Cell's R Us Blog Post

    In our Honors Biology class we were each assigned an organelle of a cell to create a blown up replica of it for a giant cell created by our teacher, Mrs. Lawrence.  Sitting inside the giant cell that used to be our classroom we provided descriptions of the organelles we all recreated.  I created a 180 by 260 centimeter Central Vacuole.  It stores water and other materials the cell needs.
   Since the Central Vacuole is only found in plant cells I am assuming that the cell Mrs. Lawrence made was a plant cell.
   My organelle, the Central Vacuole was by far the largest, while the ribosomes were the smallest.
   If you were to look at a cell under a microscope you probably wouldn't have any trouble seeing the Central Vacuole!
I was very surprised by how small the other vacuoles were compared to the Central Vacuole!  Being relatively similar to each other, I had assumed that the other vacuoles would be almost as big as the Central Vacuole.




Here is a picture of a Central Vacuole:

Enzyme Lab Reflection

In our Honors Biology class we were divided into groups of three and given a question we had to use an experiment created by our group to answer. My group consisted of me, Thomas, and Simi. Our question was, "Can enzymes be reused?" Knowing that pouring hydrogen peroxide on a potato would cause a chemical reaction we devised a plan. We put three of the same size cubed potato in two different test tubes. We then proceeded to pour a constant amount of 10 ml's into each tube. After sixty seconds had gone by we recorded our results by measuring the amount of foam in each tube. After doing this we emptied the tubes of all hydrogen peroxide, leaving the potato in the tubes. We then repeated the experiment three times and recorded the amount of foam for each test tube. The first time through the amount of foam in both tubes was around two centimeters. The second time the amount of foam greatly decreased to about 0.5 centimeters. The third and final time through the amount of foam was around 0.2 centimeters. Judging by our results, our group made the conclusion that while enzymes can be reused, they do not work as efficiently in producing a chemical reaction.

Plot Reflection

Our Biology class was recently given the task of recording data of a plot of land in the woods over the next school year. There are three other members in my group, the Biobunnies. Ana De las Cruz is our Arborist, she records the length and circumference of all trees on our plot. Our naturalist, Thomas Watts records all non tree related objects in our plot, such as mushrooms, flowers, acorns, etc. Our leader, Ali Fazal does a great job of delegating duties and making sure that everyone is getting their job done! I am the photographer, I help give our readers, classmates, and professor an idea of the growth happening in our plot through pictures I take each month. Our plot is located off the trail right infront of a small pond. So far, we've only had one plot visit day. On this day I spent most of my time taking pictures in different angles and helping Ana record the data of our trees. Most of our trees were under five feet. I saw many similarities regarding height, circumference, and leaf type. We have a lot of brown, dry, dead leaves covering the ground of our plot. I can't wait to see how our plot will develop and change over the course of the next few months! If you would like to watch our plot through pictures and other member's blogs click on this link to our wikispaces page!