May 15, 2018 Biology Reflection Paper

Biology IN depth
Biology 1 was a subject that I thought would be boring because as to my prior knowledge,
biology was just all about studying things about life and some other boring topics. I was wrong. This
Biology class opened my eyes and made me see that biology can be a very interesting and fun subject
thanks to how Sir JJ taught us. He used a teaching style that made us students more and more
interested in biology. The first thing that I can recall that made me more interested in biology was
the Pokémon cards and how every time we answered and got a high score in an exam, we got
Pokémon stickers which corresponded to points. Another thing that he did that made me more
interested in biology is the time that he made us make a game that would teach lower grades the
unifying themes of biology. I also remembered the time that we studied about the unifying themes
and I learned that the cell was the basic unit of life. I also remembered learning the levels of
biological organization and how the study of life is from the global scale up to the microscopic scale.
Another important thing that I learned is how structure defines the function as seen in parts of
animals. One of my favorite topics was the origin of life and I laughed at the concept of
spontaneous generation because it sounded stupid to me. It was all about how organisms come out
of the blue like from meat and mud. The concept of biogenesis is the concept that we people believe
in up to now where organisms come from other organism through reproduction. I also loved
studying about Charles Darwin and his theory of descent with modification by natural selection. I
was shocked at how Charles Darwin made this theory and how curious he was. He sailed the HMS
beagle at a young age to discover the Galapagos Islands. There he discovered many types of finches
and started to theorize about evolution, calling it descent with modification. We also studied about
people who contributed to this theory like Charles Lyell, Thomas Malthus, Robert Fitzroy and Jean
Baptiste de Lamarck. Charles Darwin made a theory that would oppose the belief of the church
which was God made life. He debunked Aristotle’s view on life that there were unchanging species
on the earth and that the earth was a thousand years old not a billion.
One topic that I was finding difficulty in was the cladograms and how to arrange organisms in
it since I was a lateral student who had little knowledge in the kingdoms and phylum and classes. It
was very hard at first and most of my tests were not having passing grades on them on that quarter.
I also failed the Periodic Exam that quarter which made my grade in Biology lower. But this did not
stop me, and I promised to myself that I would study harder to get a higher grade in Biology 1. A
good chunk of the School Year for biology was all about Body systems like the digestive system,
skeletal system, nervous system, muscular system, immune system and circulatory system. These
topics were the ones that I liked to study because it explained how our body works and how they
integrate and help each other to make us humans function properly. Based on my memories, the
digestive system is the one that helps us in digestion while the circulatory system in the one in charge
of the circulation of blood. The respiratory system showed me how organisms respirate and use air.
The excretory system was the one the that performed excretion which is the process of removal of
nitrogenous wastes in the form of uric acid, urea and ammonia. The immune system is the one
which protects use from different types of pathogens which can cause different diseases to us. There
are two types of immunity which are adaptive and innate. Innate is the one which includes the
barrier defense like the skin, mucous membranes and secretions and the internal defense which
includes phagocytic cells, killer cells, antimicrobial proteins and inflammatory response. The adaptive
immunity is the one where humoral response comes in which includes antibodies which defend in
body fluids and the cell-mediated response like cytotoxic cells. The nervous system is the one tasked
of receiving, processing and transferring information from receptors throughout the body. The basic
unit of this system is the neuron which is made up the cell body, axon and dendrites. This system
has two divisions which are the central nervous system which includes the spine and brain and the
peripheral nervous system which includes the cranial nerves and spinal nerves. The skeletal system is
one of the most important system of the body since it functions in protection, locomotion and
support. It protects many organs like the heart, lungs and brain which are needed in other body
systems. This system is one of my favorites because I loved memorizing the parts of the axial and
appendicular skeleton. I also liked how we were tasked to make a logo in the first grading which will
represent a field in biology. Me and my classmates came up with some crazy ideas and logos which I
am sure is a moment that we will look back when we are finished with PISAY.
One thing that I thought that was a genius idea was the BIO cards since each letter represented
our response to a certain question. The geologic time scale topic was interesting for me since I got
to study different organisms and in what times they existed like the Dinosaurs, early plants, early
mammals and early reptiles and fishes. Microscopy was also a great topic for me because I got to
learn how the microscope was created and how it impacted the scientific world since it helped in
many discoveries like the cell and in observing some microscopic organisms. We tackled how
Salvino D’armate created the first eye glass and how Zacharias Jansen created the first light
microscope. This helped us in our later experiments like staining cheek cells and observing tissues
like different types if epithelium like squamous, columnar and cuboidal. Another experiment that
made me love Biology more was dissection if frogs because I was amazed at how we got to kill and
paralyze the frog. We got to hold the frog and observe the organs, muscles and bones of the frog
like the phalanges and the big muscle which helps them in jumping. Another experiment we did was
the one where we got to simulate digestion. We did this by putting food and water in a zip bag and
crushed it. This simulated mastication in the mouth.
I also recalled how we formulated our plan and concept for the game we will make for the next
quarter. Our game was called the “Call of Nature” which is funny for me because it symbolized a
term people use to describe that there are almost going to poop. I also remembered how I was
happy every time I passed the periodic exam in Biology 1 because I was always close to 60 percent. I
also remembered how we studied osmoregulation which was the term which pertains to processes
by which animals control solute concentrations and balance water gain and loss. In this topic, I
learned the osmoconformers and osmoregulators which are types of animals who are isosmotic with
the environment and control internal osmolarity independent of the environment respectively. We
also tackled the adaptations for osmoregulation for animals. One of this is dehydration for land
animals. Another was Anhydrobiosis which amazed me because the animal enters a dormant stage
without water.
To summarize Biology one, this subject was one of the most enjoyable and funniest because
firstly of the jokes of Sir JJ and secondly because of the eagerness that I saw in my classmates to
learn and understand the study of life. Our teacher always encouraged us and helped us when we did
not understand some topics in the subject so that at least we could pass and get high grades. Even
though sometimes we got into times that we angered the teacher and hurt his feelings, he always
tried to forgive and gave us another chance. He always tried to make the tests in his subject easier so
that we could just pass. He always thought of things and projects that were amazing and would
increase our eagerness in learning Biology 1. For that I am forever grateful for all the things that Sir
JJ Azucena has done for Grade 9.