BREAKING NEWS: Bamboo Clones Have Taken Over The World🎋

Imagine if clones took over the planet!! Imagine if clones were even real at all?! That would be pretty crazy! 

Well I’m here to tell you today, that clones are real, they most likely won’t take over the world, at least the ones my class studied. Over the past month or so, my partner Taylor and I have cloned (yes I cloned things) Dandelions and Bamboo! It’s been a lot of work but also a lot of fun realizing that cloning plants is possible and a very real thing that tons of industries use. Here are a few examples of how to clone plants:

At the very beginning of the unit, I created a mind map as always to compare what I learned at the beginning to what I learned at the end. And I learned a VERY substantial amount!! The things I learned are in red text and the white text is what I knew at the beginning of the unit.

A FEW HIGHLIGHTS

Before talking about the curricular competencies, I want to talk about my two favourite parts of the project. The first being our planning sheets or cloning procedure. Here is the one I made for cloning dandelions:

And here is the one for Bamboo:

These are very important to the success of your clones because planning is a very crucial step to anything!

Another new thing I learned how to do was create my own microscope slides. I had looked at many before that were pre-made for me but it was super cool to learn the process it takes to make your own. We had to make some with samples of our clones to try and find mitosis.

Here is a video Taylor and I created to show it:

THE CURRICULAR COMPETENCIES

Collaboratively and individually plan, select, and use appropriate investigation methods, including field work and lab experiments, to collect reliable data

This is one of the first projects where I actually got to do real field work. Our class really enjoyed going outside of the school and finding big bunches of dandelions and digging them out. As well as a great hands-on experience in the sun, those dandelions became a big part fo our research. We dissected them and created slides out of them which was another first for me. This allowed us to study mitosis and cloning and gather reliable data we found with our own eyes.

Select and use appropriate equipment, including digital technologies, to systematically accurately collect and record data

This project involved a lot of hands on experimenting with actual scientific tools and chemicals which was scary at first but after learning how to use them properly and practicing, these parts probably became my favourite part of the project. Depending on the part of the project, whether it be making the microscope slides or dissecting the clones, we were taught how to use appropriate tools like methylene blue, scalpels, and cover slips. With these newly created slide, we were able to record data from under the microscope.

Contribute to care for self, others, community, and world through individual or collaborative approaches

I think in this project Taylor and I contributed very equally. Although we did contribute very equally I think we were also both very persistent in our studies since a lot of the time they weren’t quite working, and it would not have come together if we hadn’t worked as a team. We did have our ups and downs though and I can recognize that, but overall our determination and hard work gave us a great final outcome

Formulate physical or mental theoretical models to describe a phenomenon 

Wooooooeeeee!! This one sounds very complicated, and it kinda is! There’s a lot of fancy words in there. Cloning is something that many people don’t know much about, they instantly think of things like the Clone Wars in Star Wars taking over the world, but after studying and researching them I discovered that they are so so much more than that. I think that this digital model we created really represents what I learned in a lot of ways:

Alrighty, that’s all for today! Thanks for taking the time to read my post and I’ll see you guys next time!! Bye!

~Jordyn😁