molecules in the same phase.  See on the video it uses water going up a tree to get water to its leaves as an example.  Well this is the same thing its just that it is running down the string instead of up the roots.  Cohesion allowed the water to stick to the string and run down into the glass.

CANCER!!!

In this clinical trial I learned all about my aunt's disease.  It's liver cancer!!!  They are doing this trial to obviously find the cure.  The way they do it is to get a certain amount of people on the medication and then sadly they see who lives but you never know for them to lose their life they can save another.  What this double blind trial is is that the patient nor the person who is giving the trial knows who each other is!!!