Science Night

     Days before the big night, before facing elementary school kids running around, overwhelmed with the various experiments, and before their curiosity prompted questions regarding our bubble experiment, I knew that planning was a must, and perfection was key. So, two days before the actual day, I followed the magic recipe for the bubbles, began to pour here and there, mixed that with this, stirred methodically and began to improvise a bubble wand out of a wire I luckily found poking out of a random corner of my home. These bubbles, however, were popping. Almost as if the slight breath nervously coming out of my nose were daggers, popping every home-made bubble I blew. I still had hope, perhaps redoing the experiment with a partner may be different; two heads think better then one, right? Hope still lingered, Mariel and I performed the experiment, and there was popping everywhere. Nothing could be done.

     Despite the hopelessness, Caren with a chemist's hand created the unpoppable solution, our philosopher's stone. Now, this solution was the keystone, holding everything together during that special night. Kids began to rush into the hallways, their minds craving knowledge, and our frontier, our table, boldly standing with Caren's solution placed exactly in the middle of the table. We were ready. Our aprons protecting us from chest to knees, and our table serving as our refuge, the sanction of knowledge and curiosity. The table was decorated with colorful solutions, and padded with thick towels, since we were already bracing ourselves for the flood that will accumulate after a few hours of having fun with bubbles, and witnessing the kids eyes widen towards a spherical, syrup substance. Just like the prominent solution crafted by Caren, each of the group members bared an important trait. Vanessa and Mariel were the kid-magnets, attracting most of the kids, and both without hesitation were teaching them how to properly make a bubble wand, and they swiftly revealed to them the super weapon, the perfect bubble solution grandly in the middle of the table. The rest of us interacted with the one's that were not able to reach Vanessa or Mariel since they were occupied assisting others. However, Guillermo was the idol to every kid and even parent who witnessed him blow bubbles bigger than his entire face. In fact, Guillermo was the main attraction. as his bubbles almost obstructed the narrow hallway.

     A few minutes into Science Night, and our experiment became almost like an origami activity as we guided the kids on how to correctly, and efficiently bend and twist the fuzzy, caterpillar like pipe cleaners. Left and right, I was getting questions asked both by parents and kids, I felt like a teacher instructing the composition of the bubbles, but sounded more like an over enthusiastic bubble aficionado. The Elementary school children were dipping their wands here and there, some passionate kids were dipping their hands into Caren's thick solution, the elixir of reminiscence, considering the countless stories I had heard from the children in which were triggered by the simple making of large bubbles. It was a therapeutic activity as well, and a nostalgic one also, since I felt older than ever. I, myself, was dealing with kids and parents, I stepped into an elementary school where the sink was below my waist, and I became the center of attention only by blowing bubbles.

A simple activity, a simple rectangular fordable white-top-table with bubble solution, ironically, developed my trait of maturity. It involved interacting with small 10 year old kids, with parents decades older then the kids and myself. This tested my ability to deal with any situation, whether they are extremes in difference. From being eye level with a kid conveying the sense of trustworthiness, to confidently and eloquent;y speaking to the parents.  It took the effort of my entire group to perfect this experiment, and with their motivation, memories worth reminiscing were made.

   
   

H-Weezy Wiz

The problem: In a population of 1000 with 25% being recessive individuals, we can gather all of the variables in the Hardy-Weinberg equation.

The Variables include:

q^2: Homozygous recessive individuals.

q: recessive allele frequency

p: dominant allele frequency

p^2: Homozygous dominant individual

2pq: Heterozygous individual

Which make the equations:

p^2 +2pq +q^2 = 1
p+q=1

1) q^2 is always the priority.
Referring to the problem, the homozygous recessive individuals or in other words the q^2=.25

2) Now, after knowing the q^2 we can figure out the next variable: q by square rooting .25
Equaling: .5

3) Considering the equation in which q belongs, both variables q and p need to equal one. So, that means we subtract the value of q from 1, which gives us p:  .5

4) In order to find p^2, we just square the value of p, and get .25

5) For the variable of 2pq, we simple plug in the values of p and q and multiply it times 2, and get .5

How do we know the number of individuals?

It's important to note that the variables representing the individuals in the population include q^2, p^2 , and 2pq

1) Because the population is 1000, we multiply each of the values of the variables representing individuals with 1000

2) Then we get,

p^2: 250 homozygous individuals

q^2: 250 homozygous recessive individuals

2pq: 500 heterozygous individuals

Wacky Worms Pulse Lab

The first two pictures offer a glimpse to the setting that we counted the pulse of the worms. Incredibly, their bodies are transparent enough to witness the circulation of their blood under a microscope and evidently their pulse. Simultaneously, and with haste our group jotted down data as we quickly rotated between Uwaila and myself to observe the squirmy and agitated worms for a precise count. The data tables of our group would be the second to last picture, which includes the mean and median of "A", "B", and "C" . I believe solution A is the neutral solution with an average of 20 pulses based on our groups data. Solution B is the depressant with an average of 18 pulses, the lowest pulse on our data tables, and solution C is the stimulant with an average of 30. The last picture depicts the averages of all of the group's data, not including ours. Basing it off of the last picture, solution "C", the lowest section from top to bottom, has high number of pulses near 30 when omitting the outliers, which agrees with our data, making "C" a stimulant, an educated guess.  Now, for the comparison between solutions "A" and "B", the last picture has crucial data missing, causing the inference gathered from "A" and "B" less accurate. As a result, based on our group's data, solution "B" is a depressant and solution "A" is neutral. To keep in mind, all of these conclusions of the solutions were obtained solely from the data and from utilizing basic statistical tools such as the average. This means the data was trusted 100% to predict the solutions, however, specific circumstances  could of altered the outcome of the data for each of the groups. In addition, for those circumstances present in every group, my predictions could be wrong, or as the notable Hannah Montana preached, "Everybody makes mistakes."

"Ecology Selfies"

This selfie would be the one I admire the most because of the pure-luck. Closely, there is a small hummingbird feeding off of the plant. It quickly occurred to me, as I patiently waited in the drive-thru, that the action of the hummingbird was one of my items needed for the assignment(mutualism). Without any hesitation, I instantly pulled out my phone and snapped about a dozen photos of the hummingbird. I still cannot believe how lucky I was that day!

This is a photo of  the group I went hiking with for the assignment. As we were strolling through the blazing hot trail we came across a stranded decomposing fruit. I reluctantly volunteered to hold the fruit for the picture.

This was a common flower found throughout our scavenger hunt. Every step I took, there was another one, tempting me to finally take a selfie with the pleading flower.

Overall, the scavenger hunt experience was tiring, sweaty, and blood rushing as my lazy, summer body was startled by the inclines and rough terrain of the trip. Some of the items were somewhat difficult to take a selfie, especially easily scared organisms like frogs. This is when our creativity struck in, However,  most of our group, not completely , prevailed through all of the steeps and slants but despite the obstacles it was an experience to be cherished.