5 Pillars of Health

I think, as of now, I am the strongest in the sleep category because I make sure I get at least 8 hours of sleep on 6/7 nights of the week. I need to improve my health in the stress and exercise category because I have barely enough time to exercise anymore (if I want 8 hours of sleep) and my stress is getting harder to manage with junior year. I would like to learn how to balance all 5 pillars of health with school because it seems close to impossible. 

Unit 1 Reflection

Unit one was about the basics of human anatomy and physiology. We learned how to identify the location of something on a human, in the anatomical position, using anatomical terms. Some of the anatomical terms that I did not know before this class include proximal, distal, and transverse. The next thing we learned was about the four macromolecules; proteins, lipids, carbohydrates, and nucleic acids; and their function and monomers (what they are made of). After that, we learned about specific tissues and the cells that form them. The four types of tissues we learned about were epithelial tissue, connective tissue, muscle tissue, and nervous tissue. The essential concept for this unit is that the structure of cells, tissues, and organs are built to serve certain functions.


 I used an analogy this unit that helped me relate back to the essential concept mentioned above (how something's structure helps it to perform a specialized function). My analogy was about a toy and how it had different parts that each made up a certain, yet essential, part of the toy car. This is true for cells, in various tissues, as well. Many cells are look different, and their differences define their purpose as a cell.


One thing that is still confusing for me is how to identify tissues just by looking at a picture of it. Sometimes it is really hard to tell based on just a picture. For the next unit, I will improve by studying more before a test and asking any questions I have during tutorial.

Tissue Lab

In today's lab, we viewed various tissues under the microscopes. Some of the tissues were harder to draw than others, because every tissue looked a little different, or had a different shape. Every tissue has a different anatomy which helps them perform a different function. For example, the blood tissue and bone tissue shown below look completely different. Relating back to my cell specialization post about blood cells, blood cells are built smaller, which enables them to travel through veins and arteries to deliver materials to and from cells. The bone tissue, on the other hand, looks rigid. According to our class lecture notes, bones are a type of connective tissue which support the body. Thus the rigid anatomy of the tissue supports its function.

red and white blood cells

osteon (bone tissue)