Ecological Succession... What happens when a landscape is drastically altered? Maybe a wildfire wipes out an entire forest... maybe a volcanic eruption like Mount St. Helen's completely decimates an area of ecological balance. Will life ever return? How long does this process take? Today, we looked closer at the process of Ecological Succession in disturbed communities. Fortunately for us, plants are extremely resilient and will almost always return to an extremely disturbed environment. The type and severity of disturbance, however, will greatly impact the pace in which life returns to the area. The quickest and most responsive return of living species follows the process of Secondary Ecological Succession. This typically occurs in response to a disturbance that alters many, but not all of the vegetation. A great example of this is a wildfire!
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What happens if we drastically alter one of these perfectly functioning biomes? May 18, 1980 - The Eruption of Mount St. Helens "The eruption of Mount St. Helens in Washington State on May 18, 1980, is certain to be remembered as one of the most significant geologic events in the United States of the 20th century. The explosion, on May 18, was initiated by an earthquake and rockslide involving one-half cubic mile of rock. As the summit and north slope slid off the volcano that morning, pressure was released inside the volcano - where super hot liquid water immediately flashed to steam. The northward-directed steam explosion released energy equivalent to 20 million tons of TNT, which toppled 150 square miles of forest in six minutes. In Spirit lake, north of the volcano, an enormous water wave, initiated by one-eighth cubic mile of rockslide debris, stripped trees from slopes as high as 850 feet above the pre-eruption water level. The total energy output, on May 18, was equivalent to 400 million tons of TNT - approximately 20,000 Hiroshima-size atomic bombs." - http://www.icr.org/article/mt-st-helens-catastrophism/ Something to think about... How long will it take for the vegetation to return to this area? What vegetation will begin to fill in first? Which vegetation will fill in last? At what point will we see animals again?
TED Talk by Ed Yong - Suicidal Crickets, Zombie Roaches, and other Parasitic Tales... Earth Day 2014! Today is a special day for our planet... many people today will begin to see the change they can make to not only our local communities and ecosystem, but the larger biosphere as a whole. Volunteers around the world will increase their recycling efforts, plant trees, and educate people on their individual human impact on the environment. As part of our unit on Evolution and leading into our next unit covering Ecology, we listened to a TED Talk by George Monbiot titled "For more wonder, rewild the world". His take on rewilding certainly brings to light many conversations about not only the human impact on the environment, but also the many species that inhabit our planet. In his talk, he discusses the impact of the wolves in Yellowstone National Park as well as the whales in the ocean. Their impact as a species is tremendous in maintaining a balanced ecosystem! As part of Earth Day, our classes took advantage of NASA's #GlobalSelfie request and went outside to snap a picture and soak up some Vitamin D! For more information about Earth Day - check out this history! The History of Earth Day One last thing, our planet is pretty awesome....... UPDATE - STUDY GUIDE POSTED AT BOTTOM NOVA - Cracking Your Genetic Code If you could create a Utopia, what would it look like? How would people interact? Would there be a political structure? What about societal classes? Often times, when young students are asked to create their Utopia, they limit themselves to the geographical landscape and societal interactions or economy. Often overlooked,however, is medicine - would there be diseases? Would cancer still be as prevalent as it is in our society? What about other genetic disorders? Please watch the following brief clip from a 1997 movie titled GATTACA... The future of genetic research is an extremely interesting, yet extremely slippery slope. The legal and ethical discussions that are sure to unfold over the next 50-100 years will be extremely interesting. Just because science has the ability to do something, should it? For example - what if we could create the "perfect" human as alluded to in the scene from GATTACA... Is it ethical to pre-create someone through predetermined and preselected genetics? As we continue through Unit 7 - Genetics, we had discussions as we watched a NOVA special titled "Cracking Your Genetic Code". This documentary is extremely interesting and brings to light many positive and negative aspects of genetic research ranging from early detection of genetic disorders to helping find advanced treatment options for cancer. Your Unit 7 Celebration of Learning will be on Monday, April 5th! Please take advantage of the many resources available to you to best prepare for this assessment Also, use the information in the Extra Help tab to help aid in your studying! Unit 7 Presentation Slides (Click to view) Below are a couple extra practice worksheets that you can try as well...
Welcome back from Spring Break! When we left for break, we had finished discussing monohybrid cross punnett squares... there we were looking at one specific trait. Now, we will begin to dive into dihybrid cross punnet squares. What genotypes and phenotypes are possible when we begin to look at multiple alleles? HW: Please read 10.3-10.5 and look over questions 5, 10, 11, 14, and 18 from the Chapter Summary Bozeman Science - Beginners Guide to Punnet Squares (click to view video)
What is an allele? How can they be passed on to future generations?
Also, for those that enjoyed today's video over pollinators - see the link below!
Really amazing videography to get these shots... TED Talk - The Hidden Beauty of Pollination DNA Paper Models! Our class DNA strand was completed today and we finished with 206 nucleotide base pairs! That may seem big... but 206 nucleotides is only about 0.00000006% of a normal human DNA strand which includes 3 billion base pairs! Once we finished constructing our DNA paper models, we began working on our DNA model project. Students were given the majority of the class period to either work independently or in small groups to create and engineer a model of DNA. Thus far, the progress has been great and there are some great looking models in the making!
ASAPScience Olympic videos below the break! (Click Read More to the right)
Welcome back after not one, not two, but THREE Snow Days! As a result of the snow days - we will push back our Unit 5 Cellular Division Celebration of Learning to Monday, February 10th. Please use the weekend to your advantage to review the material - specifically the Cell Cycle, Mitosis and Meiosis. On Thursday, February 6th, the 2014 Winter Olympics began in Sochi, Russia. To celebrate this great event, we will be watching short interesting science videos created by ASAPScience about the Olympics each day as we start class! Today, we featured their first installment of the Olympics Series titled Amazing Olympic Facts.(posted below)
Treatment options for burn victims and other severe injuries... In the world of biomedical technology and engineering, researchers are trying to develop advanced methods for healing skin cells following burns and/or other severe injuries and infections. In Unit 5 - Cellular Division, we have been discussing the process of mitosis - or the way in which somatic cells divide and replicate. A skin graft utilizes mitosis by taking healthy tissue from another area of the patient and placing it over the damaged or infected area in hopes that it will grow and form new tissue. The class had an opportunity to watch two short clips about current biomedical research in the field of skin cell regeneration. Following the clips and discussion, Mr. Hulse presented about a skin graft treatment he assisted with while working in the surgical ward of a hospital in Mombasa, Kenya!
In class, we picked up where we left off yesterday with our POGIL: Mitosis activity at Question #10. As groups, we completed questions 10-20 and discussed the responses as a class. Also, does being "cold" actually make you sick? See video below!
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Mr. Hulse
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