Blog 7: This week I presented my final version of my science project to Mr. Morris and the rest of my class. Something that went well in my presentation was having great knowledge of my information which helped me present it well. A struggle that I had was knowing when to move through my sparkpage on the computer to help it flow well. I didn’t want to constantly be at the computer scrolling down. If I was to redo my presentation, I would have a bit more confidence with my performance. I am learning to have confidence while speaking. To improve my presentation from the feedback my peers have given me over the past two weeks, I added more information based off of questions they had and practiced talking about my model. On the sticky notes from my classmates, they gave me good feedback on how they liked my model. They suggested I speak with more enthusiasm which I am working on. They asked why I choose my topic? I feel good about knowing my information well and being able to speak to it without looking at the screen or notecards. I learned so much about virology! It was really interesting and cool and got me even more interested in the medical field. I loved being able to learn about a topic I actually care about. It sparked my interest in becoming a doctor even more.
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Blog 6: This week I presented my Science of Virology project to my peers. It went very good. I knew my information thoroughly and the visual project was easy for my peers to understand. It seems I had great knowledge of the information I have been studying along with what I created in my model. My peers seemed to enjoy my project. My struggle was speaking about the information I have while pointing it out on the actual visual model. I need to practice this more. I want to improve how I point out the information I’m speaking about on my visual model. To do this I need to practice my oral presentation while using my model during talking points. I already have great knowledge of my information and my visual model but I need to become more confident in how I present it all together. I went to the work of creating a cool model and I need to remember to include it in my oral presentation. My group members had a few questions. How many cells need to become infected in order for you to become sick? What is the difference between a regular antibody and an antibody that can kill HIV? After the antibody kills the virus what does the antibody do? Can the antibody be reprogrammed to kill a different type of virus? I am going to add these answers to my information. I am going to research these questions so I can answer them correctly and then include this information in my presentation. My group members gave me great positive feedback. They felt I had a good model, a great presentation that looks like I worked hard, and good information. I will continue to do this by practicing my oral presentation more times and to make it even better I will gather a bit more information on my topic. To improve my ratings I received feedback to include my model more when speaking. I also was reminded to make sure the whole group can see my model when I am presenting. I am going to do some run throughs of my presentation making sure I point out my model and also making sure the audience can all see it clearly.
Blog 5: This week I made a lot of progress on my science of Virology project. The first step I took to completing my project was working on my model of an infected cell. I had a really good start last week and I ended up finishing it and I really liked how it turned out. The first thing I did to my model was I painted the outside of the cell blue which is the cell membrane. I then added some segments to the Endoplasmic reticulum. After I did that I added my antibodies and HIV viruses to the model. The final step to my cell model was adding the little signs to the part of the cell so people can tell what they are. After I finished my model I began to work on my sparkpage to go with it. I decided to go with a pattern so my page will have variety but also some organization. I made the page switch for a picture in window form with a fact in it to a fact then a picture then another fact. I tried to make the facts easy to understand and simple so the page was not too full of words and so it would have lots of color.
I am definitely ahead on my project because I have made some revisions and have a finished product. I am definitely going to take the feedback I get from next week's class and make changes to my project. I actually enjoy learning about this topic so I want my project to be interesting and great. I want my project to go in a more engaging and attention grabbing way. Most projects that kids do in science class are bland and boring but I want mine to stand out in some way. I think the thing that I have struggled most with this project was finding a wide spectrum of pictures with different viruses and colors. In the end I think I did a good job of changing the picture types up. I hope to make my project interesting and helpful to me. The reason I wanted to study virology is because I am very interested in the medical field. I hope to accomplish a new level of understanding of this topic for myself. ![]() Blog 4: This week instead of researching more about my topic I decided to start to work on my project. For my project I decided to make a model of a cell with antibodies on it with a cool presentation I will make in Adobe. First I went to Michaels and got some supplies. Some of the things I got to make my project were a styrofoam ball, blue and orange paint, paint brushes, a small styrofoam ball, foam sheets, and some wooden sticks to place my model on. The first step I took to make my cell was cutting a fourth of the big ball out so I can show the inside of the cell. After that I took the small ball and cut off a third of it and glued it onto the larger styrofoam ball. This piece will represent the nucleus. I’ve also added various pieces of the cell like the mitochondria, the golgi body, and vacuole. I made these pieces out of different colors of foam sheets. My goal for my presentation vehicle is to make my cell model good looking and appealing. I want people to able to understand what the cell is modeling and I want them to be able to learn something from what I make. The other half of my project is going to be an almost informational picture book or an interesting spark page. It is going to be made in either adobe illustrator or adobe spark. I want to do something like what we did for our spanish book last semester but it will depend on whether there are enough picture to use in a book. I want to create these different pages with lots of color and good pictures of cells. If there are not enough pictures of cells I will make a cool spark page. The goal I have for the topic in my project is to provide useful and interesting information about virology. I am going to show the depth of my leaning in my presentation by being able to talk about the parts of the cell really well. I will also show my learning by explaining how antibodies and viruses interact. Blog 3: This week I decided to study HIV and antibodies that have the ability to kill the HIV virus. I studied this because for a long time HIV has been an incurable disease but this shows there can be a vaccine/cure. HIV can not be killed/neutralized by a common antibody. Recently researchers have found an antibody that can neutralize the virus. The only problem with this antibody is that it is created five years after HIV infects its host. It is too late to completely rid the body of HIV once the antibody is created. The antibodies can’t reverse the effects of the HIV virus, but instead they can reduce the amount of virus cells in the body and slow the progression of the virus. Researchers believe that if the antibody is created right when the virus enters the body it can neutralize it before the virus infects the cells of the body. A certain type of these antibodies called CH237 were found. These antibodies can kill 90% of the different types of HIV. With time, researchers will be able to create a vaccine/cure that could stop HIV before it infects.
This week, I am in the process of learning a bit more about antibodies and viruses so I can start making my science of presentation and plan for my elementary school product. My biggest success of researching has been figuring out how viruses and antibodies interact with each other and how they overall work. My biggest struggle has been figuring out how exactly I wanted to narrow my topic down. This all has been very interesting to me because I think I want to be a doctor someday. I am really enjoying learning about this topic. Blog 2: When cells are attacked by a virus, antibodies are created. Antibodies help find and destroy viruses. They are one of the most important parts of fighting off viruses and sicknesses. The job of an antibody is to stop a virus from infecting a cell through a process called neutralization. It has long been thought disease causing viruses could take shelter from your bodies defenses by hiding inside cells. It is newly discovered that an antibody can attach onto a virus and follow it into the cell it wants to infect. Once both organisms are inside the cell, the antibody can trigger an immune response that can kill the virus. The protein in the cell that causes this reaction is called TRIM21. When scientists increase the amount of TRIM21 they found the reaction was stronger and faster. When the first virus is killed in the cell, a piece of it is given to the antibodies, sort of as a scent, like a dog. This enables the antibodies to track that kind of virus.
When I first started researching virology, I did not know what specific part of virology I wanted to study. I have decided to study how antibodies interact/fight with viruses. The most interesting thing I have learned so far is how antibodies can take a piece of a virus and track them almost like a dog. The piece of a virus is like a key to an antibodies lock. It has also been very interesting to learn that antibodies have an almost destructive blast that can kill a virus in a cell without damaging itself or the cell. The protein that makes this happen is called TRIM21. My greatest struggle so far has been finding good, quality videos/websites. The way I could fix this problem is sticking to websites/videos that I know are credible like Kahn Academy videos and websites from universities and medical sources. Something I am thinking of doing for my science of virology presentation is making some kind of presentation with informational slides and an almost battle map of antibodies and viruses. To make this successful, I need to research what different types of the immune system look like and figure out a good platform to make my presentation. The idea I have for my product for elementary school students is making an animation that has very simple and interesting facts about antibodies and viruses. To make sure elementary school students would stay focused, I am going to make an animation showing a virus fight an antibody like a boxing match. I don’t want to bore the students. I know that when I was an elementary school student, I would have liked this idea. Blog 1: Virology is the branch of science that deals with the study of viruses. It may sound bland and simple but there is a lot more to it then you think. There are many many types of viruses and all of them can result in a multitude of different sicknesses or diseases. It starts of by a virus entering the body through a wound or an open passageway like the mouth. This leads to that virus infecting one cell in the body. When the cell is infected the virus put its DNA in the cell to tell it what to do. After the cell has been infected it start to multiply very quickly. The virus can not muliple in the body unless it has a host (cell). A virus can multiply really fast and spread far across the body. This is why you get sick. One single virus can not get you sick by itself but when it multiples it can. A virus can cause a lot of sicknesses such as the common cold, the flu, chicken pox, ebola, and lots more. A virus can give you a simple sickness like a normal cold or a very dangerous one like ebola that can spread around an area faster than the blink of an eye. Viruses can take genetics from one host to another, even if they are not related. http://www.news-medical.net/health/What-is-a-Virus.aspx http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/alllife/virus.html
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