Final 20 time post

After the many weeks we had to work on our 20 time project here is the link to my final product: Served to Scale. I posted two recipes to my blog post and I am very proud of both of them. One of the recipes is about whole -wheat banana bread and the other was my berry smoothie recipe.  I am also a photographer so I took all of the pictures on my blog.
I think the TED talk I had to do in front of the class went well. Our teacher wasn't in class because his wife gave birth (congrats Mr.Orre!). Unfortunately, that means that I don't have access to the video of my TED talk.
I was a little nervous when I was presenting so I finished a little earlier than expected, but I was still within the 4-5 min time range. If I had to do anything differently I would slow down a little while I was talking. Preparing for the TED talk was a little tricky for me. It was difficult to memorize my presentation, but I was eventually able to do it. Occasionally when I was timing my presentation I kept going over 5 minutes; that was frustrating because I still had more I wanted to say. To fix the issue, I cut out some of the explanations about my product and focused more on the process of my project. During my talk I also don't think I showed my "Works Cited" page to the class. Here is the link to my presentation for my TED talk.
I brought samples of my whole-wheat banana bread and everyone said they really liked it. Some people even came back for seconds! The substitute, Ms.Garcia, also said she loved my presentation. Overall, I think my TED talk went really well!
I really enjoyed listening to other presentations as well. It was fun to see what topics they chose and how they ended up doing/ why they ended up not doing their project.

Reflex lab

In this lab we experimented with different reflexes. In our lecture we learned that with reflexes, nerve impulses do not go to the brain.

For the photopupillary reflex we expected the dilated pupil to shrink in size when exposed to slight. We did not see a change in size and that is probably because I did not cover my eye long enough for it to dilate. I think humans developed this reflex of a dilating and shrinking pupil so they can see when it´s dark or light outside.

The Knee-jerk reflex is when the leg kicks as it is tapped below the knee. When I tapped below my lab partner´s knee, his leg kicked outwards. This proves the knee-jerk reflex because when tapping below the knee causes the thigh muscle to stretch. After he exercised, the reflex was less vigorous. This is probably because his muscles were fatigued.

In the blink reflex my lab partner held a transparent piece of saran rap in front of his face while I threw a cotton ball at him. He blinking, therefore confirming the blink reflex. I think humans have this reflex to protect their eyes from harm.

The Babinski´s sign test was a little confusing but the reflex was testing nerve damage. According to Babinski´s sign, I do not have nerve damage. When a pen was dragged along the sole of my foot up towards my big toe, my foot flexed. Since I did not show Babinski´s sign, I do not have nerve damage.

Finally, we tested reaction time. We did two experiments; in the first one we made sure the person was paying attention and in the second experiment the person was texting. Our reaction rates were faster when we were not texting. When I was not texting, my reaction time was 0.35 sec. When I was texting, my reaction time was 0.5 sec. This shows that it is very dangerous to text and drive because our reaction times are slower when we are texting.

20 Time Overall Reflection

Through out this project I have been trying to perfect my mom´s banana bread recipe. I am actually not done with this project because I will be working on it at home this week.

I challenged myself a lot in the sense that I do not have much baking experience. 

I chose this challenge to show people, who have misconceptions on eating healthy, that they don´t have to eat less or cut out their favorite foods from their diet in order to be healthier. By changing ingredients in recipes, people can eat their favorite foods while improving their health at the same time. My overall goal was to educate more people about the ingredients that go into their food.

My plan to achieve my goal was to make a food blog and post recipes that I had changed on that blog. 

I originally thought that I would post at least 4 recipes on my blog, but I am struggling to even finish 1 at the quality I want it to be at. It took me a lot longer to research than I thought. I did, however, do a good amount of research that I am excited to share. I am honestly just getting started with this challenge. I hope to keep continuing this challenge. 

I learned a lot during this project. I learned about the benefits of whole wheat and I will definitely be eating more whole wheat in the future. 

If I had a chance to do this project again, I would chose a project that would built upon a skill I already have. Doing a project centered around baking, something I do not know that much about, is difficult. 

Brain Map

An interactive infographic by Open Colleges
For homework we had to go through this website that taught us various things about the brain.

There are ways we can improve the way we learn based on the physiology of our brain. For example the exercising, eating a healthy diet and socializing will make a positive impact on our synapses. Also, the more regions of our brain we use while learning, the better we will learn the material (this is called multi-sensory learning which is associated with our dendrites). Using this information, I can definitely make changes in the way I study. If I  highlight sentences in different colors, making sure the colors are significant, it will activate the visual cortex. If I visualize performing a lab for chemistry to improve my understanding of the lab, it will activate the occipital lobe. Making up mnemonics will also further my learning. I will also stop multi-tasking (associated with the prefrontal cortex) because multitasking reduces the quality of all the tasks being done.

Here are the answers to the questions assigned to us:

The frontal lobes control personality, languages, judgements and impulses. Selective attention refers to how selective you are at choosing what you remember and what unimportant things you do not need to learn. The more you know how to prioritize the information you are learning about and what you pick and choose to remember dictates how smart you are. The frontal lobe is the last part of your brain to develop and the first to deteriorate. To prevent it from deteriorating you need to be focused in your day to day activities and not zone out. You also need to stop memorizing concepts and actually learn in a more conceptual way. This will help you engage with the material a little better.

The neocortex is responsible for motor skills, senses, and spatial awareness.

The prefrontal cortex sorts thoughts and actions and aligns them with your goals. This part of the brain is also responsible for how we behave in social situations. Multitasking does not exist and what we call multitasking is just switching back and forth on tasks really fast. This decreases the quality of both tasks.

Broca’s area is associated with speech and language development. One interesting fact about this region is tongue twisters may improve the functioning of Broca’s area.

The visual cortex helps differentiate colors and faces.

The occipital lobe is associated with imagination and memories. If the occipital lobe gets damaged, it could cause partial or complete blindness. And the occipital lobe also allows us to improve our skills on a task by repeatedly visualizing doing the task.

If your temporal lobes were damaged, you would have no long term memory and you would not be able to read or write much less remember the alphabet.

Your “fast brain” is your eye fields and it picks up information faster than any other part of the brain.

Exercise, a healthy diet and socialize to have a positive effect on your life and would influence your synapses.

Dendrites bring information to cell bodies. Multi-sensory or multi-modal learning is learning that engages multiple parts of your brain and it will help retain information easier. Big picture thinking helps learning by putting learning in context and mnemonics help people learn by connecting learning to something personal.

A neurotransmitter I think is very important is glutamate. Glutamate strengthens synapses and it plays a very important role in the way we learn!

The corpus callosum connects the left and right hemisphere of the brain. It also deals with oral language, handwriting, reading. Students who practice music frequently have an increase in their corpus callosum!

The thalamus is important because it connects our senses to our cerebral cortex.

Brain dissection

Today in class we dissected a sheep´s brain. We started by observing the outside of the brain and then made our first cut. We made a longitudinal cut first and made a horizontal cut latter just to see the difference between white and grey matter. Here are some pictures/ explanations of this lab.

The Cerebrum's function is to interpret sensory and neural functions relating to voluntary movements.

The cerebellum regulates muscle activity.

The brainstem connects signals from the body and the brain. 

The function of the myelin in a neuron is that it helps the signal flow and it is wrapped around the axon. 

The thalamus helps regulate sleep and sensory input while the hypothalamus maintains homeostasis. 

The optic nerve connects images from the retina to the brain.

The medula oblongata regulates breathing, digestion, sneezing, swallowing, and other vital functions.

Pons is the bridge between the cerebrum and the cerebellum.

The midbrain regulates temperature, vision, hearing, and motor control.

The corpus callousum is the bridge between the right and left hemisphere of the brain. 

Eye dissection lab

In our class we dissected a sheep's eye. In the first picture to the left, you can see the external eye. In the middle of the eye is the cornea (which  is a greyish color).  The cornea's function is to protect the eye and it is the first entry point of light. Surrounding the cornea is the sclera which is referred to as "the whites of our eyes". The sclera's function is to protect because it is very tough. On the right of the picture you can see the fatty tissue that we have taken off the eye already.

Here is a picture of the back of the eye. The probe is pointing at the optic nerve. The function of the optic nerve is to transfer signals from the eyes to the brain.

 Next we cut open the eye. In this picture, you can see the lens in the middle of the eye and it is surrounded by aqueous humor. It provides the eye with nutrition and it maintains the internal pressure in the eye.











The lens (pictured below)'s function is to focus on objects to provide the retina with a clear image.

The black/grey ciliary body surrounds the pupil and iris. The function of the ciliary body is to produce aqueous humor fluid. It also keeps the lens in place.

The pupil's function is to let light enter the eye. The iris controls how much light is entering the eye.

This is a picture of the vitreous humor that seeped out of the eye during the dissection. It fills the space behind the lens and it's function is to help the eye maintain its shape.

In this last picture, you can see the tapetum lucid which is a reflective coating that helps the sheep have good night vision. The scalpel in this picture is pointing to the optic disc. The optic disc is where the nerves attach to the optic nerve.

My banana bread recipe

I just got my mom´s banana recipe and I am starting to figure out how much whole wheat flour to substitute in for all purpose flour. According to this website, if you substitute 3/4 cups whole wheat for every cup of all purpose flour it should work out. I might also test out how substituting 1 cup of whole wheat to every cup all purpose flour would affect the recipe. My mom also said in her recipe that you could, optionally, substitute brown sugar for white sugar. I´m debating whether or not to include the effects of that change in my blog post. If I were to mention substituting brown sugar in, I would have to do more research. Researching would take extra time and I would not have enough time to do a second recipe if I wanted to.However, I am leaning towards doing the extra research.