Round Up: December 14, 2015

     Wow, did we have an exciting few weeks! We started December off by finalizing our topics for the Genetics and Health Symposium. I chose to research Familial Adenomatous Polyposis. Eden chose Hemophilia A, Isabelle researched Tay Sach's Disease, and Bianca chose Huntington's Disease. Sofia selected Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, Julia decided on Cri du Chat, and Monica chose Cystic Fibrosis. The assignment was to research our chosen genetic disorders and become experts on them. We would need to do a lot of research in order to present to our classmates and teacher through VoiceThread.

This is a screenshot I took of six of the presentations in VoiceThread.

     The Genetic Symposium was put on the back burner for a little while, or rather, we did that for homework and focused on other topics in class. Following the theme of genetics, we all collected our family's medical histories. In search for inheritable disorders, we created our pedigrees. Originally we were supposed to have a discussion and share what we found out at the beginning of the month, but due to many unplanned absences, we were unable to all be together on one. We finally shared a couple days ago, and I learned about some disorders that were new to me.
     On December 3rd, we went on an awesome field trip to visit Santa Clara University's graduate engineering program. The trip down was super fun because we all squished into one school car and were able to talk and eat. Wonderfully enough, it was raining that day, so when we arrived, we ran inside the building for cover. Our first stop was a room filled with penny games that the graduate students had built. Playing the games was a blast, and getting to see what grad students are making themselves was awesome. One of the most fun games was a digital version of Whack-a-Mole; buttons light up, and you try to push them as fast as you can. I played against Sofia, and the final score was super close. Another game that I found challenging was trying to move a ball up a ramp and get to the top. The slightest wrong movement would cause the ball to fall back to the bottom of the ramp.

Here you can see people playing the digital Whack-a-Mole penny game.

     After spending a bit of time with the penny games, we were joined by students from another high school's AP Biology class. Then we went to the maker space. There we saw a couple of 3D printers in action and got to look at some of the products. After a brief explanation of the room and its niceties, we were moved to another room to watch a demonstration using a bioprinter. This was the big reveal, what we had been waiting for. Afterwards we were given a mini lecture on bioprinters which was very informative. Once back at NDB, we showed the students from the other school our zSpaces. The technology we get to use and experience in our AP Biology class is amazing!

     We continued in the days after the field trip learning and reviewing Mendelian genetics, DNA replication, and protein synthesis. We also watched the NOVA episode "Cracking the Code of Life." On Thursday the 11th, our Genetics and Health Symposium projects were due, and we discussed them the very next day. This past season was full of many cool opportunities to immerse ourselves into the world of genetics and technology. Hopefully the next season does the same!

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All images are original.