Promethean Board and Flipcharts

          For the past few weeks, in ED271 we have been focusing on Promethean Planet, ClassFlow, and ActivInspire. These programs were all new to me and I was using a Mac which is more confusing to use for me at times. They are programs which help educators make teaching and lessons easier through technology. When I first saw the Promethean board I was really intrigued because I never seen one up close only through tv and videos. The idea of using it for future lessons and learning made me really excited to try it out myself. First we had to make our own flip chart using ActivInspire, it reminded me of an art oriented powerpoint program. I had so much fun using the different tools and options in it. It is a program where you can let out your creativity to make something your students will enjoy as well. The resources you can get in ClassFlow really helped me in making my flip chart, there are just so many to choose from that I doubt you won't find something that will catch your eye.

Here is the link for my flipchart and below is a tutorial video I made, I know there are flaws so be nice please.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BxDUZKbdTf5GQmhFTDJQbU83Mjg/view?usp=sharing

Cells in Our Bodies

          In this lab session we had to identify different cells under a microscope and take good quality pictures for study. We also had to identify their function and location in the body. I love doing microscope work but it can be tiring and time consuming, For me the most frustrating part is trying to take a picture through the ocular lense of the microscope especially with my low quality camera phone. It takes me a few tries to get a passable picture. There were 24 cells to go through, the good thing was we were doing this in groups. I know I did this before for anatomy but it is always fascinating to see the different kinds of cells you find. They come in all kinds of shapes and colors (due to the stains) but it can be a chore to memorize/remember their functions and where each one can be located. It took us the whole three hours to finish this activity.    

The Search for Hermit Crabs

          For the past week me and my group went to Tangisan Beach to search for hermit crabs for our Mark and Recapture study, which is basically taking a group from an area and counting them then coming back a few days later and count the specimens in the area. The road going there was really rough and had a  lot of potholes (my poor tires) and I almost got lost because I took the wrong turn and ended up in Ritidian. Anyway on the first day we went in the morning, it was really hot and well I was wearing a sweater which would explain why I sweated a lot. We found around 27 hermit crabs in our 286 sqm area. There were ones as big as a golf ball and really small ones the size of your pinky nail. I had to paint their shells and legs with nail polish, which  we though was toxic to hermit crabs, they looked really pretty afterwards. Then today we went to look for them again but we did not find a single one. We were afraid they either died or moved really far away. I guess we'll have to wait and see next time.

Annelids

          Last month we had to do a presentation on a branch of invertebrates, the one we had was annelids. Annelids are segmented worms like earthworms,leeches, and paddle worms. At first I was a bit disappointed that we got annelids but as I further researched ob the subject the more interesting it seemed. I especially liked the class Hirudinea which are leeches. It was a bit gross at first especially some of the pictures you find on the internet. In the previous lab we did look at preserved specimens of different invertebrates. As we were making this power point we learned a lot of facts. Such as annelids have three classes which are Polychaeta, Oligochaeta, and Hirudinea, and there are 9,000 known species (that's a lot).

Here's a link to our powerpoint if you want to see:

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1e_YbUNOpj9_G_HkPhj2qv_MBNLs58mmSnne-vBLI8wc/edit?usp=sharing

Fishes: In and Out

      Another day in BI158L (lab), this time we had to dissect and study the anatomy of a fish. The specimen we did was a emperor fish I think. The smell was not as bad as when I had to dissect a cat probably because there was no chloroform or other chemicals. We had to be careful with this one because it had spines along the fins, almost got pricked by one. It was really messy but fun, looking at the different parts of the fish and knowing if you got a male or female specimen (we had a female). We even had to pick out a scale and look at it under a dissection microscope to label the parts of it. The hardest part was cracking open the skull to look at the brain and parts. There was some delays along the way but we learned and went on smoothly. 

Technology and Making bread

      On the second week of October, for biology lab we talked about yeast, which is a fungi used in a lot of ways. One way being in the process of making bread which we did in lab. I learned a lot from this experiment. The life cycle of a loaf of bread is like that of the undead. Bread starts off alive with the wheat plants, which are then killed to make flour. Hungry micro-organisms (from the yeast) are added to it which brings it back to life. After a feeding frenzy, these live cultures give up their last breath in the oven and, in a puff, bread is born.

Those organisms have their own personality and character. They eat a lot, which leads to a lot of farting and burping. The gas rips through the dough and makes it grow. Well that's a simple way of explaining it anyway. We also tested how the different ingredients in bread would affect the growth of yeast like salt, sugar, flour, etc. By the end of class we were able to taste the bread made using something like a mini-oven (I forgot what it was called) , it tasted really good.