Tuesday, June 6, 2017

Preparation and Teaching P1 Brenden Schriver

In the preparation for Bio-site, we needed to be the fourth graders. We had to learn what we were going to teach. After all three lessons were taught to us, we had a choice of: Worms, Watersheds, or Flowers. My group and I decided to teach about the watersheds. Our group left me to decide our lesson plan and how we would teach. The main thing we wanted the fourth graders to know was how the recent flood in the east side of San Jose, had happened. Our lesson was backwards. We started off with making the watersheds and spraying them. The after that we explained what the watersheds were, and how San Jose flooded.

On the first day of Bio-site I was unable to attend. I had previous engagements being a cabin leader at a science camp. I did get my groups feed back. My group relayed to me that the lesson went very well and all the kids loved it. Many kids were excited to know how San Jose flooded. They really enjoyed crumpling the paper and spraying it with water. I was also unable to attend the second day of Bio-site do to my lack of understanding when to go. But, my group said the same things as before. The lesson went very well and all the kids loved it. Many kids were excited to know how San Jose flooded and really enjoyed crumpling the paper and spraying it with water.

Thursday, March 16, 2017

A Matter of Selection

 Which part (anatomy) or characteristic of the Brassica oleracea plants seems to exhibit the most variation (greatest number of different forms)? Which part or characteristic of the Brassica oleracea plants seems to show the greatest range of variation (biggest difference between one extreme and its opposite)? Use and include data collected from multiple measurements to support your answer.


The leaves have the most variation. Also the height of the different plants are drastically different. The difference between the brussel sprout and the mustard is that the Brussle sprouts are short and have one dense cluster of leaves while the mustard is tall with many leaves and flowers all over it.


Using the terms that follow, explain why you think there is so much variability in the domestic forms of Brassica oleraceatraits, selective breeding, artificial selection, genes, descent with modification, natural variations, mutations


The reason that there is so much variability in the plants is that they have gone through the process of artificial selection by humans for many years. Humans have bred the Brassica to be able to be used for different purposes like brussle sprouts they were probably bred for small size and large nutritional value for long trips where only a small amount could be packed.


Which part (anatomy) of the Brassica oleracea plants seems to be most consistently the same in all of the examples in our garden, regardless of how extreme the differences between other parts of the same plants may be? Why do think this is so? Again, use and include data collected from multiple measurements to support your answer.

The most consistent part of the brassica is the flowers. They all have a 4 petal yellow flower with around a 1 inch diameter. I believe the reason that they all have this is that there was no reason to change that trait in fact it probably helped them attract pollenator for reproduction. In the garden you can see that each brassica has a yellow leaf. 



What would plant breeders have to do in order to get the body part or characteristic you described above (in your response to question #3) to become much different than it is presently?

If the plant breeders wanted to get rid of or change the yellow flower that is consistent in the brassica plant they would have to use the process of artifical selection.That mean that the breeders would have to wait until they found two plants with the begining of the trait they wanted and breed them.Then take the offspring and breed them again and again until they got what they were after.

A Matter of Selection

      Which part (anatomy) or characteristic of the Brassica oleracea plants seems to exhibit the most variation (greatest number of different forms)? Which part or characteristic of the Brassica oleracea plants seems to show the greatest range of variation (biggest difference between one extreme and its opposite)? Use and include data collected from multiple measurements to support your answer.


The leaves and the stock seem to exhibit the most variation. Another thing that exhibits variation is the size of the plant. If you look at the differences and similarities between the cabbage and brussel sprout you will see that the brussel sprouts are tall, thin, and strong. The cabbage is short, big, and strong. 


Using the terms that follow, explain why you think there is so much variability in the domestic forms of Brassica oleraceatraits, selective breeding, artificial selection, genes, descent with modification, natural variations, mutations


The reason that there is so much variability in the plants is that different plants have different traits from each other. An example is that brussel sprouts have traits that make them thin and tall. One cause of this is selective breeding. Selective breeding allows certain plants to grow with modifications that best suit the environment. Plants have genes, like animals, in which they receive their genes from the female parts and the male parts. Natural variation allows plants to adapt to their environment on their own unlike artificial breeding. Those adaptations are called mutations and they act on the phenotype and decent with modification will begin. That means the plants offspring will have the same mutations at the parent. 


Which part (anatomy) of the Brassica oleracea plants seems to be most consistently the same in all of the examples in our garden, regardless of how extreme the differences between other parts of the same plants may be? Why do think this is so? Again, use and include data collected from multiple measurements to support your answer.

One trait that seems to have remained the same in the brassica is the flowers. Out of all the plants they seem to have the same 4 petal yellow leaf. On each plant you will be able to see them with around a 1 inch diameter. One reason that they all have this is that there was no reason to change that trait. In the garden you can see that each variety of brassica has that same trait. 



What would plant breeders have to do in order to get the body part or characteristic you described above (in your response to question #3) to become much different than it is presently?


In order for plant breeders to get the body part characteristic, they would need to make it that the descendants of the right traits germinate. They would exclude the plants with the traits plant breeders don't want or need from germinating. That would lead to only having plants with the traits plant breeders want. This makes it so that people get plants, vegetables, and other things that are best in their traits that people want. 








A Matter of Selection

1. The part of the plants with the most variations were the leaves of the plants. The branches were very extremely different. Although the feel and the shape of the leaves are very different, the biggest difference is in the Size. The Length by width was kale 13: 5, peas 12:6, and dino kale 6:1, which shows kale and dino kale are extremely different in size, even though they are both kale.
2. I believe that the leaves of the Brassica oleracea plants have a lot of variability in the domestic forms of it. One of the reasons why the different traits like the size of the leaves and shape of them are different is because humans have picked out which traits they wanted for that certain plant. They use selective breeding, which means humans selectively choose which phenotype traits they want to be passed on to their offspring by using decent with modification. That means they choose which traits they want passed down from parent plant to child plant. However, some may of been caused by natural variations, which means they started to branch off and start having different variations in the wild, due to different environments usually. This also means humans are not the direct cause for the plants' variations. These variations are caused by mutations over many generations of the Brassica oleracea, the plant split up into different variations of the plant, due to there being different environment that it needs to adapt to. So, after a number of generations, due too natural variation, you will end up with different Brassica olercea plants all over the country/continent/planet!
3. When looking over the plant, the part of the Brassica oleracea plants that looked relatively the same in all of the ones in our garden were the flowers. All of the plants have 4 petaled yellow flowers, and each of them are around 1 inch in diameter. Now, I believe the reason why the flowers have not changed over time by natural variations and selective breeding, is because there is just no reason to change the color, size, and number of petals of the flower, as they work in any environment, and don't need to be changed. If it needed to change, it would of over the many generations, as the flowers are practically the same on all of the plants, of a 4 petaled yellow flower of a diameter of 1 inch.
4. They make sure the plants with the right traits breed and produce offspring, while those with lack luster traits aren't. They make it so the ones with traits that pop out a little more are the ones that make the other flowers, and breeding like this is how they breed animals and plants. It does take a while, or many generations, but eventually the desired traits will stick out a lot more, while the undesired traits are thrown away like moldy bread.

Thursday, March 9, 2017

A Matter of Selection


The part that seems to exhibit the most variation is the leaves and the stock. The size of plants seems to show the greatest variation also the quantity of produce varies. The brussel sprouts can grow up to two plus feet tall and can have more than thirty sprouts at one time. The stock of brussel sprouts are just a couple inches in diameter. The brussel sprouts stock is tall, thin, and strong. A cabbage stock is short, big, and strong. A cabbage’s stock is a few inches at the bottom and only an inch or so tall. The stock gets larger moving towards the top of the plant. The cabbage is only grown one at a time and is roughly eight to ten inches in diameter.



Certain plants have certain traits. Brussel sprouts have traits that make them thin and tall. Selective breeding allows certain plants to grow with modifications to suit the environment. This breeding is acted upon by humans. Like animals, plants also have genes. They receive their genes from the female parts and the male parts of plants. Unlike artificial breeding, natural variation allows plants to adapt to their environment on their own. These are called mutations. This occurs to the phenotype and after, descent with modification will begin. This means that this plant's offspring will have these same mutations.

The shape of the brassica oleracea are very similar. They all contain an abundance of leaves that are very tight together. For example spinache, spinache has many leaves and is no taller than ten inches tall. Kale is the same way. I believe that brassica oleracea are similar because they have a common ancestor and common traits. This is known do to the phenotype of the brassica oleracea, they all look similar. When looked deep into the genes of brassica oleracea, the plants are related. They all have common genes, but like humans, they all have slight differences.

Breeders artificially breed to get a common characteristic so plants can be suited to their environment. This allows plants to grow better because they are not undergoing competition among other plants. If this artificial selection did not occur, than brassica oleracea plants will not grow as well as others.

A Matter of selection

 Which part (anatomy) or characteristic of the Brassica oleracea plants seems to exhibit the most variation (greatest number of different forms)? Which part or characteristic of the Brassica oleracea plants seems to show the greatest range of variation (biggest difference between one extreme and its opposite)? Use and include data collected from multiple measurements to support your answer.

As I was looking through the garden I found that the greatest variation where located at the stem or stock of the plant. From the pictures shown below you can see that there are stems as long as ~8 inches all the way to stems as long as a pinky finger(like 1-2 inches). Some have multiple stems and some have one it all depends on the plant that you are growing







Using the terms that follow, explain why you think there is so much variability in the domestic forms of Brassica oleraceatraits, selective breeding, artificial selection, genes, descent with modification, natural variations, mutations

Answer: Each plant has its own traits and parts. They each have selective breading to allow them to live and thrive in their environment which is also why they use artificial selection. Every plant has it own genes and uses them to their advantages. Each plant also has some traits from the plant that they came from which means descent with modification. Some plants have natural variations which mean variations that happen during cell division and some plants just have mutations.


Which part (anatomy) of the Brassica oleracea plants seems to be most consistently the same in all of the examples in our garden, regardless of how extreme the differences between other parts of the same plants may be? Why do think this is so? Again, use and include data collected from multiple measurements to support your answer.

Answer: During my investigation in the garden I found that even though the plant leaves have a wide variety in look they seem to all have similar textures. All of the plants have a smooth but not soft texture and all have thickness to them. I have a couple ideas to why it is like this but some of them are not relevant so I will tell you the best of those reasons, which is that they are all similar types of plants and they could have started from the same type of plant and they ended up in different shapes and colors because of mutations and other terms used in the last question.  


What would plant breeders have to do in order to get the body part or characteristic you described above (in your response to question #3) to become much different than it is presently?

Answer: I feel the plant breeders don't have much control over what the plants body or characteristics are unless they make a model that is not natural and not good for the environment. 




Wednesday, February 15, 2017

Anthers and Stigmas and Styles, Oh My!

We got the flower out of the garden, and we first took out a piece of the flower. We then looked over the flower as a whole and then in big parts. After removing the sepals and petals, we saw the anthers. They were like small sticks sticking out of the flower. The picture was difficult, but we achieved it. Without the filament and anthers, we saw the carpel and took the picture. The hardest part for us was cutting the ovary. But after cutting it, we clearly saw the ovoules, even though they were hard to see. It took me 5 minutes to see them with Brendan's help. They looked like little dots inside the overys. Brendan and I found them very interesting, but it was worth all the time it took to cut into the overys successfully. The ovules also become fertilized and become eggs early on, which we found pretty cool. What we found cool, is that the plant is actually self-fertilized by the pollen in the anthers, which we didn't know!
    1. Picture 1: the flower parts, and just the bare petals in the flower and etc.
    2. Picture 2: The anthers inside after we cut and opened the flower


  1. Picture 3: the anthers coming out of the eyepiece affter removing the sepals and petals
    Picture 4: the carpel coming out after pulling back the filament and the anthers (it's the complete female reproductive structure)
    Picture 5: the ovules inside the ovary after cutting in the ovary with a small pair of scissors.