MY THOUGHTS ABOUT BIOLOGY HONORS ON 12-9-2016

Chapter 5 Test

Today, we had a full period long test in Mr. Wong’s class. The test was harder than the easy chapter 4 photosynthesis test, but I felt it was pretty manageable. It was okay because I knew (or at least thought I did) the three stages of cellular respiration fairly well, based on what Mr. Wong taught in class and my reading of our test book.

The exam was pretty short multiple choice wise, with only 67 questions. The essay was straightforward as we had to draw the Krebs Cycle, which was reasonable as Mr. Wong warned us ahead of time that we would have to know it (thank god we didn’t have to memorize the structural formulas too!).

The thing that really made this exam stand out in particular was Mr. Wong brought his puppy to school! Nate Austin, sitting right in front of me, was allowed to pet the friendly dog. I hope Mr. Wong will bring his dog to school again in the near future as I would like to say hello to the furry, awesome creature myself!

MY THOUGHTS ABOUT BIOLOGY HONORS ON 12-8-2016

A Quick Review of Cellular Respiration

Mr. Wong taught on the whiteboard, which we hadn’t used since the first days of school. It was a pretty interesting and informative lecture, free of distractions. I thoroughly enjoyed it though I kind of missed Nearpod’s cool features such as the interactive images, diagrams, videos, models, etc. Nonetheless, Mr. Wong quickly covered glycolysis and the Krebs Cycle and mentioned a big word, substrate-level phosphorylation, that sounded pretty cool. In reality, though, while we need this to happen in our bodies to make ATP from ADP and a phosphate group, it was pretty easy to understand. One thing I wonder about in biology is why scientists make up big, fancy names for simple stuff like these. If it’s actually complicated, fine… But otherwise, why make a long word that’s hard to remember for something that’s really easy to understand?

The Electron Transport System

Here, I feel Nearpod would have definitely enhanced the teaching, but Mr. Wong, a good drawer (better than me for sure! [if you don’t believe me, see my pathetic drawing below]), drew a mitochondrion and talked about this third step of cellular respiration.

It was really easy to understand for two reasons. Firstly, there were no really confusing diagrams from the AP Biology Textbooks (although I love those because Mr. Wong usually talks about them and I learn a whole lot of new, exciting stuff!). Secondly, it’s pretty much like oxidative phosphorylation in photosynthesis. The major difference is that protons come in via ATP synthase where substrate-level phosphorylation occurs to form ATP while protons go out via ATP synthase in chloroplasts. The fact that I was really curious about is that NADH can produce more energy than FADH2. At first, I was thinking does the second proton carried by FADH2 make a difference, and I soon found that, in fact, it doesn’t. FADH2 drops off the electrons and protons at the 2nd big complex while NADH drops its protons and electrons at the first. Mr. Wong gave a simple physics example with the gravitational potential energy varying at different heights as a helpful analogy. At the end, Mr. Wong lectured about us freshmen maturing a ton in order to learn more and have a lot of fun in the second semester. Overall, I enjoyed the lecture, and I hope Mr. Wong will bring back Nearpod soon and won’t retire and watch whales till after 2020 (I know I’m being kind of selfish here, but I seriously think he’s an amazing teacher!).

MY THOUGHTS ABOUT BIOLOGY HONORS ON 12-6-2016

A Short Day

This biology class wasn’t really a short day; it was a short lecture. The minutes at the end of the class seemed to never end, but more about that later…

First, things started off pretty well as Mr. Wong showed us a Nearpod with an interesting introduction featuring the Prohibition Act, banning the consumption and production of alcohol in the 1920s. There were a couple slides of drug abuse/addiction and what to do about it, but we skipped those as they were more applicable to seniors and their peer pressure to drink and take drugs.

Then, Mr. Wong asked us if he taught us the electron transport system, and we said no. He took us to a different Nearpod, and we did a little bit of review before quickly transitioning to an overview of the electron transport system.

Then, he asked us to color an interactive slide in Nearpod, detailing the different parts of a mitochondrion. After the class submitted their answers, one of them made him particularly angry. On it was red scribbles, and the drawing title had something about cheese, grapes, and nuts in it. When the person didn’t apologize in five seconds, the discussion was over, and Mr. Wong stopped teaching. I definitely see Mr. Wong’s point of view that at the end of the day, he’s tired and he doesn’t want to put up with these kinds of things anymore. However, I was pretty sad about not learning about the electron transport system that day. Essentially, we could do whatever quiet things we wanted. I couldn’t really concentrate at all because the class was filled with whispers of “Was it you? Pass it on!” in an attempt to get the real culprit to stand up and apologize. The seconds seemed like minutes, and the quiet air of tension certainly didn’t make it any better. Thankfully, the person who scribbled on the picture had the courage to and stopped Mr. Wong from moving our test to the very next day. Class ended on a good note as Mr. Wong promised to teach us about the electron transport system and more tomorrow, which I’m really looking forward to.

MY THOUGHTS ABOUT BIOLOGY HONORS ON 12-5-2016

Kahoot!

Today in class, Mr. Wong let us play a game of Kahoot! It was a review of the Krebs Cycle, and the winning team would get extra credit. The race was on…

At first, our team lagged behind in fourth place, down by more than 1,000 pts, but as other teams started getting questions wrong, we eventually rose to first place, securing the extra credit with a 1,000+ point lead.

A very interesting question in the game was to fill in the missing star at the very bottom of the Krebs Cycle. Of course, it was a troll question with GTP being the answer, which no teams got. Mr. Wong said this was an inefficient part of the Krebs Cycle and that was an evolutionary remnant. This was just one of the things I learned from the exciting game review. I hope Mr. Wong continues to make more Kahoots like this and give extra credit to the winning team as it really is fun and also helps us remember stuff better when all the adrenaline is coursing through our bodies.

Krebs Cycle Lecture

Mr. Wong lectured about the Krebs Cycle. I like the isocitrate converting to alpha-Ketoglutarate reaction, and it was pretty cool to discover that 1/3 of the CO2 we breathe out is from this reaction! Something that stood out to me was the complex reaction involving GTP when succinyl-CoA is converted to succinate where CoA-SH is displaced by a phosphate group, eventually binding to GDP to form GTP. This can be used to make ATP from ADP. My favorite compound in the citric acid cycle is fumarate because it has a really cool name. It calls to mind two things. Firstly, it reminds of the Old Faithful Geyser at Yellowstone National Park erupting with scalding hot water.

Secondly, it reminds me of the big fume shrooms in Plants vs. Zombies, something that I rarely play but a good fallback option if I can’t play or get bored of my favorite video games.

Overall, I really enjoyed today’s class in biology honors because of the fun Kahoot! review and Mr. Wong’s detailed, informative, and entertaining lecture on the Krebs Cycle.

My Thoughts About Biology Honors on 12-2-2016

The World Dinner Nearpod

Mr. Wong showed us some pretty cool pictures of different families around the world. I really enjoyed seeing different family expenditures and their correlation with how healthy their food was. Interestingly, sometimes for healthy food, the expenditure for a family in Norway was over $700 a week! When we came to a Japanese family, some students made some crude jokes at their expense. Thankfully, Mr. Wong caught it and told everyone that it wasn’t okay to do so, even if it was meant as a joke. I’m really glad that he brought up the fact that it’s not okay to make these comments, even if it’s meant casually. I agree that when it’s meant casually, that’s when it can be very dangerous as it infiltrates into society, making people think it’s okay to say these kinds of things.

The Krebs Cycle Lecture

My favorite part of the discussion was when Mr. Wong showed us a picture of the Krebs Cycle, which was pretty cool. It had many compounds with cool sounding names like oxaloacetate, fumarate, acetyl-CoA, etc. I really learned a lot, and it really quenched a lot of my curiosity to know more about the process of cellular respiration.

Here’s a pic of the Krebs Cycle that I now made as my Surface Pro 4’s background because I think the Krebs Cycle is so cool…

Credits: Campbell Biology 9th Edition

Overall, I really enjoyed Friday’s class as Mr. Wong emphasized the importance of being careful about we say and for teaching the Krebs Cycle in detail, which I really desired to know. Thanks Mr. Wong!