The Sane

Here is our biotechnology film.
https://drive.google.com/a/alleghanyhighschool.net/file/d/0BzC69plBhZtrZWpmX19sZEhBNE0/view?usp=sharing

Week Number Eight- Project Description

The time has come for us to decide what we will be studying for our independent projects. After much thought, I have decided to test to see what physical characteristics of an individual influence a person’s perception of them.

So, in other words, I want to see if you determine the nature of a person simply by their appearance. In my version, I’m going to show participates photos of incarcerated individuals and ask who seems the most likely to commit the most violent crime.  

To test for this I am going to need a notebook and writing utensil of some sort to record findings, photos of incarcerated criminals (and yes, Sophie, I know that is redundant), around 100 test participates, and time. I know time is not a physical material needed but I say that it is still needed nonetheless.  

The procedure for doing so would follow something along the lines of 1) isolating a participant in a quiet place like our in the hall or in a separate room so that their responses are not influenced by the individuals around them, 2) showing eight photos of criminals to the participate, 3) asking the question, “Which of these would you be believe would commit the most violent crime?” 4) asking the following question of, “What characteristics would lead you to believe that this is the most violent?” 5) and then finally recording the accumulated information.

Week Number Seven

The entire sophomore class took the ACT Plan test on Tuesday and I think it went rather well. To relate that to the class, the science portion of the test was the only portion that I finished with time to spare. Not much, but there was time. We had an interesting ‘lab’ on Wednesday. We were assigned an environment of which we had to ‘evolve’ humans to be able to survive in harsh conditions. Logan and I had to work with an extreme hot climate with high exposure to UV rays. We stuck to a fairly normal human shape with the exception of large ears and a longer tongue to help get rid of heat. They would also have darker skin. Internally, these people would have a second heart to pump water throughout the body directly under the skin to help reduce heat. There were other changes but I don’t want to get in to it all here.

On the film project, submitted our research papers on Monday, our concepts and contracts on Wednesday, and my group how to film a lot on Sunday. We haven’t decided on a name for it yet but the guys have been wanting to name it after video games and horror movies. As for the independent project, I still don’t know what to do, but I have bounced around some ideas with murder suspects and cockroaches. 

Week Number Six

Biology this week has interesting. (It is spirit week! And that's probably as excited as I'm going to get on the whole thing.) We did a lab on natural selection where different shaped beaks are tested to see which was most effective. We found that spoons are more effective in moving beans from one place to another than tweezers, clothespins, popsicle sticks, and forks. We didn't have class on Thursday because of the PLAN ACT testing even thought we were just filling out informational papers. On Friday, we took a vocabulary test that wasn’t too difficult.
 
Our film group has been working quite a bit. We have started our script, divided jobs, and have a basic concept written down. I believe you would call it a work of science fiction with (hopefully) some major plot twists and a very dramatic ending. I have already finished my research paper for next Monday and I ended up talking about cloning, nanobiotechnology, and stem cells as my fields of biotechnology. We also started talking about our independent experiment projects and I still have no idea what I want to do with it. In the past, every time we've been assigned science fair projects I resulted in conducting my experiment on something related to radios, light, rocks, and minerals. I don’t know what I’ll do this time. 

The original bird beaks

Week Number Five

This week we were assigned a new project. By October 31^th, we have to have a completed ‘film’ to present to the class. We have a group of six people, Jasmine Kimber, Jackson Williams, Logan Edwards, Austin Hawkins, and Rianna Evans. We were also assigned a research paper due the 13^th. I really like the idea of this and I think our group will be able to work together. I have started thinking about the assignment contract and who will be doing what and so far, I have not really figured it out. Monday was a ‘free day’ of sorts; we brought in food and talked through most of it to celebrate the end of the first 6 weeks. On Wednesday, we have Mrs. Woodie as a substitute and we went over vocabulary words. On Friday we took a genetics quiz where we were asked to ‘solve’ Punnett squares and analyze them. We also started what I’m calling the Make-A-Kid Lab. So far, my partner and I have a dark skinned, dark blue eyed, slightly red tinted hair, freckles all over the face, and female child. Just for the record, I never want children so this assignment has been very comical. I’m really just not a nurturing person and I’m too demented by some people’s standards.

I'm really glad our Punnet squares weren't this lengthy!

Anyway, this week has gone fairly well and I’m looking forward to the next couple of weeks.