The Scientific Medusa

Hello everyone, my name is J.N, and I take a STEAM class in GCE Lab School known as Population. What we do for this class is that we take both science and math and integrate it in order to gain a better learning experience. Right now, we are learning about how to follow the growth of population as well as the evolution/taxonomy of an animal in said population. In this class, we had gone to the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum to learn about taxidermy of certain animals that lived inside of the Chicago area before human intervention began. In there, we saw different taxidermy all around, showing us on which environments these species lived in, as well as what they were in their prime.

What we had to do for this assignment is we would have to write about a scientific preservation method in order to demonstrate the overall theme of the class. What “scientific preservation method” is that it’s kept information on a species. It could either phenotype or genotype trails, but is phenotype for the most part. There are multiple types of preservations, such as video or picture, but I choose taxidermy, which is stuffing the skin in order to keep the shape. Anyway, I hope you all enjoy.

Taxidermy is a type natural preservation in which an animal carcass(non-decayed) has been stuffed and covered with certain materials in order to keep secure its preserved glory(removing the inners, of course). When you think about taxidermy, your mind comes to the conclusion of heads being mounted on walls and left for display. For the most part, that mounted heads is a good definition on how normal taxidermy looks like. But in order to give you a better idea, I need to give you an example.

 Ashish Sehgal. File:Taxidermy cat family. June 19, 2016. Wikipedia. Commons.wikimedia.org. Web. Oct 26, 2017

Above is a photo on the taxidermy of the two lions. We could tell it’s taxidermy mainly because the animals are in one signal pose, and doesn't show any signs of life. Now, there are several questions you could ask about these animals. Such as what species were they, where were these animals before, and how did they die. These questions are what taxidermy solves.

For example, if it was a video, you wouldn't be able to see the full model of the lions. It would just take wasted time and effort to record, since most of the time these species is always moving. What makes taxidermy so special is that you could be able to walk around and see every angle of the species. This would allow the scientist to conduct research just by appearance. You could see what type of lion they were, or even make a discovery that it’s a brand new species. You can measure the size/height of the animal with, rather than just creating assumptions through photos and videos. The same could be said for where they’re native to by seeing all of the color scheme on fur for camouflage as well as looking over the body for wounds on how they died.

Not only that, but this is a much safer way of gain research rather going into the field. When going into the field, you could have a risk of dying do to the animal trying to attack you. The animal could also run away, thus wasting more of you time trying to find it. It just makes things a bit too unnecessary. But with a model, hunters/other events already took the animal’s life. It gives a long term goal to keep it as a model and useful. We could say that taxidermy is extremely useful for scientist who observe in a lab rather than in the field.

In conclusion, I believe that taxidermy is one of the most important preservation methods by far. You can be able to interact with a model in a delicate way, as well a check on every single angle of the body. This allows future generations to look at a model to compare their size and height without gaining risk. Thus, I believe that taxidermy will be used for generations.

Ashish Sehgal. File:Taxidermy cat family. June 19, 2016. Wikipedia. Commons.wikimedia.org. Web. Oct 26, 2017

"Immigrants, we get the job done."

Hello everyone, my name is J.N. and I take a humanities class called Stories at GCE Lab School. In this term, we learned about history, story structures, and how to portray different myths and morals in a certain way.

For this unit, we put an emphasis on the hero’s journey. The “hero's journey” is a plot structure that shows what the hero faces, and how he/she returns from it. It’s shown to be a cycle, and many times a person would go through a hero’s journey whenever facing a sort of conflict. This plot structure is shown both in fiction and in real life, which allows us to determine if a certain person could be considered a hero.

For this AP, I decided to look over a real hero and a fictional hero. My real hero is my mother, Dolly Z. She immigrated to America, went from poverty to a higher economic class, and now supports others. Meanwhile, my fictional hero is a boy named Carlitos. He is from the movie Under the Same Moon. He travels from Mexico to America to find his mother. Throughout the film, he is confronted by multiple challenges while gaining multiple allies.

In both stories, I found multiple comparisons in these heroes. But what I found the most intriguing is that they are round characters. They live their lives through the challenges they face and survive without fully winning or losing. Yet they change through those challenges. They gain experience which allows the potential for them to help others. Thus, you see them save the people they love at the end.

Either way, this is the story of two different yet similar heroes. There's a audio recording and a transcript on said recording. Still, I hope you all enjoy the powerpoint, listen to to audio, and read the transcript.

 

Africa's Hot Spot

My name is J.N. and I study at GCE Lab School. In there, we had a class called Population, in which we learn about scientific terms such natural selection, evolution, phenotype/genotype, and much more. We also learned about mathematical terms such as standard deviation, permutation/combination, and much more. We also went to the Field Museum for this Unit in which we learn about the evolutionary traits of the observed animals.

For this class, we had to do create an assignment which was a thought project on what might happen to an organism in a different environment. I choose a Fennec Fox mainly because they are small but tough creature. Anyway, the main reason this project was created was so we could predict on what could happen if human is messing the environment and how the Foxes would adapt to it. What I am proud of this project is the information given. What I am not proud of is the format, since the original format had technical errors. Still, I hope you all enjoy.

The Fox and the Gator

My name is J.N., and I study at GCE Lab School. In it, I have been taking a Humanities class known as stories. What we do is we study about literature and subjects such as symbolism, metaphors, and much more. For an assignment, we had to write a fable that had a symbol, anthropormophic or non- human characters, and moral for the story. I just want to say that I'm proud this project with the illustration created by myself. I am also proud of the story itself, and how it gets straight to the point. What I had struggle however is the symbolism in the story, which is consistant but is hard to find. Still, I hope you like it and that you can be able to find the moral.

There was once a group of young alligators and their father who went into a lake and ate most of the fish. The woodland creatures wanted to tell the large alligator to stop, but they were all too scared to do so. So, for the first time ever, both prey and predator went to the center of the forest to talk about what they were going to do. An owl, on the highest branch, became the leader of the group. Before the meeting began, she told everyone that no one was to be eaten nor killed. All the animals agreed and started with the meeting.

At first, nobody knew how to deal with the alligator. It wasn’t until a bear came up from the group. “I can certainly beat the scoundrel” said the bear. “But in order to do so, I wish to have another cave of my own, as well as all the honey I can eat”. Now, some the animals though the bear could do it. He was known to win, sometimes with just one swipe of his claw. The owl and other animals agreed that the bear was the right choice.

Before the fight, the sun had set, and it was so dark that most of the animals couldn’t see the event. When the fight was over, the bear had wounds from his shoulder to his belly. He was in agony, and said, “ I came up to him, trying to resolve this conflict peacefully, and he attacked me with full force. I came running back for safety.” All the animals shivered in panic for the upcoming future. The owl screeched and told everybody they would all have to adapt to the situation. They all agreed until a mouse came running in and stated that the alligator scared him off when he was taking a drink from the lake. Realizing that their largest water supply was taken hostage, the owl decided that whoever could beat the alligator could get the promised cave.

The stag tried, but he couldn’t run on water. The wolves tried, but the water was unclear at night. Over and over, challengers tried to fight the alligator, but they were always in the dark whenever it happened.

As the animals were ready to accept their fate, a small fox came around the corner and took the center of the group. “ Maybe I could help.” said the fox in a calm voice. “but only if you give me the cave for myself. ”

Now, the forest residents hated the fox almost as much as the feared the alligator. When he was young, he was a trickster. He would trick critters all day and would leave at night. But seeing how they didn’t have a choice, the animals all voted and gave the fox a chance.

At the sunrise, the fox proceeded toward the gator. The alligator looked fiercely towards the fox, ready to attack. The fox only smiled and said, “Gee, you seem tense. What, fox got your tongue?” .Now ,to most, this would seem terrible. But alligator laughed so hard that he almost forgot to breathe .

JN "Storybook" 2018, blogspot

As the sun rose, the fox laid down on the shore of the pond, speaking one joke to the next. Gradually, the gator trusted the fox and felt calm near him. After a long period of jokes, the fox tried to suggest something. “ You know… There’s a really nice pond a couple miles away. It has all the fish in the world, and if you go there, no creature would ever bother you again.”

The gator looked sternly at the fox and spoke. “So that’s why you'se here. You'se tellin me to git out like all the rest of them critters. Well, Ah would, but one of my kin died ‘cause of a ruthless bear. We was just mindin our own beeswax, when dis big old bear came runnin toward us, and tried kill me. I fought back, of course, but right before he was tuh leave, his claw swipes at my son and took his dear life. I won’t stop til I get justice.”

When the fox got back, he told the animals everything. At first, they all didn’t believe him, until he brought the alligator himself and explain his side of the story. They told the bear to leave the forest. As the sun rose, the bear was able to gain justice from the crime, while the fox got his cave. The sun had rose high into the sky, and the forest was able to see a lot clearer.