Happy almost Thanksgiving everyone! What's your favorite thanksgiving dish? I know mine is stuffing and Green Bean Casserole. Not much to talk about this week but a few of my classmates did something special this week. We only had one lab and a test. The lab wasn't the most interesting but I am pretty sure I got a good grade on it, so I am happy. I know I got a good grade on my science test. I don't know the exact grade but my teacher told me I got an A. I really hope it's a 100%! I studied more than I usually do, and I think it payed off. The lab this week was on RNA and creating a protein chain. We used marshmallows toothpicks and licorice to make the DNA and then split it and joined with another group to make the protein chain. Again, not the most interesting lab, but easy none-the-less. I liked it for the most part. The notes this week weren't that hard to understand, ad I even got my vocabulary for the next chapter finished after my test.

These are what the marshmallows we used look like.
Very festive looking

Hey y'all. Gettin' colder right? Need some hot chocolate? I know I do. Went on a totally fun camping trip for BSA this weekend and I just got back today. This is our yearly shooting trip where we shoot 22 Rifles and 12 gauge shotguns. As a prize, the person who had the best grouping got to shoot a military grade SCAR S assault rifle and an AK-74 assault rifle. We also do a huge Pig picking' on Saturday night where our host cooks a wild boar that he shoots, mac and cheese and a bunch of other amazing southern dishes. Wish I could show you guys the pictures. Sciencey stuff now. We had a DNA helix project due Tuesday that i think I got a 91% on. I messed up because I forgot to label the deoxyribose, phosphates and hydrogen bongs on my key. Oops. Should have read the directions more carefully. This week, we also had a quiz, which I should have studied more for. I really need to remember to tie a string around my finger so that I know to study. We did no labs this week except for a small one where we were learning about KAryotypes, which is where they take a small sample of an unborn fetus and test it for gender and genetic disorders which was difficult and I messed up my first one, which was the normal person's DNA sequence. The second one, there was an extra chromosome in one of the sections, which causes a certain disorder. I have an extra gender chromosome, which is Klinefelter Syndrome. Klinefelter Syndrome affects males and holds back cognitive and physical developement. You can check out this and other genetic disorders at http://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/.

Hey people. Blog time again. Very little to talk about this week. We only had 2 labs this week. We learned about Punnett's square and the different kinds of alleles. If you will look back into last weeks blog entry, you will see the definition of an allele. I didn't understand how to use the Punnett's square at first because I was absent the day my teacher had explained how to use it, but I quickly figured it out. As for the lab, we were using Punnett's square to make potato babies. It was hilarious seeing the results and some of them were ridiculous. On Monday though, we got very scientific. We even had to wear goggles and aprons. We extracted DNA from wheat germ, which took a long time and was not that interesting, so I am not going to tell you about it. I think I could do better with these by putting more links up, but I also need to hear feedback. Need to know what you like and what you don't like. COMMENT please. Thanks for reading. Sorry for it not being very interesting, but it was mostly just learning.

Boo! Hey everybody! Hope y'all had a good halloween. I know I did. Tell me about how your halloween was in the comments. I would love to hear about it. Anyway. We are studying heredity and genetics right now. So interesting. On

my last test I think I got like an 89. Ugh. I should have studied a lot more than I did. Thats always a problem for me. I wait until the last possible moment to do things, and then I do a really bad job. Well jokes on me. Remember, procrastinating get you nowhere. But enough of my pity party. I think I understand the material for this chapter fairly well, and I should because it is one of the events I am doing for Science Olympiad. This is the first year that I am doing it, and I am doing events that I know really well. I am participating in Road Scholar, which is studying maps, heredity, or the study of what traits you get from your parents, and water quality, which is PH level, soil content, and pollutants. I am so excited! We did some really fun halloween labs on Thursday, and we had Friday off. But right now, I am going to do some quick vocab for you.

Heredity- The passing of traits from parent to offspring

Trait-A characteristic that and organism can pass onto it's offspring through it's genes

Genetics- Scientific study of heredity

Fertilization- The joining of a sperm and an egg

Purebred- The offspring of many generations that have the same traits

Gene- The set of information that controls a trait; a segment of DNA on a chromosome that codes for a specific trait

Alleles- The different forms of a gene

Dominate Alleles- An allele whose trait always shows up in the organism when the allele is present

Recessive Allele- An allele that is masked when a dominate allele is present

Hybrid- An organism that has two different alleles for a trait; an organism that is heterozygous(don't ask me how to pronounce that) for a particular trait

The Halloween Goo lab:

Materials

• Borax
• Liquid glue
• Water 
• Large cup
• Small cup
• 2 spoons
• Food coloring

Procedure:

• Dump all the glue into the large cup
• Go over to a sink and fill the glue bottle(s) up and screw on the cap. Shake it until all the glue is off the side then pour the water into the cup with the glue.
• Fill the small cup with water
• Spoon some borax into the small cup and stir until most of it dissolve. It doesn't have to be perfect.
• Next, pour the borax mixture into the glue mixture and stir.
• After it is nice and gooey, you can add some food coloring. Stir in in with a spoon.