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Ecology Benchmark

Posted by Chelby Elam in Biochemistry 2 Honors on
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKAfcCHxjFY​

For our Q4 benchmark we focused on the Cycles of Matter and why it’s a problem within ecology. Our video shows where this problem happens, how we affect the different cycles and what we can do to stop it. What stood out to me is the things that affect the cycles. Everyday things that I had no idea affected our lives. I’m curious to know if this issue will get better or worse.


Biochem Q4 Benchmark: Ecology (Ocean Biome)

Posted by Zaina Belgrave in Biochemistry 2 Honors on
firstbiochem
firstbiochem
secbiochem
secbiochem
For this Biochem project me and my group decided to create an ocean and show the different ways that humans negatively affect this biome. I learned a lot from making this project. Academically and creatively that is. Academically I learned that humans cause a lot of pollution and there are simple ways to prevent this from happening but it keeps on going. I also learned about different kinds of pollution and how it affects the animals. Creatively I learned that I am not an artist and I can not sculpt. The creative process took a while because of all the things that needed to be done that seemed minor but were actually crucial to the project. For example positioning the fish properly and painting things that I did not think needed to be painted. I chose this topic because the ocean is one place that humans cannot live in but somehow we still find a way to mess up this part of the world. 

The Domino Effect: How it affects an ecosystem (by Lamier, Anthony, and Terrance)

Posted by Lamier Howard in Biochemistry 2 Honors on
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So for anyone who doesn't know, the domino effect is when you take one thing out of something and it affects everything. For instance, when you take a domino out of a line, the entire line of dominos won't go down. We used these dominoes to represent an ecosystem because if you take one thing out of the ecosystem, it would affect everything. For example, if you take away the sun, every living thing in the ecosystem would die. In fact, the entire world would die. You can say the same thing for water. Even if you take away a primary predator, it would affect the ecosystem as there would be an overabundance of a certain animal which could be bad. After doing this project, we feel like we learned more about not only ecosystems but food webs and food chains as well. We learned that the littlest things could have a huge effect on everything.  Some things that stood out to us was the fact that some animals that you don't think are important to an ecosystem really are very important. For instance, we didn't think flies were important but if you take out flies, animals like frogs wouldn't be able to eat them which could cause frogs to decrease in population. Then animals like snakes would decrease and it would keep going and going. Something we are still wondering is can there be an ecosystem that isn't affected if we take something out of it.

Q4 Benchmark FINAL SUBMISSION: Ecology

Posted by Dejah Watts in Biochemistry 2 Honors on
For this project, my group and I decided to show the effects of trash, pollution, and overfishing on wildlife. The biggest takeaway from this was that it doesn't seem like anything is happening to protect these creatures that are getting harmed by our actions. So to me, it was just really important to show the beauty of the ocean, but also show how we ruin it.

ECOLOGY Q4 BENCHMARK

Posted by Amirah Knox in Biochemistry 2 Honors on
bio poster
bio poster
My Reflection:

This unit has blown me away with crazy facts and statistics. I’ve learned how we humans are making unhealthy decisions-- decisions that may seem innocent-- but are actually harmful to our planet and future generations to come. Some crazy things I’ve learned is farmers barely exist anymore, the amount of meat Americans consume in a week--let alone in a month, how if our diets of so much meat continues then chickens, cows, and pigs will out live humans, humans and global warming, and basically how everything we eat/use affects the environment someway, somehow, and could hurt us in the long run.

I was--still am-- astonished by these facts and statistics I’ve learned this unit. This unit has definitely changed my mind on how I go about life for the greater good. I’m wondering if others would do same with all this newfound knowledge.


Our Citations: - “Why Population Matters.” The Population Institute, www.populationinstitute.org/resources/whypopulationmatters/ - “As World's Population Booms, Will Its Resources Be Enough for Us?” National Geographic, National Geographic Society, 21 Sept. 2014, news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/09/140920-population-11billion-demographicsanthropocene/. - “Population Growth Is Still The Biggest Problem Facing Humanity.” Business Insider, Business Insider, 4 July 2010, www.businessinsider.com/population-growth-must-stop-2010-7. - “Impacts of Population Growth, Economic Development, and Technical Change on Global Food Production and Consumption.” Egyptian Journal of Medical Human Genetics, Elsevier, 24 Dec. 2010, www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0308521X10001575. - Bakalar, Nicholas. “Air Pollution May Pose Serious Risks to Young Children.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 13 Apr. 2018, www.nytimes.com/2018/04/13/well/family/air-pollution-may-pose-serious-risks-to-youn g-children.html?rref=collection/timestopic/Air Pollution&action=click&contentCollection=science®ion=stream&module=stream_unit& version=latest&contentPlacement=4&pgtype=collection. - Wimmer, Harold P. “Trucks That Pollute.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 25 Feb. 2018, www.nytimes.com/2018/02/25/opinion/trucks-pollutants-epa.html?rref=collection/timest opic/Air Pollution&action=click&contentCollection=science®ion=stream&module=stream_unit& version=latest&contentPlacement=7&pgtype=collection. - Marks, Joshua. “The 6 Most Pressing Environmental Issues-and What You Can Do to Help Solve Them.” Inhabitat Green Design Innovation Architecture Green Building, Inhabitat, 1 Apr. 2018,

SPREAD THE WORD!

Posted by Tyheim Price on
Bop
Bop

For our project we decided to focus on overpopulation and the causes it has on the world. Something that surprised me was how overpopulation is a big topic full of many little topics. There's over consumption, pollution, global warming, and many more. Because there are so many of us that means there more mouths to feed and water that is needed, which leads to the over consumption. Many people are not growing up to be farmers though, so the amount of resources we have are not equal to or greater than the number of people that need it. More people means more energy that needs to be used for things like heat and electricity which means more pollution. This pollution leads to the rapid increase of global warming. I wonder what will we do to fight against overpopulation. I think more education on parenthood and more programs to educate young people on sex is needed. We barely had a health class in this school and I doubt any other public schools in our area have a good health class. I think we need to put more time, energy, and money, into educating people about sex and sex control.


Overpoluation

Posted by Fatima Bamba in Biochemistry 2 Honors on
I have learned many things while studying the ecology topic. The food matters campaign stood out to me because it allowed me to be more cautious of the amount of meat I intake. It also allowed me to see why food matters and how it can affect the environment. The thing I'm still wondering about is if we would ever try to reduce our intake of meat and help the environment. 

Threats on the Rainforest

Posted by Shaiann Desvignes in Biochemistry 2 Honors on
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During the ecology benchmark, I learned a lot. It was quite fun putting a visual representation of a rain forest.  The main point that I learned throughout this benchmark was the food webs, and putting them together. It was interesting to see what ate what and what fungi's where in the food chains as well. When creating this visual representation of the rain forest we did a before and after on threads of the rain Forest.

Threats on the rainforest

Posted by Jyaire Oconnor in Biochemistry 2 Honors on
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I've learned many things whilst studying this topic and I have to say It was very fun/insightful. Due to the fact that I was interested in said thing made it even more exciting finally getting to pitch in. I thoroughly enjoyed the Ecology Portion or unit was amazingly crazy cool. I left the unit with numerous amounts of knowledge in the topic. The only take away from this unit was the numerous amounts of reading all though I must admit "some" of it was necessary. One thing that really stuck with me was the dangerous dietary changes and how they effect not only humans but our Population, Community, and Ecosystem. I'am specifically talking about the "Food Matters" articles we had to read. Everything said in those passages I heavily related to because I thought about those touchy subjects the same way. I really enjoyed the multiple solutions presented to us as well as presenting our own in the little mini project. One question that'll stick with me is what will we do when the glaciers/Ice caps melt and the water level rises? 

The Taiga Biome Q4 Benchmark

Posted by Daniel Sinyal in Biochemistry 2 Honors on
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We were tasked to create a physical representation of some sort to explain a certain aspect of nature and talk about problems along with the possible solutions to the problem. After doing this project, I learned that as humans, we are the top of the food chain. We control everything below us, all the way down to the microscopic level. Which means that our actions have consequences for the whole environment, depending on what we do. An example would be creating a lot of factories. Factories creates lots of pollution and all of that pollution spreads around the Earth which results in Global Warming. This is a good example of our actions for the environment. I believe there's a way to survive without factories, but right now, we don't have that solution. If the use of factories were to stop, the green house gasses may decrease and it may create a balance between the oxygen levels and carbon dioxide levels.

Cycles of Matter

Posted by Alexander Delgado in Biochemistry 2 Honors on
Nitrogen cycle
Nitrogen cycle
Carbon cycle
Carbon cycle
water cycle
water cycle
This whole project stood out to me because I took it as a chance to encourage myself to be creative and to be show ideas of what I am capable of. Some of the main materials that we used during this project were: construction paper, glue, cotton, and some pieces of boards to hold the project. The intriguing part for me was the use of a 3D space instead of a flat surface. It really was a challenge to put everything together but it turned out great. Something that I am still wondering though is what would actually happen if there were an abundance of fossil fuels? Since they are made naturally over the course of a million years and are pretty rare exceptions, what would happen if there was an extreme amount? That is all.

Over Population Growth

Posted by Bahiyah Corbin in Biochemistry 2 Honors on
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For this Quarter 4 Benchmark we were assigned to research one of the major topics that we studied with a unique issue. As a group decided to look more closer on the topic the over population growth. Many keys materials that stood out to me was that one major cause of population growth is the rate of births are higher than the death rate. This was surprising to me because of what I am observing on social media, the news, and in my everyday life, the rate of lives lost/deaths seem to be increasing  as years go on. Something I am still wondering is, what will happen if the population increases to the point where everyone isn't able to receive the everyday essential needs to live?

Biochemistry Benchmark Ecosystems Response To Change.

Posted by Samantha Green in Biochemistry 2 Honors on
Something that stood out to me during the creation of this project is the fact that we all know that the world is overpopulated, but what can we really do to change the world and make things not populated? I believe that you really can't put a limit on population. What if things become underpopulated because that's possible. I think that the world needs people to thrive in my opinion. I'm wondering if we can keep the population the way it is and change other habits? Would that help make the world a better place? We can say that it could, but scientifically would it?

Threats on the Rainforest

Posted by Tianna Cain-Cuttino in Biochemistry 2 Honors on
Both Before and After Threats on Rainforest
Both Before and After Threats on Rainforest
Rainforest Before
Rainforest Before
Rainforest After
Rainforest After
I would say for the entire ecology unit, I understood most of it and was confused about a little. The one thing I didn't like about this is unit is all the reading. I don't enjoy reading, so all the packets we received was tiresome. The key things that I remember from this unit is when we did food chains and food webs; basically understanding how that worked out. That was fun to do and to use our own knowledge to make the chains and webs. The food matters campaign stood out to me because it really allowed me to see deeper how our food is really important, no matter if we're eating it or using it. The thing I'm still wondering is if its possible to add a few more years to earth's survival.

Ecology Benchmark Tioga: Ecosystems and Biomes

Posted by Dexter Le in Biochemistry 2 Honors on
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After finishing this benchmark, I understand how ecosystems can be affected by single populations and how it could potentially change the biome as a whole. For example, I found out that certain pests could infest the trees in the Taiga biome and completely destroy the current ecosystems. In addition, I have also learned that humans use the Taiga biome as a main source of lumbering, mining, and even industrial work. These factors harm the ecosystems in the Taiga biome. As the temperature raises up over time, species are being forced to move elsewhere as they are not suited for the current climate. Newer species take their places and this overall harms the ecosystems of the Taiga biome.

Ecology Benchmark: Researching the Amazon/Rainforest

Posted by Jadaline Torres in Biochemistry 2 Honors on
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For my quarter 4 biochemistry benchmark, we were assigned to choose a specific biome of our choice and research it focusing mostly on unique issues facing the biome. While completing this project, a lot of information about my chosen biome (the rainforest/Amazon) stood out to me. It was interesting to read because I wasn´t aware of how much damage people were causing our trees, animal and our world itself. Upon completion of the project, I enjoyed being able to make a physical display of the biome and having a chance to show my creative side to my classmates and teachers.