20 Time Final Post

While presenting, I felt that our TED talk went fine, but now that I am reflecting on it, there were many places we could have fixed things.  I realize now that our topic and our goal became too general and there was not a clear path and point to be made. Because of our broad topic, our presentation dragged for too long. I feel that we deserve the grade we received and could have worked harder to narrow down our topic. Next time I do a project like this that does not set clear guidelines I will remember to make sure I have a clear end goal because there are so many things that can cause progress to go off track.

Reflexes Lab

In this lab we tested our responses to certain stimuli and investigated why we had these reactions. This activity relates back to our unit in that it deals with reflexes. Reflexes are rapid, predictable, and involuntary responses to stimuli. There are somatic reflexes, which stimulate skeletal muscles, and autonomic reflexes, which regulate smooth muscle and other automatic responses.
1. In the photopupillary reflex test the reflex of the pupil dilated and shrinking was being tested. In the test the pupil shrunk when exposed to light after being the dark after a certain amount of time. This reflex occurred because the pupil changes size with the amount of light that is present, so with more light it will decrease in size and vice versa.
2. In the knee jerk reflex test the reflex that was being tested was the knee-jerk reflex which is when the knee jerks upward when the knee cap is hit. The arc is a 2 neuron reflex arc where the sensory neuron sends a signal to the spinal cord then travels to the motor neuron then the knee. In the test my knee did jerk upward ,and after doing squats, the reflex actually increased in intensity when it was not supposed to because the reflex is supposed to slow down after exercise due to the decrease in ATP. This probably resulted in the fact that I did not do enough squats.
3. In the blink reflex test the person is supposed to blink when the cotton ball is thrown at them. This occurred during the test. This reflex exists in order for humans to protect the eye from anything that can potentially damage it because it is very sensitive as well as important part.
4. In the plantar reflex test the toes are supposed to curl when the pen is moved across the bottom of the foot. This was apparent during the test when the toes curled inward when he pen moved across. This response occurred because the toes react in a way that makes the foot want to move away from that source of touch in order to protect the foot.
5.  In the response time test our time was recorded in catching a ruler that we saw falling through our finger tips and then recorded again while texting. After the trials were complete, I saw that my average time went from 0.15 seconds to 0.7 seconds. There was a significantly slower time while texting. This change is due to the fact that the brain takes time to select what action is prioritized ,and texting can slow down the response time, showing the dangers of texting and driving

20 Time Individual Reflection

During this 20 time project, I learned a lot about time management and giving my time to something that interests me outside of school. I challenged myself by doing things outside my comfort zone such as picking up a musical instrument, the ukulele, and talking to new people. My initial focus was actually to learn something about how the arts could improve people's lives inside and outside of school by helping develop certain ways of thinking as well as keeping a healthy mental state. However, after working on this project, I also saw some self improvement in that I learned how to set aside time from what I normally do to pursue this project and challenge myself. While working with Michael, I planned to not only do research on my topic, but also use myself as a test subject and experience how the inclusion of the arts affected my life. Our project was successful in that we learned what we wanted to learn and we achieved our goals of immersing ourselves in the arts. Our goals were not meant to be too over the top, but more about learning through experiences and reporting on them. I learned a lot about my own way of learning new skills as well as developed a new outlook on how I value music as well as the arts in everyday life. I plan on continuing on playing the ukulele as well as trying other artistic activities such as drawing and writing over the summer because of the significant impact I saw while working on this project.

Your Brain Map

1.   What do the frontal lobes do?

The frontal lob controls the personality, problem solving, memory, language, judgment, and impulse control.

2. What is the relationship between selective attention and learning?

      Selective attention allows you to increase memory and allows you to select what is important. When learning, you select what is important to remember and how to use it.

      3. What is the last part of your brain to develop and what can you do to prevent it from deteriorating?

       The frontal is the last part to develop and you can prevent deterioration by being more active and connecting ideas that you learn to bigger ideas. 
     4. What does the neo cortex do?

      It helps guide you by controlling motor skills.

      5.  What is the role of the pre frontal cortex?
      It controls your personality and how you act in social situations.

      6. What do we know about the pre frontal cortex’s relationship with multitasking?
      It helps manage what is important and prioritizes one action over another. 

      7.      Which part of the brain is associated with speech and language development?  Give an interesting fact about this region.
      The Broca's area helps with speech development. A person is still able to produce speech even when this area is damaged as functions shift to other parts.

      8.      Which part of your brain is responsible for thinking the following: “Is it hot in here or is it just me?”
      The Somatosensory cortex helps sense if the temperature is too cold or hot.

9. What does your visual cortex do for you?

   It helps differentiate color and identifies faces.

      10. State three interesting or significant facts about your occipital lobe.
      It is the visual processing part of your brain. It allows you process long term and short term memories. You can exercise this part by using your imagination. 

      11. What would happen if your temporal lobes were damaged?
      You will have trouble recalling things from memory. 

      12.    What is your “fast brain” and what does it do?
      The fast brain is the motor cortex and helps control the senses
      

      13. State 3 things that you could do that would influence your synapses, and have a positive affect on your life and health.
      You can exercise and have a healthy diet as well as becoming an active learner

      14.What is the relationship between multi-sensory or multi-modal learning and your dendrites?
      Multiple types of stimulation will help you learn things faster by engaging multiple parts of your brain

      15.How does “big picture thinking” and mnemonics affect dendrites and/or learning?
      It helps by connecting ideas together and using your brain in different ways b actively learning

      16. Describe a neurotransmitter that you feel is very important.  Justify your reasoning.
      I feel that dopamine is an important neurotransmitter because it helps you become motivated to do things and learn things.

             17.What does the corpus callosum do?
       it connects the two hemispheres. It controls oral skills and language and deals with handwriting as well as the movement of the eyes.

      18. What is the relationship between music and the corpus callosum?

      The corpus collosum is strengthened through music as it strengthens communication between the two brains

      19.Why is the thalamus important?

      The thalamus controls motor control and sensory imformation.

      Relate and Review

      In this activity I learned about the different parts of the brain. The simulation showed the relative areas that the parts covered and how they all fit together. The frontal lobe covered a large portion of the brain and it was interesting to learn how to keep the frontal lobe healthy with active learning. The neo cortex is a part of the brain that controls motor functions. The different neurotransmitters were also interesting to learn about and how each affected the brain and their function in everyday life. Healthy diets and exercise also help with dendrite health. The corpus collosum connects the two hemispheres of the brain and actually serves to help understand language and can be strengthened by practicing music. 

   

Brain Dissection

1. 

2. Brain stem- regulates automatic systems such as heart beat and breathing

    Cerebellum- coordinates voluntary movement

    Cerebrum- divided into four lobes and controls thought and action

    Posterior- back part of the brain

    Anterior- front part of the brain

3. Myelin helps impulses move across neurons faster 

4.

5. Thalamus- controls information between  cerebral cortex and lower brain helping with sesnory interpretation 

     Corpus Callosum- bridge between two hemispheres

     Medulla Oblangota- controls heartbeat and breathing

     Pons- controls information between cerebrum and cerebellum

     Mid Brain- controls vision and hearing 

     Hypothalamus- helps control the endocrine system and hormone levels

     Optic Nerve- transfers information from optic nerve to brain

     

6.

Relate and Review

In this lab we opened up a sheep brain and located the different parts of the brain. In this unit we learned about the parts of the brain  ,and their functions. With the help of the clay model we did, this lab helped give us a better visual representation of what those parts look like ,and how they all fit together. This dissection helped us understand the shape and functions of each of the parts as well as gave us hands on experience. 

Sheep Eye Dissection Analysis

The lens of the eye is used to focus on objects at various distances. Some of the vitreous humor is surrounding the lens. The vitreous humor helps refract light.

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The opening is the pupil and the surrounding brownish layer is the iris. The pupil controls how much light enters the eye and the iris controls how big the pupil is The black layer is the ciliary body which helps stretch the lens in order to focus better on different objects. 

The transparent part is the cornea and the surrounding grey part is the sclera. The cornea allows light into the eye and helps with refraction and the sclera helps keep the shape of the eye ball.

The retina is the clear and thin gel layer and helps processes the image from the lens. The bluish and greenish part is the choroid. This part of the eye provides nourishment.

The Clay Brain

In this activity we modeled the left hemisphere at the sagittal plane and the right cerebral hemisphere at the lateral view. The different parts are labeled and different colors were used to show the relative size and area of the part.