Final Post!

5/27/16

20 Time: TED Talk Reflection

So, the time has come! This project is officially wrapped up, although it will continue to be up and running for years and years. Below is some pictures of the Facebook page as well as my TED talk presentation. The TED talk, for me at least, went pretty smoothly. My video did buffer, which I was anticipating, so I just skipped ahead for a few seconds. I was honestly worried that my presentation would be over 5 minutes but I ended at exactly 5 min, so whew! One thing I think I did well was explain my problems and why things did not work out. One thing I could improve on it voice inflection and slowing down my speech. Looking at the rubric, I would give myself mostly 5s perhaps one point here and there for small things. I felt that I covered my topic, background, struggles, and successes fully. Prepping for this talk was stressful but in the end my work paid off as it was reflected in my grade. I don't think I needed as much prep time as I thought I did, but the more practice the better, I guess. This project has definitely made me more independent as well as a better public speaker. Independent in that I had to complete this project ALL on my own and take the consequences for failing to do so. Public speaking skills were required for the TED talk, which is a good skill to have anyways. The entire project definitely challenged me to think outside of the box but keep my feet grounded at the same time, which is sometimes hard to do but important to learn. Overall, I loved everyone's project and thought our class did a wonderful job.

Credit to Alexandria Tsao
Kimchi Stew

Credit to Megan Fung

Credit to Yena Jeong
"Melancholy"

Screen shot of the "An Original Movement" page

20 Time Reflection

5/10/16

20 Time Reflection

   Over the course of this project, I have expanded into many areas that I wasn't expecting. I think I challenged myself through this very open-ended idea that I wanted to pursue and finding a way to incorporate that into a project. Choosing this challenge seemed like a natural part of the project-- needing to embrace the bigger picture and finding a way to apply it to a smaller, community level. From this, my goal became to include the community and trying to get people to participate in raising the level of awareness for the arts here. Even though I learned a lot about myself through this project, my main goal was to influence my community. To achieve this goal, I planned to make a Facebook page that encourage people to share their interests and talents with others. The page itself went okay; however, people were not as active in sharing as I would like. So I expanded my page to tell about why the arts were important in education, and I contacted an organization about starting a drive. Currently, I am also scheduling a filming day with a friend to make my contribution to the page. I learned that people are quite shy, and that it takes a lot of prodding and promoting to get people to share. If I got a chance to redo this project, I think I would have started trying to research and contact organizations earlier, since communication actually takes a lot of time. Hopefully after this project, the site will still continue to have a following, and I wish to continue to post on there occasionally. 

Reflexes Lab

5/6/15

Reflexes Lab

1. Photopupillary Reflex
1. Recap: Have partner shield one eye from the light for a few minutes. Position a flashlight close to that eye. Have partner remove hand quickly. Watch for change in pupil size.
2. Claim: Pupils adjust in size based on the amount of light. 
3. Evidence: In our group, my partner's pupil got a lot smaller (in comparison to her other eye) after she removed her hand.  You can see the video below of how one's pupil changes based on the amount of light (video courtesy of Jennifer Poo).
4. Reasoning: Pupils constrict or dilate depending on the amount of light because it allows more/ less light into your eye in order to help you see in bright/ dark situations. This also might help in a fight/ flight situation as your eyes focus on the danger.
2. Knee Jerk Reflex
1. Recap: Tap partner's knee with hammer. Observe how fast and how great the reaction is. Then have partner do 30+ air squats and retest. Observe how the reflex changed.
2. Claim: Knee reflex happens faster before squats.
3. Evidence: The reflex before the air squats was a lot greater as my leg kicked higher than after I had performed the squats. Also my leg moved a lot slower after the squats and barely moved in comparison to before.
4. Reasoning: The squats fatigue your leg muscles and therefore the reaction is not as great due to the tired muscles. 
3. Blink Reflex
1. Recap: Have your partner hold up a sheet of plastic wrap in front of their face. Throw a cotton ball at them. Observe how they react.
2. Claim: People blink when objects are thrown at their face.
3. Evidence: My partner blinked when the cotton ball was thrown at her face. Here is a video of how one reacts to objects being thrown at them (video courtesy of Jennifer Poo).
4. Reasoning: She blinked because the reflex of blinking is to protect one's eyes from harm. Therefore, when the cotton ball was thrown at her, her body believed that something was coming at her, causing her to blink.
4. Babe, what's your sign?
1. Recap: Run a pen firmly down one partner's foot. Observe what your partner's response was.
2. Claim: Toes should clench together, if not, one might have nerve damage.
3. Evidence: When the pen was run down the my foot, my toes curl instead of spreading out. 
4. Reasoning: If there is something you're about to step on, you're foot will try to curl away from the item instead of spreading your toes out and possibly stepping on the potentially dangerous item.
5. How fast are you?
1. Hold a yard stick above your partner's hand. Warn them within 5 seconds of dropping the stick. Drop it, and take down the measurement where they catch it. Convert the measurement to time and average the times. Repeat process 3 times, then do it again except while texting.
2. Claim: One will catch the yard stick faster while not texting.
3. Evidence: My reflex time increased when I was texting compared to when I was solely focused on catching the yard stick. My average reaction time went from .17 seconds to .40 seconds, which is a huge increase.  
4. Reasoning: I believe that my reaction time increased because I was not as focused on catching the yard stick when I was texting. Personally, I have terrible reflexes so this lab also confirmed that for me. But the obviously, texting slow down reaction times since the brain is not focused solely on catching the yard stick. This means that if one is texting while driving then one's reaction rate will increasing marginally, which could be the few milliseconds needed to react in a crash. 

Your Brain Map Homework

Your Brain Map: 84 Strategies for Accelerated Learning

Link to the simulation :Brain Map

Cerebral Cortex

1. What do the frontal lobes do? Controls personality, problem solving, memory, language, judgement, and impulse control. Overall it executes behavior. 
2. What is the relationship between selective attention and learning? Selective attention makes your memory capacity greater by prioritizing more important info over less important info. Therefore when learning, you should be thinking about selective attention rather than just memorizing facts. 
3. What is the last part of your brain to develop and what can you do to prevent it from deteriorating? The frontal lobe will be the last part to develop and the first to deteriorate. You can prevent it by not zoning out and transforming information instead of trying to commit it to memory. 
4. What does the neo cortex do? It helps you navigate your body through your senses, spatial awareness, and motor skills. 
5. What is the role of the pre frontal cortex? It controls your personality by organizing your thoughts and actions. 
6. What do we know about the pre frontal cortex’s relationship with multitasking? Multitasking is not real and is actually just the pre frontal cortex jumping back and forth between tasks quickly. 
7. Which part of the brain is associated with speech and language development? Give an interesting fact about this region. Broca's area is responsible for speech and language development. An interesting fact is that tongue twisters are suppose to help the functioning of this area. 
8. Which part of your brain is responsible for thinking the following: “Is it hot in here or is it just me?” Somatosensory cortex. 
9. What does your visual cortex do for you? It helps differentiate colors and see complex things like faces 
10. State three interesting or significant facts about your occipital lobe. One interesting fact is there are different lobes for different purposes like color and sensing motion. Another fact is that it is responsible for your imagination. Thirdly, it's proven that imagining/ visualizing a situation is proven to help you perform better. 
11. What would happen if your temporal lobes were damaged? You would have no long term memory and forget everyday things like dates and where you placed your keys. 
12. What is your “fast brain” and what does it do? The eye fields are the fast brain. They control eye movement and pick up information is mere milliseconds- faster than any other part of the brain. 

Neuron 

1. State 3 things that you could do that would influence your synapses, and have a positive affect on your life and health. Exercising and a healthy diet will positively affect your life and synapses, as omega fatty acids provide good brain power and improve synapse function. Socializing is also proven to help fire more synapses. 
2. What is the relationship between multi-sensory or multi-modal learning and your dendrites? Multi-sensory and multi-modal stimulations in dendrites lead to greater retention because the information is stored in more than one place, making it more likely that you will remember the information. 
3. How does “big picture thinking” and mnemonics affect dendrites and/or learning? It helps because your brain can see the "big picture" then break down the information into smaller sections. On top of that mnemonics help because it is an easy way to remember information due to its tangibility compared to abstract facts. 
4. Describe a neurotransmitter that you feel is very important. Justify your reasoning. Dopamine is a natural neurotransmitter that makes you feel happy. It makes you want to try new things, and an incentive for the brain to retain new information because it will make you happy. However, it can also be abused as many drugs stimulate the release of dopamine. 

Limbic System 

1. What does the corpus callosum do? It communicated between the right and left hemispheres. It is responsible for oral language skills and reading. 
2. What is the relationship between music and the corpus callosum? Music helps strengthen the communication between the 2 hemispheres, therefore increasing the function of the corpus callosum. 
3. Why is the thalamus important? It is important because it not only relays information to the cortex and is responsible for processing information (cognitive functions of the brain), it is responsible for retrieving memories. 

Relate and Review
Summarize what you learned from this tutorial. Relate what you learned to your everyday life and how you can make it better. Use at least 5 of the bolded words from the questions. 5-sentence minimum. You may use the back of this if needed.
One thing I learned from this tutorial was the importance of a healthy lifestyle. It affects the big things like weight and overall health but it also has an incredible important impact on the smaller parts of the body like the synapses, which function more effectively when healthier foods are eaten. I should aim to eat healthier to aid my memorization, especially with all the AP test going on right now. I also learned that music boosts the corpus callosum, which makes all my hours in band seem justified and might even make me practice my instrument more often. Another part of the brain, the visual cortex appears to be linked to the occipital lobe in that both provide the function of allowing us to see, which definitely makes you think about things you take for granted everyday like sight. Lastly, the temporal lobe proves to an important part of my everyday life. Although we might not notice it, the temporal lobe is responsible for memory long term and some short term. I could only imagine what it would be like to have to deal with no longer term memory- in fact, I might not have remember any of this information!

Brain Dissection

4/28/16

Brain Dissection Analysis

Question 1: Exterior of brain (drawing and picture are mirrored- use the color pins for reference)

White- anterior; yellow- cerebrum; green- cerebellum;
 black- posterior; red- brain stem

Drawing of the exterior of the brain

Question 2: Function of these structures

cerebrum- responsible for integrating sensory and neural functions. Initiates and coordinates voluntary movement in the body.
cerebellum- coordinate and regulate muscle activity.
brain stem- regulates involuntary functions like heart beat, breathing, sleeping, etc.

Question 3: Function of myelin in a neuron?

Myelin functions as insulation that allows the signal to travel faster down the neuron.

Question 4: Cross section of brain (drawing/ image are rotated- use color pins for reference)

Silver- medulla oblongata, white- pons; blue- midbrain;
yellow- thalamus; black- hypothalamus; red- corpus callosum; green- optic nerve

Drawing of interior of the brain

Question 5: Functions of structures pinned in question 4

Thalamus- sensory and motor signal relay; controls functions like sleeping and sensory interpretation

Optic nerve- transfer visual information from retina to visual center in brain

Medulla Oblongata- responsible for monitoring the circulatory and respiratory system.

Pons- relays messages from cortex and cerebellum to the cerebrum

Midbrain- motor control; eye movement, hearing, vision, sleep/ wake, alertness, and temperature regulation.

Corpus callosum- integrate motor, sensory, and cognitive signals between the two hemispheres 

Hypothalamus- controls the endocrine system via pituitary gland.

Question 6: Gray and white matter

Gray and white matter of cerebrum

Drawing of gray and white matter

Relate and Review:  In this lab we dissected a sheep's brain in order to identify structures. We started by examining the exterior structures such as the cerebrum, cerebellum, and brain stem. Afterwards we cut the brain in half longitudinally to find the thalamus, hypothalamus, optic nerve, medulla oblongata, pons, midbrain, and corpus callosum. From there we cut off a chunk of the cerebrum to further examine white vs. gray matter. There was a very clear difference in the density of tissue and how it related to its function in the brain. For example, the corpus callosum was fibrous and dense as it connects the two hemispheres. The cerebrum had a nice contrast of gray and white matter (see drawing in question 6) due to the various functions that it must perform. The dissection related to what we've been learning in class about the function of the structures of the brain as well as the structures themselves.

Sheep Eye Dissection

4/26/16

Sheep Eye Dissection Analysis

1. Observed outside of the eye. Identified fatty tissue, cornea, extrinsic muscles. Fatty tissue cushions the eye while in the socket. Cornea is for protection mostly. Extrinsic muscles help move the eye.
2. Identified optic nerve and sclera. Removed the fatty tissue and extrinsic muscle. Optic nerve connects to the brain and sends signals. Sclera is very tough and is what makes up the eye.
3. Made an incision halfway between cornea and optic nerve. Cut through sclera to open the eye. Identified lens, vitreous humor, choroid, blind spot, retina, tapetum lucidum. Lens focuses light on the retina. Vitreous humor helps the eye maintain its shape. Choroid brings blood with oxygen and nutrients to the eye. Blind spot is where the one spot where the retina is attached. Tapetum lucidum reflects light onto the retina.
4. Identified ciliary body and back of iris. Ciliary body helps change shape of the lens and secretes aqueous humor.
5. Removed vitreous humor and lens. Identified suspensory ligaments, lens, vitreous humor. Suspensory ligaments keep lens in place. 
6. Removed cornea. Identified iris, pupil, and aqueous humor. Iris regulates pupil size. Pupil controls how much light is let into the eye. Aqueous humor helps to also maintain shape of the eye.

Step 1

Step 2

Step 3

Step 4
PC: Alexandria Tsao

Step 5

Step 6

Moving Toward the End

4/18/16

20 Time: Fourth Update

The past few weeks have been pretty busy with spring break, college trips, and tons of finals. I have continued research on how the arts are beneficial to older people (teenagers, adults, elderly). It's been interesting to see how the arts help the elderly with maintaining good mental health (link) especially when we all have older loved ones in our lives; this information really applies to all of us sooner or later.
A few setbacks have taken place with the lack of posting and scheduling difficulties. I don't want to be the only one posting on the page, yet it is a lot harder to convince everyone else to post. Perhaps I will send out a mass Facebook message to encourage people to participate in my project. On the second issue, my friend and I were set to film the video sometime this month; however, both she and I were out the entire spring break and could not meet up when we were an whole country apart. I do believe that we will film it sometime in the next few weeks since we keep pushing the date off due to school events.
I guess my next steps are to send out that Facebook message, have some friends to some advertising, and really adhere to filming dates.