Hello blog readers, 

Welcome back to another post and this post is about what we learned in science this unit. This unit has been all about Reproduction and Cloning. It has been an great unit I’m excited for you to read all about it.

The driving question for this unit in science was “How do species continue to survive when individuals always die?” We started to talk about this question to get a deeper understanding and I learned that to answer this question, we had to learn about the different ways of reproduction, and how they affect the survival of species. 

As you already know in PLP every unit has a project. Now let me tell you about the project in this unit. For this project we were in groups of 3-4. My group was a group of 3 including Lauren and Kiefer. The project deliverables were we had to clone two plants one dandelion and one plant of our choice. Then we had to make a research proposal video talking about everything we learned in the unit.

Now that you know what the project is about let me tell you about the science. First let me start off by explaining meiosis and mitosis. Meiosis is a type of cell division that results in four daughter cells each with half the number of chromosomes of the parent cell. Mitosis is a type of cell division that results in two daughter cells each having the same number and kind of chromosomes as the parent nucleus, typical of ordinary tissue growth. Meiosis and Mitosis basically are both the procedures when organisms reproduce sexually or asexually.  

Now let me tell you about the difference of asexual and sexual reproduction. Asexual reproduction is a type of reproduction by which offspring arise from a single organism, and inherit the genes of that parent only; it does not involve the fusion of gametes, and almost never changes the number of chromosomes. Sexual reproduction is a type of reproduction that produces offspring by the fusion of gametes, resulting in offspring genetically different from the parent or parents. The benefits of Asexual reproduction is that it only requires one parent and it creates the plant the exact same as the parent. The benefits of sexual reproduction is that each offspring is unique and contains DNA from both parents which can be helpful in many ways.

For the project we were supposed to clone two plants, we chose our second plant to be potatoes. We cloned the dandelions by digging some dandelions with the roots. Then we cut the roots and planted them but in the first day our dandelions over heated and never sprouted. However our second plant did grow. We cloned the potatoes by cutting the potatoes into small squares, making sure that each square has an ‘eye’. Then we let the pieces to dry overnight. The next day we planted the pieces in a pot eye side up. We made sure that the potatoes pieces had a little but of soil on top but not to much or else we wouldn’t be able to see the sprouting.

Soon we started to make our video. When we made the video and I looked at it I was not happy with the outcome.

Here is the first video.

Lauren and I started working on our second video and I like this video more. I think it shows our knowledge more and follows the criteria way more. Lauren and I put lots of work on this project and this final video turned out better.

Here is the final video.

I made this small MindNode to show my learning.

During the course of this unit I learned all about reproduction, meiosis and mitosis, asexual and sexual reproduction, and how to clone. Something that went really well was the growth of our potatoes. I think I used all the core competency’s in this unit and that is something I’m proud of. I used communication competency to collaborate and work on this project as a group, I used personal competency because I was self-determined, I used thinking competency when I learned the science and when I analyzed and critiqued my work. Since I was able to show great growth in this project I feel like I earned a good mark. I really liked this project and I’m ready for the next one.