The driving question for this project was “How does our Knowledge of Cell Biology Contribute to Public Health?”

When you look at that, you immediately think about health and the body. Or at least I do! That gives a sneak peak into the project we just did. 👀

 

Pull out the Petri Dish!🧫

After learning about bacteria, it was time for our experiment! The experiment was to swab a surface and see how the growth of bacteria changes depending on the surface. My hypothesis was depending on the surface that is more public, there will be more bacterial growth. The next step was to swab the door to outside (more public), and my iPad (less public). The next step after that was to just wait for the growth to happen!

 

Field Journal 📔

I created this field journal to keep track of my hypothesis, prediction, and to keep track of the growth. In order to make a good, effective field journal, I needed to focus on a couple things! My design skills, and my observational skills. For my design I chose to do a green theme as you can probably see. I think this field journal helped me with design because I got to pick my style! In order to keep track of the growth, I needed to take very specific, up close observations. I payed attention to small things like colour, texture, size, and shape. Being very specific can be weird because I dont usually think like that. (Spot all the tiny things). Keeping a field journal was a really good way for documenting the growth.

Immune System Cell Cards

Moving on! The next thing we learned about is the immune system! Specifically the adaptive immune system. We learned about all the cells: T-cell, B-cell, Macrophage, White blood cell, and even what they protect the body from! (Pathogens). We were assigned a very fun and creative ways to show our knowledge about the adaptive immune system. We had to make character cards for each cell. I chose to theme mine about minions! I gave each cell a name, wrote their function, and I wrote a little description for each. I tried to personify each cell so it was more fun.

Those are the cards! Something that we worked on with this project was communication. I worked on communicating my knowledge in a fun way. I feel like I did a good job in the communicating aspect of this project. Overall, I really liked making these cards and I think that they were effective in helping me learn about each cell.

 

Who Don’t People Get Vaccinated? 💉 🤔

There are a lot of reasons why people choose not to get the COVID 19 vaccine. As a class, we brainstormed some reasons why people are against vaccination.

Here are some we came up with: The vaccine was too rushed, Side effects, Gives you autism, Religious reasons, and micro-chips.

Those are only some reasons. Some of the reasons seem pretty silly, but some people are actually worried about those things. It is important for people to be properly educated about these things. Especially with social media, information travels fast (if it is right or wrong). That is where science comes into place!

My partner for this assignment was Gemma. We worked pretty well together! Oh yeah, I need to say what the project was 😂. The project was to research one of the reasons people don’t want to get vaccinated. We chose “The vaccine was too rushed”. Then, we made 3 posters with clever sayings or ways to prove that statement wrong. We made a point about all the verification steps that come with verifying a vaccine. Here are our posters!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So… How does our Knowledge of Cell Biology Contribute to Public Health?

It is that time of post to answer the driving question! Before doing this unit, I honestly had little knowledge about our immune system, and about how vaccines actually work. Will all the new knowledge, I know how my body deals with sickness, bacteria, and vaccines. Lots of people don’t have that knowledge. It greatly affects the way people see vaccines, and therefore a lot of those people choose not to get vaccinated. When people do not get vaccinated, they are at higher risk to getting COVID 19. That puts more people at risk. To sum it up, the more scientific knowledge you have, the healthier you will be! You will think about being sick differently. The symptoms you have are actually your immune system trying its best to fight off the virus. The immune system is powerful, and so are vaccines! Sometimes all you need is to learn more about it.

 

Reflection

I learned so much in this unit! I learned everything from how dirty surfaces are, to what people think about vaccines! I think it is important we are educated about this stuff so we can stay healthy, and help other people. I also learned more about how communication and observation are important things to think about with these topics.

Overall, I really enjoyed this project!

Thank you for reading!!😄