Feb. 6 – Library session and "Why are cells important?"

Today we spent the first half of the class in the library to look at the career cruising website.  After answering the quizzes, you will get suggestions of possible careers for you.  Take some time to view these careers and the kind of courses you'll need to take to get there.  Here is the link:

Link: http://www2.careercruising.com/default/cplogin/YORK

Next we went back to class and discussed some more about cells.

Learning Goals: Understand why cells are important

Success Criteria: You can describe some applications based on our knowledge of cells.

I discussed how our blood is made up of cells.  Misquotes like to take our blood to drink and sometimes leave unwanted cells behind, like malaria!

Only female misquotes drink blood and only when they're ready to lay eggs.

How malaria moves around inside your blood cells.

A view of how malaria cells attack and take over our blood cells.

If we know enough about blood cells and malaria cells, we can find ways to help people who are struggling with this disease.

We then looked at the text book and took some time to read about other ways that cell research can benefit humans.

The textbook we will use.

I also talked about a person who's hand got cut off.  His arm was too injured to reattach the hand, so they sewed it to his foot to keep it alive for a month.  When his arm healed, they reattached the hand to it.

Here's the full story: Hand kept alive on foot.

How was the hand kept alive?

• It got blood from the leg.

Why does it need blood?

• Blood carries oxygen, water and nutrients to the cells in the hand, keeping it alive.

Tomorrow we will discuss more about what keeps a cell alive and all the parts that it needs to function.

First Class

Welcome to Science Class!

This is the official blog of Dr. G's grade 10 Applied Science Class.

Today we started by finding out a bit about each other.

Handout: Student Information Sheet

Ten we discussed the course outline.

Handout: Course Outline

Then we did we some science questions just for fun.  Here they are along with the answers at the bottom...

1. What is the biggest bone in the human body?

A) Skull

B) Femur

C) Forearms

D) Spine

2. What is botany?

A) Study of humans

B) Study of diseases

C) Study of animals

D) Study of plant

3. How long does it take the earth to make one complete orbit around the sun?

A) 30 days

B) 365 days

C) 366 days

D) It changes every year.

4. How many legs does a spider have?

A) 4

B) 6

C) 8

D) 10

5. How many legs does an insect have?

A) 4

B) 6

C) 8

D) 10

6. What scientist came up with E = mc2?

A) Einstein

B) Newton

C) Galileo

D) Curie

7. What do pandas come from?

A) Mexico

B) Brazil

C) South Africa

D) China

8. What is the molecular formula for water?

A) H2O

B) H2, O2

C) CO2

D) dihydrogen monoxide

9. What colour is not in a spectrum?

A) ultra violet

B) infra red

C) white

D) x-rays

Here are the answers...

1. B
2. D
3. B
4. C
5. B
6. A
7. D
8. A
9. C

And some visual aids...

The femur is the bone from your knee to your hip.

Spiders have eight legs, insects have 6.  "What about centipedes?" someone asked.  Well, they're not insects, they're officially called chilopods!

Next we jumped right into the first unit.  

Biology

Learning Goals: Understand what a cell is.

Success Criteria: You can describe what a cell is and how it makes up living organisms.

Here are some notes I gave to the class:

Cell: a cell is the smallest part of an organism (anything that is alive).

• All living things are made of cells.
• The cell is the smallest living thing.

An onion skin seen through a microscope.

Human skin seen through a microscope.

Cells are made up of organelles.

• Every cell has a nucleus in the middle.  It contains the DNA.

We then discussed what DNA does in a person.  Here's a video you might be familiar with...

In the movie Peter Parker's DNA changes and he becomes Spider Man.  In real life, he'd probably get cancer and die...

Homework: 

• Bring a binder to keep all the handouts from this course.