UNIT 6 REFLECTION 

Unit 6 was a very interesting unit because we learned how our body is built. We learned about our skeleton system, all the bones in our body and their function on protecting us. We leaned about what happens when a bone breaks and how it repair its self and the different types of breaks that can occur. Finally we learned about our joints in our body and how it helps and protects/builds our body to keep us who we are.Our skeleton system is made up of bones, joints, cartilage and ligaments. Its broken down into 2 different divisions; axial and appendicular skeletons. The skeleton system is to protect our body especially soft organs, supports our body, makes us able to move and much more. The body has 206 bones which are classified as long, short, flat and irregular bones that have compact or soft tissue with in them. you will usually find the soft tissue inside the bone. There are 3 main types of bone cells; osteocytes which are mature bone cells, Osteoblast which build our bones an osteoclast which are our bone destroyers. There are many bone disorders such as arthritis and osteoporosis. But there are 3 main spine disorders; Scoliosis which is an abnormal curve in your spine, kyphosis which is in your theoretic spine area near your shoulders, this disorder may look normal but you may also develop a hump in your upper back. The last spine disorder is lordosis which occurs in your lower back( lumbar= lower). You bones need a lot of calcium to maintain strong and protective. it is not good to have a calcium dificenty in your bones. In order to keep our bones strong we need to exercise which keeps a good amour of bone mineral density and eating well helps too. you can also do weight bearing exercises which helps keep your bones strong as well. I have broken a lot of bones so when we learned about bone breaks/fractures and how they repair themselves i found it very interesting to see how your body comes together to fix such a thing. I think the hardest thing is naming the bones on the skeleton. having 206 bones in your body is a lot and to have to memorize almost all of them is hard.Learning about the joints in our body was also confusing but i have no unanswered questions about it. I also liked learning about the bone remodeling, it was interesting to find out that like every 7-10 years we get a new skeleton. Your joints are classified as either synarthroses, amphiarthroses or diarthroses and have a structural classification as either bony fusion (which i am still confused on, we didn't talk about it in the lecture), fibrous, cartilaginous and synovial.

A Change in Climate 

Do you enjoying the hot sunny weather we see in Saratoga/Los Gatos or do prefer cold, rainy weather? Well unfortunately we having been experiencing an on going drought all over California and other parts of the US due to a rapid changing climate. To be able to show and tell how our current climate is effecting us I have decided to 20% time, a project where you spend 20% of a day (time) working on a topic of your choice that some how is a problem today in society. I am asking if there is a solution to our changing climate, what can we do to help stop our climate from the rapid change we are seeing today. Its not easy to stop the changing climate and its not going to stop with just us changing small things we need to do, but with some small easy changes in our homes and daily lives we could help make an impact/ awareness to others and put that message out there that our climate is hurting us in the long run. If people can make small changes such as walking to school 1-3 days a week instead of driving everyday, changing light bulbs to LED, planting tress. I chose this project because my passion is skiing. Skiing is comforting to me, its fun and relaxing, however due to the climate there is a lack of snow up in the mountains, causing an impact on skiing. This doesn't really answer my essential question but my goal is to let others know that our changing climate is going to keep hurting us if we don't act now. My goal is to talk to specialist within this topic and students on campus to see what they are doing in their daily lives and to see if they can change some small parts in there routine to help. I am still trying to figure out how i will measure my progress because its hard to measure something this big. But i plan to check in with my people every week to see how they are doing with the small changes they have made. Without the help from our community we won't make a difference. With are changing climate going the way it is we will be seeing dryer forests which can lead to more forests fires, our coasts starting to disinagrate, more droughts that could last for years, health issues that could possibly lead to death and so much more. The biggest issue with our changing climate is the lack if snow we are getting up in the sierra mountains, its one of our main water sources and without an effective amount of snow we are not getting the water we want.Another big issue that would make a huge difference in our climate is the amount of fossil fuels being released into the atmosphere. When natural gases, coal and oil are being burnt they release an enormous amount of carbon dioxide into the air, and due to the amount of CO2 the layer of greenhouse gas keeps getting bigger and bigger. With this layers constant growth it is causing Earth to become warmer which is the leading cause to our climate change. I want people to know that they can be the change that they can we the one to make the difference. 

OWL PELLET LAB

RESULTS: 

Pellet measurements:

Pellet mass : 10.79 g    Length: 2.8 inches   Width: 1.3 inches

Skull: Length: 40 mm    Width: 29 mm

Lower Jaw:  Length: 30 mm  Width: 9 mm

Claim: We believe that the organism that was in our pellet was a pocket gopher. We knew it had to be one of the bigger organism because of the size of the skull. However we found 2 other skulls where one most likely belonged to a bird due to the sharp, pointed beak. We were unable to determine what animal the other skull may have belonged too. Adding on there didn't seem to be enough bones to put all there animals back together which makes us believe that the owl may have thrown up another pellet with the other bones. Some of the bones seemed to fit to the size of the gopher but others seemed to small.

Similarities and Differences to the Human Body: 

Similarities:

1. the bones were classified as the same ( long, short, flat, irregular)
2. they have a similar skeleton structure 
3. the skull was very similar to our skull (cranium, mandible...)

Differences: 

1. depending on your organism the bones are significantly smaller than human bones 
2. some of our bones had a rounder shape to them
3. some of the bones were weak, they broke easily