Tuesday, March 25, 2014

POWER POINT: HUMAN HEREDITY


*****NOTE: POST REVISED*****






The Power Point Notes for Human Heredity are available here.


The STUDY SESSION for the next Unit Test is after-school on Tuesday, April 1st. The next Unit Test is Wednesday, April 2nd.


STUDENTS: Please remember that you have a major 100-point project on Human Genetic Disorders DUE on Thursday, April 3rd. This is a GROUP project, and April 3rd is the only day given in class for you to work on it.   Thus, the bulk of the work needs to be completed before the date!



NO POSTER PROJECT WILL BE ACCEPTED AFTER FRIDAY, April 4th.  















Friday, March 14, 2014

POWER POINT: MUTATIONS!






A PDF of the Lecture Guide based upon the Power Point is available here.



The video viewed in class, and thus the handout based on it, can be viewed on-line here:



There is an entire PBS-sponsored web site to accompany this program. It's truly excellent, but at two hours long, I can not show the entire program within a regular class.

I can, however, assign a segment of it along with Section 14.3 of our text to help students understand the material and complete the worksheet. So, read that section, watch video segments 4-8 and complete your work, students!

Wednesday, March 12, 2014

NEW SYLLABUS, MUTATIONS VIDEO

Students, here is the new syllabus for Unit 8.   We will be covering the last two sections of Chapter 12, and all of Chapters 13 and 14. 



The third semester ends on Friday, September 21st.

The following day, students who are egregiously failing will be expected to attend Saturday School, as previously assigned, on the morning of September 22nd.   

Students who are assigned Saturday School and fail to attend without a parent contact will not be allowed to come back to class without a parent conference.

Finally, here is the video shown in class on Tuesday, March 11th, concerning mutations.   Note the connection between mutations and...evolution!


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Monday, March 3, 2014

VIDEO: THE ACTION POTENTIAL

Students: you should receive a Study Guide either today or tomorrow.   The above topic, covered on pages 898-900 of your text, is one of the more challenging topics in the course.  

To assist with your understanding for Wednesday's test, here is a video, shown in class, that summarizes the changes:





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: