Season 6 Round Up! - Meiosis in Motion

This season we are learning about cell communication and reproduction. We began working on our meiosis animation videos the week before with partners, and continued to work on our videos in order to share them on Monday.  We had about 3 class periods to work on these projects, and they were super fun to create! The assignment was to show the animated process of meiosis in any creative way we wanted. Most people made a stop motion video using materials that Mrs. Girard provided for us, like Play-doh and pipe cleaners, while Michelle and Gina used paper for their stop motion, and Helen and I created our animation on Keynote. Once the videos were completed, we shared all of our videos in class. All of the Meiosis in Motion videos are posted on our blogs, so check them out! You can find links to all of our blogs under "Rockstar Digital Portfolios" on the left side of the blog page.

A diagram of the process of meiosis
(labeled for reuse)

Personally, I thought this assignment was very fun because we were able to practice our collaboration skills and study meiosis in greater depth. For this assignment, we had to work with someone we had never done a project with in this class. This rule encourages us to work with new people, instead of always working with the same few people on every assignment. Everyone works differently in groups, and having to work with new people gives us the opportunity to learn how to collaborate with all sorts of different people. This is an important skill that we will be able to take with us to college and even further into the workplace.

Many of us got to work with a new, challenging tool for this assignment as well. Animation is incredibly difficult. Animated movies take years to create, and there are hundreds of animators working on the movie every day! Our movies were only a couple of minutes, but the animation process can be challenging and frustrating. A short stop motion video often takes hundreds of images to create, and we had a short amount of time to create our animations. I know Helen and I found the assignment difficult because we faced technical issues while trying to share and save our Keynote. However, the AP Bio team was able to overcome these obstacles and create amazing products! We watched the videos before our test, and I found them incredibly helpful review. Everyone's videos were creative and informative.

We ended the week with our Season 6 Finale. For homework over Thanksgiving break, we all had to create a family medical history pedigree. A pedigree is a diagram that records family lineage. We had to talk to our family members and record any genetic disorders that might be present in our family. Our next season is on genetics (which everyone is very excited about!), and we will all be studying a genetic disorder of our choice. I can't wait!

This is my family pedigree. I have a separate document that lists the genetic disorders found in each generation.