Hello. I’m Jason Guan, and this post is gon’ be ‘bout cloning. Mitosis, you know what I’m sayin’?

I’ll stop now.

Ok, so this unit was all about reproduction. I’m talking mitosis. I’m talking meiosis. I’m talking asexual AND sexual reproduction. Our final project for this unit was to clone two plants. A dandelion, and a plant of our choosing. After a few lessons on cell division and microscope usage, we got right to it.

The first main part of our project was planting our plants. We (my partner Luciano and I) dug up some dandelion roots, cut ‘em up, and planted the chunks of root in some soil, praying for them to grow. Spoiler alert, they didn’t. After that disappointment, we hoped our personal choice plant, garlic, would end up growing somewhat better.

The garlic planting was MUCH better. We planted the cloves and within a few days, the garlic sprouted beautifully.

The second main part was microscope usage. To examine mitosis in action, we cut off some of the root tips, and do some standard procedure. The procedure involves taking a root-tip, soaking it in hydrochloric acid to kill it and stop the cell growth, and soaking it in blue stain to make it more visible under a microscope. Under the microscope, we found some great mitosis photos.

Finally, what would a science post be without curricular competencies. These are some I (and the teacher) feel we excelled at.

Select and Use Appropriate Equipment

This competency involves making good use of the equipment given to you. In our case, it featured correctly using the microscopes and following the cloning procedures. In my opinion, we did great work with the microphones and got some great pictures. We also assembled out slides perfectly, using the acid, distilled water, and blue stain very well.

Transfer and Apply Knowledge to New Situations

This habit involves using prior knowledge and using it in completely new situations. I think a perfect example of using this competency well is when we took our knowledge of using the acid and blue stain procedure we learned to analyze the dandelion and garlic root tips. I think we definitely used the procedure very well, other than maybe not using enough dye.

Formulate Physical or Mental Models

The last competency I want to talk about is formulate physical or mental models. In terms of our project, this involves taking photographs of the Mitosis in our root tips, and organizing them into charts plotting out the stages of Mitosis. Interphase, Prophase, Metaphase, Anaphase, Telophase, and Cytokinesis. We made some great charts involving the stages of Mitosis, and I think that was a great contributor to our success in this competency.

So, that brings the clone army to an end. I enjoyed this project, as it allowed me to get hands-on and actually make a physical model.

This is Jason, signing off.