Farewell to 20 Time: Last Post Plastic Pollution

For my project I created 3/4ths of a video to illustrate how the media impacts how we view plastic pollution  in our society. Unfortunately, I was unable to complete this video due to various setbacks that I describe in my ted talk such as mismanagement of time, a computer crash, etc. 

Here are pics from my project that I showed in the video:

       
At first glance                                                      A closer look


An average American throws away about 185 lbs plastic per year.
- Ecowatch


What's wrong with this picture...? No recycling bin!!


Microbeads are just as deadly as regular plastic.
They outnumber zooplankton 6:1 in some areas of the ocean.
- NOAA


Reusable options

Here is my Ted Talk:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNZOSdFayec&index=33&list=PLXVa0vGCksTaQxb0DUCUENbC9LuWRDKTr

I was a little bit nervous going into my Ted Talk which caused me to look at my notecard sporadically throughout my presentation and maybe overuse the card despite my constant rehearsals of the presentation at home. I believe that this nervousness also caused me to talk more than I should have and go over the five minute time limit that was provided.

I think a good thing that I will take away from this entire experience is to work on time management since with projects with due dates further away I tend to mismanage my time more than I would in a project with a closer due date. Listening to the other Ted talks made me see how the 20 Time project was more of an individual learning experience than a project that needed to be turned in for a grade. People seemed to learn much more about themselves and develop healthier habits as a result of this project. For example, I thought that the presentation on different exercises and why people don't exercise was really interesting because it showed both the positive effects on why people should want to exercise more, but at the same time showed the negative reasons people have for not wanting to exercise. I also thought that the one presentation on the guitar was interesting because although the person who did the project originally was going to be a lot of fun, he discovered that the guitar wasn't his passion and that was a great learning experience that not everyone has the same passion, but they can all find their way and be successful at different things. For me, I learned that procrastination is horrible and to counteract it, it probably would have been helpful to set smaller due dates for myself before an entire project is due.

Although I find plastic pollution really interesting and a big problem in our world, if I could redo my 20 Time, I probably would have focused more on ways to promote time management as that is a larger skill that I need to work on and will be important for the future.

Reflex Lab

In this lab we had the opportunity to examine various types of reflexes such as the photopupillary reflex, the knee jerk reflex, and the blink reflex. A reflex is an action that takes place in response to internal signals or external signals from the environment and usually preformed without conscious thought.
To test the photopupillary reflex, one member in our group closed both of his eyes for two minutes and  we positioned a flashlight close to one of his eyes. From there we had him remove one of his hands quickly in order to measure the change in size of the pupil we uncovered compared to the one that was uncovered and not exposed to a lot of light. We observed that the less light that entered the eye, the wider the pupil was; and the more light that entered the eye, the smaller it was. I believe that humans have developed this reflex in order to help them adjust to new places where they might find food or take shelter and needed to have their eyes adjust to the changing brightness of the sun throughout the day so that they could see.
One thing that I didn't know before this lab was that the blink reflex is different from the photopupillary reflex. We got to test the blink reflex by holding plastic wrap in front of a persons face in our group and throwing a cotton ball at the plastic to see if they would blink or not. Every time that we tested this, we found that people blinked when they saw the cotton ball flying towards them. I believe that this is because people try to protect their eyes as much as possible so whenever they see something coming towards their face, the usually close their eyes to prevent damage towards their eyes.
In our next experiment our group tested the knee-jerk reflex by having a group member sit and gently have another team member hit a certain spot on their knee with a reflex hammer in order to text their muscle reflex where the leg kicks out automatically. I believe that humans have evolved this reflex because of their "fight or flight" response, and when part of the body is hit, then the body's reaction is to immediately tense up and prepare itself for either defense or offense.
One of the most memorable parts of our lab was when we tested how fast our reflexes were by having a partner drop a yardstick from the air and seeing how fast the other person could catch the end of it. In the second part of this experiment we tried the same thing as above, but now you had to text with one had and grab the yardstick with the other hand (see graphs below). When comparing the two measurements, I noticed that the reaction time was almost twice as fast in the original experiment without texting. Our entire class grouped our data together, and got similar results. Based on our data, (and other data from the scientific community) if you are texting while driving, it can slow your reflexes tremendously, and people can get seriously hurt with this slower reaction time.

Our Data:

(Without texting)                                    (While texting)

Class Data:
  

Sheep Brain Dissection

During our lab, we had the opportunity to open up a sheep's brain. First, we cut open the cerebrum longitudinally in order to see the different sections of the brain including the thalamus, optic nerve, medulla oblongata, the corpus callosum, etc. The different sections of the brain are labeled below with colored pins. Some of the printed colors of pins are crossed out and replaced with other colors due to the limited colors of pins available for our lab.



Furthermore we were able to see the difference between the white matter and the grey matter in the brain. Grey matter is darker than the white tissue and contains nerve cell bodies and dendrites which in turn help with functions like sensory perception (sight, smell) and memory. White matter contains myelinated nerve projections and carry nerve impulses throughout the brain with myelin acting as an insulator that speeds up the transmission of such messages.


Sheep's Brain

The Cerebrum, the largest part of the brain, encompasses the four lobes: frontal, parietal, occipital, and the temporal lobe. The cerebrum also helps control the voluntary functions of the body, perception, and helps process visual and auditory information, and other sensory input. The cerebellum, located at the back of the cerebrum, helps control muscle movement, balance, coordination, and speech. Lastly, the brain stem contains the medulla oblongata, pons, and the midbrain and controls the flow of messages between the brain and the rest of the body.


Sheep's Brain cut longitudinally




Longitudinal Cut of the Sheep's brain cut Laterally

Sheep's Eye Dissection

In this lab, we got to dissect a sheep's eye in order to examine its anatomy and physiology. One major difference I noticed as our group started opening up the eye was that the iris was oval-shaped and the pupil was lying on its side horizontally, while human eyes have round iris's and round pupils.

On the outside of the eye, extrinsic muscle bundles are found side by side with yellowish fat which helps protect the eye. The cornea is the cloudy, black-looking centerpiece of the eye, though it's clear and cloudy (not black) outside of the picture. Inside the eye, the eye's anatomy is arranged so that the cornea is the first thing that light hits as it enters the eye. Next, it is the pupil which is in the middle of the iris, then the lens is behind the pupil while the sclera surrounds the rest of the eye. The vitreous humor fills the inside of the eye so that everything is held in place. The retina is the yellow film-like layer (shown in the third picture below) that's located at the back of the eye. Behind this object, in order, there's the tapetum lucid, the choroid coat, and the optic nerve.

The physiology of the eye eye allows us to have our sense of vision, and our perception of light and dark. The cornea helps protect the eye from things such as dirt which is why it is located at the front of the eye instead of inside it or at the back of it. Behind the cornea, the pupil is the one opening in the eye which allows light to enter this item, and the lens behind the pupil helps bend the light to focus on objects that we can see. The Ciliary body holds the lens in place and the suspensory ligaments adjust it's size and therefore, focus. In between the lens and the retina is the vitreous humor which provides nutrients for the inside of the eye and maintains the eye's pressure. The images from the lens are then projected onto the retina, which converts them into signals that it sends to the brain via the optic nerve. The dark choroid coat behind the retina helps with this process by absorbing light so that it will not scatter around the eye.



(outside look at the sheep's eye)


Inside of the eye left, and the back of the
inside of the eye right showing the retina
on top, then the tapetum lucid, the choroid
coat, and behind that, the optic nerve.


(image of the lens, small white circle, and
the choroid coat (black) inside the eye)


(assembly of all the dissected parts of the eye,
excluding the fat)

Microbeads and the Great Pacific Garbage Patch

In the past couple of weeks I have been concentrating my research on the main products causing plastic pollution and solutions to fix them. In particular I was struck when I realized that the Great Pacific Garbage Patch was really a big swamp-like area of floating garbage instead of a solid land mass of trash as many people are led to believe. The main problem with plastic, as I mentioned before, is that as it photodegrades in the ocean, it only breaks down into smaller and smaller pieces leading to millions of tiny plastic particles floating around instead of one digger piece of plastic. These tiny particles of plastic can be found outnumbering zooplankton 6:1 in some parts of the Pacific Ocean around the Garbage Patch. Furthermore, more tiny particles of plastic called microbes, can be found pre-made in girls beauty products such as face wash. Once microbeads end up in the ocean they are eaten first by zooplankton and small fish due to their resemblance to fish eggs. As smaller fish are continuously eaten by larger fish, the plastic and toxins in the microbeads continue to bioaccumulate instead of disappearing. They can affect the entire food chain- including us when we eat seafood. Fortunately, President Barack Obama signed the Microbead Free Waters Act of 2015 to phase out the production of microbeads in beauty products by 2020.

In order to learn about the other items that were poluting our oceans and our beaches, I volunteered in a beach cleanup over the weekend to help the community. When I reached the beach, I was pleasantly surprised to note that there was an abundance of trash and recycling cans dotting the beach so that people had the opportunity to get rid of their waste in a sustainable and non-polluting way. While I did find some trash buried in the sand, overall, there was much less garbage than I expected.

I also took a trip down to the Monterey Bay Aquarium over the weekend in order to earn more about sustainable methods that help save energy and marine life along the coast. Examples of coastal life shown below.









As I walked through the exhibits, I realized that they had a section on plastic and the North Pacific Gyre.




(Plastic taken from the Gyre)

What I took from the exhibit was while plastic could be deadly and very harmful to marine life, it could also be very beautiful as well. If people take the time to recycle plastic, they can turn it into art like the jellyfish made out of bottles below.





Through this process so far I've learned to see the silver lining in every cloud because if society allows us to only focus on the cloud and the negatives, then we'll never be looking for the solutions. My greatest setback is time right now as I am putting together my final project. My research is as complete as it can be at this point and I just need to put it all together.

The Clay Brain

In this activity, our team assembled a brain out of different colors of play dough in order to illustrate the different parts of the brain. In our models, we tried to show not only the lobes, but the different glands, gyrus's, and sulcus's as well. For example, the lateral cerebral sulcus is located in between the frontal and temporal lobes, and the pineal gland (shown in pink in the first picture) is located in between the cerebellum, brainstem, thalamus, and cerebrum. The different parts of the brain are labeled on the cardboard next to their corresponding structure.



Left Hemisphere of the brain (view
along the Sagittal plane)


Right Cerebral Hemisphere (lateral
view)

Living Without Pieces of our Brain

A woman who had been having trouble with speech and balance throughout her life was discovered to be missing a cerebellum in her brain. So far only 9 people have been able to live without a cerebellum as most people without this part of the brain die in childhood. This woman discovered that she was missing a cerebellum at age 24. 

The cerebellum is an important part of our brain located underneath the right and left hemisphere. It contains about 50% of the brain's neurons even though it only makes up about 10% of the brain's total volume. The cerebellum is also in charge of controlling voluntary movements, balance, and is involved in speech. According to researchers, it appears that the woman's brain has worked to compensate for her missing cerebellum and she is experiencing less movement and speech impairment than they expected.

If the parietal lobe was missing in a person's brain the same way that the cerebellum in missing in this woman's brain, then that person would have trouble processing pressure, visualizing spaces, and understanding the spoken word. The right side of the parietal lobe integrates sensory information such as touch (mainly processed in the somatosensory cortex part of the lobe), spatial sense and navigation. A person may have trouble finding their way around, even in places that are familiar to them. They may also have trouble feeling temperature and pressure so it is important for people with damaged or missing parietal lobes to stay away from hot stoves since they may be damaging themselves without even knowing it. Several parts of the parietal lobe process language, so a person missing a parietal lobe may have trouble understanding what they and other people are saying. Other parts of the brain could take over the spacial sense, language, and feeling pressure, but while missing the parietal lobe a person will most likely to have a varying amounts of disabilities in these areas.

Chemicals in Plastic and Plans for the Future

As I've researched, I've become aware that not only is it the amount of plastic floating around in our world that is a problem, it's the type of plastic as well. Now many people ask why we are so concerned with plastic bottles other than when they pollute the environment by not being thrown away. Unfortunately, plastic bottles including renewable plastic water bottles, contain chemicals harmful to human health such as BPA, PET, etc. These chemicals are known to have adverse health effects on humans since they are proven and suspected carcinogens respectively and can increase a person's potential risk for cancer, impair their immune systems, etc. In fact many reusable bottles declaring themselves to be degradable and eco-friendly, actually break down into smaller plastic pieces and spread more chemicals and pieces of plastic into the environment.


(Example of a water bottle containing BPA)

Through this experience, I have learned that I like to learn about problems and how they have grown, but sometimes I can get overwhelmed just by how big they are and how much is already on my plate as well. To deal with this minor setback, I have started to learn how to pace myself more by setting small goals for myself by the end of each week. For example, this week, my goal is to have all the questions done for my interviews that I will be having with experts on the topic of plastic pollution in the ocean. 

I have also started brainstorming more ideas for projects that I can create out of plastic items that people would normally throw away. I have recently found a video that describes how people can make bags and purses out of candy wrappers and newspaper. This looks like an easy, fun project that will help people find a useful purpose for a plastic item that may come in abundance. Especially around holidays such as Halloween.

Here's an example on what one of these bags would look like:

To apply my ideas to this community, I'm going to go around to different shops downtown over break and find out which plastic items seem most prevalent in our community. From there, I will research methods on how to reduce these types of plastics and replace them with more sustainable, eco-friendly options.

Unit 7 Reflection

In this unit, we talked about the function of the numerous muscles that we have, how they work together to create motion, and why the location of these muscles are so important for their function. To demonstrate this process we created videos of the process of motion at the intracellular level. Here is the video. This chemical process allows our muscles to flex, extend, adduct, abduct, etc.

As we studied different muscles, I learned that there are actually three main types of muscle twitch fibers. Slow twitch fibers are slow oxidative, dependent on blood for oxygen and nutrients, and generally are best suited for long duration of exercise. Fast Twitch A fibers have moderately high oxidative capacity, high glycogen stores, and are relatively fatigue-resistant. This shows us that these muscles are best suited for short-term exercises such as sprinting. Fast Twitch B fibers are also mainly used for exercises such as sprinting, but unlike the Fast Twitch A fibers, they are mostly anaerobic, have low blood flow capacity, and fatigue quickly.

Not only did our class talk about the process of muscle movement, but how external and internal forces affect these muscles in the form of performance enhancements. My group talked about aging. While most people do not consider aging a performance enhancement, when people continue to improve each year until they reach a certain limit and their body starts deteriorating. However, before that, the body is generally constantly improving. Here is a satirical ad for this particular performance enhancement:




 We did a lab where we dissected a chicken and labeled the different muscles that we saw there. This lab reminded me of a lab that we did earlier in the year when we dissected a sheep's heart. In the sheep heart dissection, we cut into the heart in order to find and understand the function of structures that pumped the heart. Both labs left me with an increased understanding of the anatomical positions of different structures within the body and a better knowledge of why the structure and location of different organs and cells in the body are so essential to their function.

New Years Goals Check-in:

I would like to modify my goals from New Years since I haven't been keeping up with them as much as I would like and instead of doing the exercises in the mornings, and running on the weekend, I would like to start jump roping everyday after school for 10 minutes. This way I will still be keeping my body in good shape and it will be easier for me to develop an exercise routine since in the morning, I am often too tired to do any exercise. I would also like to renew my plan for the second goal that I had which is to study a little bit for anatomy everyday. I haven't been keeping up with this goal as much as I would like and think it would be beneficial to my grades to continue this goal.

Preformance Satirical Advertisement: Aging

Preformance enhancements are mainly considered to be steroids or other drugs, but in truth, simple, mundane items such as coffee can be considered as performance enhancers. Performance enhancing substances are manufactured products that are meant for oral ingestion, intransal application, or the inhibition of compounds that contain a stimulant, or any substance other than an essential vitamin or mineral, and is intended to help an athlete's performance. However, performance substances like steroids are dangerous not only to one's physical health, but to one's mental health as well. It can cause "Roid Rage" where severe, aggressive behavior can result in violence; mood swings, anxiety, and paranoia among many other psychological health risks. Physically, it can also alter both female and male bodies by giving people characteristics of the opposite gender such as facial hair in females and enlarged breasts in males. Other than that, both males and females are at a higher risk for ligament and tendon injuries, high blood pressure, acne, liver damage, etc.

Not all performance enhancers are steroids though, and with moderation, can be healthy for the body. For example, age, strength training, and massages are all healthier options than steroids and can benefit the body naturally rather than artificially. Unfortunately, old age cannot be prevented and has many health risks just like steroids such as the weakening grip of the hands, loss of neurons in the brain as they die off, difficulty walking, etc. These risks are emphasized in the ad above. However, if people are actively taking care of their bodies through exercise and eating healthy, then they can slow the effects of old age and keep away disease.

Chicken Dissection Analysis

The chicken dissection lab is a good way to compare the muscles of chickens to the muscles in humans. Both sets of muscles are similar in many ways so they are able to be easily compared. In this lab, we skinned the chicken and cut into several of the major muscles in order to both view their location and functions relative to the areas they controlled. In the muscular system, bones help provide a basic structure that muscles can attach to and move. Tendons help attach the muscles to bones so that muscles can function. For example, the quadriceps (muscles) work to move the femur bones in our legs. This movement is only possible because of the patellar tendon attaching the quadriceps muscle to the femur in the first place.
When comparing the origin and the insertion ends of tendons, one finds that the origin end of the tendon is more taunt than the insertion end since it is where the muscle is being secured to the bone. The insertion end is more flexible since it contracts along with the muscles when the origin is secure.

3 examples compare/ contrast chicken vs. human muscles
1. Quadriceps femoris: The quadriceps femoris help extend the flexors of the knee joint which in turn help humans run, jump, and squat. In chickens, the quadriceps femoris also helps to extend the thigh as well as bring the thigh backwards.
2. Gastrocnemius: This muscle is found on the dorsal and medial sides of the drumstick in chickens. It has two points of origins that are attached to the Achilles tendon that is located around the hock in chickens, and the heel in humans. In both cases, it helps extend the foot and flexes the lower leg and is used in standing on toes. In chickens, this muscle would probably be less developed since chickens, especially genetically modified ones, are often found sitting down or roosting instead of walking around.
3. Deltoid: The deltoid muscle helps move the scapulae in the shoulders in humans. In chickens, the deltoid muscle helps to move the shoulder and to rotate the chicken's wings.







(anterior side lower leg)


(posterior side leg)


(wing/ arm flexed)




(shoulder muscles, posterior side)


(wing/ arm extended)

Research and Reflections: 20 Time Blog Post #2

It's very debatable as to whom discovered the first synthetic plastic. Some say it was first discovered by Englishman Alexander Parkes while he was looking for building materials that could be easily molded. Others state that the first synthetic polymer was invented by American John Wesley Hyatt in 1869 in order to provide a substitute for ivory. Nevertheless, plastic was invented, and what at first seemed like a helpful substitute for building materials, has become a worldwide problem. At first, plastic products were limited to decorative items such as the comb and other small accessories. 

1.     http://www.cpr-savers.com/5-Plastic-Comb_p_3681.html

This was in part due to the labor-intensive process of making these items. However, by the 1940s, machines were developed that allowed business owners to mass-produce plastic-made items and made them cheaper to buy. As a result the plastic industry boomed, as did the amount of plastic waste. As the EPA reports, "In 2013, Americans generated about 254 million tons of trash and recycled and composted about 87 million tons of this material, equivalent to a 34.3 percent recycling rate. On average, we recycled and composted 1.51 pounds of our individual waste generation of 4.40 pounds per person per day" (https://www3.epa.gov/epawaste/nonhaz/municipal/). The rest of the garbage that we throw away (which is over 60% of our garbage) if placed in landfills or floats out to the ocean.

Through this process so far, I have learned that I know more about the negative effects of plastic pollution in the ocean and how it affects sea creatures, and I find myself gravitating more towards that type of research than I am knowledgable on plastic pollution on land, so I might have to do some additional research on that side of the issue to make sure I am representing both sides fairly and proportionately to the problem.

The one setback I encountered was while I was researching days to attend beach cleanups, I found a couple on days I know I cannot attend, but hopefully with more research, I will be able to attend one in the future before this project is over. It's also a little discouraging at times to see the extent of the problem of plastic pollution, and how much work has to be done, but hopefully if I put more research into the problem and educate others about it, then plastic pollution in our society will slowly start to get better.

The next step for me is to gain more information by researching some more on line and by crafting questions for interviews. That way I can see how aware people in this community are aware of the plastic problem and what they are doing to fix it or decrease the amount of plastic they use. I could also maybe create a poll online and see what the most common plastic items people are using in their households that they throw away and try to address the issue of reducing those items first. At school, I can educate the people in our class by showing them the interviews and statistics on plastic abuse in both the community, the US, and the world.