SUMMER SCHOOL BIOLOGY, DAYS 9-10

The Power Point summarizing the Cell Cycle, based on the first two sections of Chapter 10, is available here:

These notes were given Monday in both the morning and afternoon sessions. These Power Point notes are available for download here.

Students are allowed to use their composition books on the day of the final, but they must be submitted in the final 20 minutes of instruction.  Students should strive to complete their notes, with questions and comments in the margins, underlining and/or highlighting of major points, color in any drawings or diagrams, etc.   This provides evidence that students both reviewed and personalized their notes.  

Students who provide this evidence will earn points on the final day of instruction, students who fail to do so will lose points.

BIOLOGY SUMMER SCHOOL, DAYS 7 and 8

This Power Point contains an outline of photosynthesis, relating it to the 'Great Circle' of chemical reactions that all living things participate it (autotrophs and heterotrophs!), reactions which recycle the raw materials that life requires. Much of this material is covered in the first two sections of Chapter 8 in the Dragonfly Book.

The Power Point for Photosynthesis, Part I, is available here.

A PDF file of the Lecture Guide based on that Power Point can be downloaded here.

Cellular Respiration: This Power Point contains information about cellular respiration, including glycolysis (which takes place in the cytoplasm) and the Krebs Cycle (which takes place in the matrix of the mitochondria). The electrons produced in the Krebs Cycle move through the inner membrane, or cristae, of the mitochondria. The motion of these negatively-charged particles attracts protons (H+), and eventually a high concentration of protons within the membrane is available to drive 'proton pumps' that power an enzyme, ATP synthase, leading to the production of more ATP:

You can download the actual Power Point here.

BIOLOGY, SUMMER SCHOOL, DAY 6

The following post contains a link to the latest set of Cornell Notes in Mr. Hatfield's classes.  These include the structure and function of the neuron, the type of cell that makes up most of the tissues in the nervous system.

Here are the notes on neuron structure and function.    Today's class built on yesterday's notes on cells and their organelles. 

The morning session focused on cell membrane structure and function, with special attention to how the neuron uses its membrane to create a difference in electrical potential, which becomes the basis of the nerve impulse.   At the end of class, students were shown a 20-minute video which describes some of the events that take place in the development of a human infant's brain.   A worksheet based on this video was distributed in class.

Here is that video, broken into a pair of segments:





Students who are interested in watching other videos in this series can find them on the following YouTube channel: 

https://www.youtube.com/user/flixwest?feature=watch



And, just in case you lose the worksheet given in class, a PDF file copy is available HERE.


Students: The ACTION POTENTIAL, covered on pages 898-900 of your text, is one of the more challenging topics in the course, but a very effective way of illustrating aspects of cell membrane function.

To assist with your understanding for Wednesday's class, here is a video, shown in class, that summarizes the events in a single action potential:




Notice that the resting potential is negative (-70mv) while the action potential is positive (+40mv).

Notice that the change in potential is generated by the motion of positively-charged sodium (Na+) and potassium (K+) ions across the axon membrane.

Before the nerve fires, sodium is in high concentration OUTSIDE the axon membrane, while potassium is in high concentration WITHIN the membrane.  In the video, the sodium channel is shown in green while the potassium channel is shown in blue.   There are also 'leak' channels shown in purple.

The graph shown in the video is commonly used in college-level courses to convey a great deal of information about the various stages of the action potential (resting potential, depolarization, repolarization, hyperpolarization, etc.) and uses significant vocabulary and concepts not found in your text.   You will not be responsible for knowing the graph, but as it may help you to understand the concepts behind the video, I enclose a version of that graph here:  

BIOLOGY, SUMMER SCHOOL, DAY 5

Here's the link you need to download this Power Point, to use to complete your notes or the Lecture Guide based upon it.

You can get the Power Point for 'The Fluid Mosaic Model of the Cell Membrane" here. There are drawings in Chapter 7 of your text, particularly the one on pg. 182, that would be good for students to have completed in their notes. Mr. Hatfield, as always, recommends that students use colored pencils to improve their drawings.

BIOLOGY SUMMER SCHOOL, DAY 4

Here is the Power Point on 'The Chemistry of Life.' Students received a Lecture Guide based on these notes during Friday's class.  It is due at the beginning of class on Monday.   They should use that Guide to compare the notes in their composition books with the Power Point notes.

BIOLOGY, SUMMER SCHOOL, DAY 2-3

The following episode of Carl Sagan's Cosmos, 'The Lives of the Stars', forms the basis of a student homework assignment:

COSMO

 Here are the notes on 'Atoms and Molecules.'

***UPDATE****

BIOLOGY SUMMER SCHOOL, DAY 1

Summer School Biology students today viewed a 36-minute IMAX video in class and completing a worksheet based on part of the video. The film, 'Cosmic Voyage', was made in 1996 for the Smithsonian Institute and was clearly inspired by a classic science education film called 'Powers of Ten', originally produced in 1977 by the husband-and-wife team of Rae and Charles Eames.

'Cosmic Voyage' approaches the idea of using the metric system, which is based on powers of ten, to explore the question: "What is really large, and really small?" The film first zooms out from an acrobat's ring in St. Mark's Square in Venice, the place where Galileo first trained his telescope on the heavens.


Through 23 powers of ten, we leave first the Earth, then our solar system, then the Milky Way Galaxy behind, until we reach the limit of modern astronomy, where we can see images from about 13 billion years past.


Reversing course, the video then zooms in on drop of water in the Dutch town of Delft, where Antonie Van Leuuwenhoek first trained his early microscope to discover the hidden world of microbes.



As we zoom in on a paramecium, we penetrate its cell nucleus, then zoom in on a molecule of DNA.


Within that molecule is a carbon atom, and the world within that atom is mostly empty space! Within the atom, the atomic nucleus contains virtually all of an atom's mass, made of particles called protons and neutrons. These, in turn, are formed from even smaller particles called quarks.

The film continues with a discussion of the search for a fundamental theory in physics through the use of particle accelerators like Fermilab, along with an overview of the likely "recent" events that led to our sun, our solar system, the Earth and life itself.

Here, presented on YouTube, is the first segment (Chapter 1) of the film who wish to review the material or share it with others. As the narrator (Morgan Freeman) intones, 'we are all travelers on a voyage of discovery!' Chapter 2, Chapter 3 and Chapter 4 can be assessed at YouTube directly or by clicking on the hyperlinks.

Meanwhile...

Students! Here is the Power Point for the notes on 'The Nature of Science'. You will receive a Lecture Guide based on these Notes sometime this week! If you don't have Power Point on your computer, don't worry . . . you can download a free program, Power Point Viewer, to see the notes!

KEEP IN MIND...this summer, in Mr. Hatfield's Classes, we will try to reduce the amount of class time spent taking notes. There are dozens of standards to cover, hundreds of vocabulary terms and other items to master. We need to decrease the amount of time spent in lecture so students can have more time to do activities. Remember: we want to engage as many different parts of the brain as possible, and to do that, we need to have more time to do things other than notes.

At the same time, your Cornell Notes must be complete (all the notes, original questions and comments in the margins, your name/date/course on every page, and summaries of major sections of notes). Therefore, it is the student's responsibility to download and complete any notes that they were not able to finish in class!!

THE NATURE OF SCIENCE

VIDEO: "THE MIND'S BIG BANG"

Students previously watched this episode from PBS's 'Evolution' series in class.   I am making available on-line for students to watch again, if needed:

 
The video worksheet for "The Mind's Big Bang" is available HERE.

POWER POINT: BEYOND DARWIN

Here's a novel thought: instead of being taught as mindless, slavish dogma, evolutionary biologists have been busy in the last 150 years. They've been testing, retesting, modifying and in some cases rejecting aspects of Darwin's theory. This Power Point explains some of the major innovations, which (by the way) are all in the textbook:


Students who need to download the Power Point to complete their notes, and the Lecture Guide based on it, can do so here.

Students must finish these notes right away by completing the Lecture Guide, which has already been given (and partially completed) in class yesterday.   The Lecture Guide will be collected on the day of your final, Biology students, and treated as part of your notes.  Make sure it is completed!

You can get the Power Point by clicking here!

ALSO....Due to Mr. Hatfield's FTA commitments, there will be no Study Session for the Final.   A Study Guide will be available on Thursday, June 5th.  The most important obligation for all students, however, is the ESSAY.   The 2nd Draft is due TODAY, Monday, June 2nd.   The Final Draft is due Monday, June 9th.