Archives: Investigate

Barbie Bungee Jumping

Here is the link to the Barbie Bungee Finale Activity:

Barbie Bungee Finale Activity

Here is the video of our best jump:

 

Reflection:

For this activity, we used information from chapter 3 to be able to calculate the most rubber bands you could attach to Barbie to allow her to bungee jump the closest to the floor without hitting her head. All of our work for this project can be seen in the link above. Our group did fairly well at calculating the number of rubber bands to allow Barbie to have the most fun without getting a concussion. By using the LSRL, we were able to estimate that we would need 29.4847 or about 29 rubber bands for Barbie to bungee jump without whacking her head on the ground, which was about 564cm from the drop point. Unfortunately, our guess was a little off, because Barbie wasn’t near the ground, she had just about reached the meter stick. We added a rubber band, making her total count 30 rubber bands. This time, it worked! Barbie was only 10cm from the floor when we had attached 30 rubber bands to her. The reason our guess with the LSRL was off is because the LSRL isn’t a perfect method of guessing the exact value. As you can see with the residual graph, the line has a tendency to over- or under-predict. Since we were only one rubber band off (or half a rubber band, if you’re looking at the exact value predicted by the LSRL), the error most likely came from the LSRL. Overall, the project was a success, and it was a really fun way to learn everything about chapter 3.

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AP Research Post 1/3

The process of picking a research topic was a struggle. In all honesty, even a topic I thought I loved came to be something I regretted choosing after spending almost a year with it. The largest thing to tackle was finding a topic that met three criterion: relevant, something I care about, and something I wouldn’t get tired of after a year. I knew from the start I wanted to do something dealing with LGBTQ+ equality, and eventually I landed on the issue of LGBTQ+ representation in television. One thing I would change about how I did my data collection would be doing the survey and the content analysis at the same time rather than doing them separately. It would have saved me a lot of time if it hadn’t been suggested that I not do them at the same time. As a result of doing them separately, I ended up falling really behind in the class as a whole. Making this change would’ve improved the class as a whole for me because I could’ve been on track with everybody else and had important peer review help that I missed out on because I was so behind on data collection. I probably could’ve also collected more data if I had had more time to collect that data.

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Cell Signaling Pathways

 

The links attached are to the two claymation videos we created on cell signaling in class.

G-Protein Coupled Receptors

Receptor Tyrosine Kinases

Questions:

  1. How are these two systems similar? Consider both structural similarities and similarities in how the systems function.
    • Both of these systems have plasma membrane receptors. In both pathways, a signal begins to be sent as a signal molecule binds to a receptor within the cell’s membrane. They are also similar in the ways they handle Ca+ (calcium) ions. In both systems, the second messenger (IP3) diffuses through the cytosol of the cell and binds with an IP3-gated calcium channel in the ER (endoplasmic reticulum). The Ca+ ions will then move out of the ER, down their concentration gradient, raising the Ca+ concentration in the cytosol. The ions then activate the next protein in the pathway. This process occurs in both cells.
  2. How are these two systems different? Consider both structural differences and differences in how the systems function.
    • Their overall processes of cell signaling are different. They also have different amounts of receptor proteins in a pathway. G-Protein coupled receptors are visually much more simple, whereas tyrosine kinase receptors have bits of tyrosine attached on one side. Each process will signal for different things to occur as well.
  3. Both systems can generate elaborate multistep signal transduction pathways. These pathways can greatly amplify the cell’s response to a signal; the more steps in a pathway, the greater the amplification of the signal. Explain how this amplification can occur.
    •  The example I will use here is the breakdown of glycogen by epinephrine. This amplification occurs as the hormone epinephrine acts through the G-Protein coupled receptor, activating a succession of relay molecules. These include cAMP and two protein kinases. The final protein in the chain is activated by the enzyme glycogen phosphorylase. This enzyme uses an inorganic phosphate molecule to release the monomer glucose from its polymer, glycogen. These are released in the form of glucose-1-phosphate. The hormonal signal is then amplified because the one receptor can activate a hundred molecules of a G-Protein. Each enzyme can act on many substrate molecules.

11.1: Test Your Understanding

Humans have the ability to detect and recognize many different aromatic chemicals by smell. Many of these chemicals are present in concentrations less than 1ppm (part per million) in the air. For example, the majority of humans can detect and recognize chlorine at a concentration of about 0.3ppm .

a. What characteristics of olfactory (smell) receptors would you look for on purpose to explain this ability?

  •   One should look for a longer signal-transduction pathway. With more steps, more enzymes can pass a signal to even more substrate molecules. This means even a small concentration of an aroma will set off a signal, and it will be passed along quickly enough that the small concentration can be detected strongly. The amplification must be very high for one to be able to recognize the scent of something in such a small concentration with ease.

b. Dogs are known to have a much better sense of smell than humans. Given this, what differences may exist in their olfactory system (as compared to humans)?

  • They likely have even more pathways or longer pathways for signal transduction. Aromatic chemicals can be detected very easily by dogs, therefore the amplification of the cell’s response to these signals is greater than that of humans. So, they must have a greater amount of signal transduction pathways or longer signal transduction pathways.
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AP Biology – Butterfly Lab

For this butterfly lab, we isolated two painted lady butterfly larvae to represent primary consumers. The purpose of the experiment was to determine the efficiency by which the larvae could incorporate the food (in this case, representing primary producers) into their own biomass. We took two plastic cups. Both contained food medium. One only contained the food medium, and the other had the food medium as well as the butterfly larvae. We measured the mass of each cup every few days. Each day we calculated the daily mass loss of each cup. This helped to eventually calculate the mass of the butterfly chrysalises, which in turn allowed us to determine the efficiency by which the larvae incorporated the food medium into its own biomass. Our data led us to the conclusion that the butterfly larvae incorporated food medium into their own biomass with 24% efficiency. Typically, primary consumers can only incorporate food into biomass with 10% efficiency. We worked with an extremely small data sample, only having two larvae, so that could skew the results. Perhaps with a larger data sample, our results would have been more accurate. We are currently in the unit of chapters 51-55 in class. This lab relates to what we’ve been learning in class because it relates to ecology, which is the study of living things and their interactions with one another and their environment, as well as how organisms and their environments change over time.

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Literary Analysis Essay

I feel like the final products were useful. It was quite the learning experience to delve into the text of the Odyssey and analyze it for Greek values to write an essay on. The Socratic Seminar was another useful learning experience that gave us a deeper understanding of the Odyssey. I am definitely proud of the work I did. I wrote a lot of in-depth questions, and my essay was quite thorough. I feel like the outline and the thesis development steps were pretty useless. It’s a bit of a waste of time to write out your entire essay just to copy paste it over to another document because there’s no real issues with it. The quote journal/critical reading journal was probably the most helpful because it gave me good information and quotes to use as a part of my essay. We really only had to “create” a complete essay that demonstrates the knowledge of what we read. We also had to create a thesis and an outline for our essay. This helped us to “create” our final product.

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Textual Analysis Project Reflection

 

I am very proud of the work I have done. I put a lot of effort into all of my paragraphs, and my presentation as well. I spent a lot of time making sure everything went together. If anything, my paragraphs could have been a little more detailed. Overall, however, I think I did a good job.

 

Personally, I think the outline steps were pretty useless. It’s both annoying and repetitive to have to put your entire work into an outline, and then copy it into the actual turn in spot. It would be much easier to just write, rather than worry about all the different steps in the outline. Additionally, they don’t really do much in the scheme of things. Outlines are much more work than necessary for any writing task.

 

I had to investigate different articles in order to write my nonfiction paragraph. I also investigated a book, To Kill A Mockingbird, in order to write my literature paragraph. I investigated my community in Fairview Park to write my physical space paragraph. I used all three of these, as well as previous knowledge of privilege to create my presentation. Investigation played a large role in this project.

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