Cullen's Portfolio

U: What do you understand in this unit?

I understood how to convert fractions to percentages, how to find percentages in real-life situations, and what percent change is. I also understood new methods that were never mentioned before when I learned percentages.

N: What new information did you learn in this unit?

I learned what percentages are, what they are for and why they are important. They are important for several reasons because we need them in our daily lives. They effect discounts, sport statistics and way more.

I: What was interesting in this unit?

What was interesting this unit is how percentages work. I found that the way to solve a percentage is very interesting. It also doesn’t seem right at first, but later on if you investigate it, it actually mathematically works.

T: What was tricky for you in this unit?

What was tricky for me this unit is probably the percent change. I was absent for one day, and I did not know how to do it completely. I figured it out from my past experiences, but I was always missing one thing which my classmate reminded me.

In this unit, we uncovered a lot about the human body systems, cells, organelles and how they function to sustain our daily routines. We learned about the all of the major body systems, where the 11 main body systems were observed.

About the body systems, we learned the main organs in the endocrine, reproductive, circulatory, skeletal, nervous, excretory, respiratory, immune, digestive, integumentary, and muscular system.

Here’s a small description of how they work:

Endocrine regulates hormones; reproductive enables reproduction; circulatory transports blood; skeletal provides structure; nervous controls body functions; excretory removes waste; respiratory exchanges gases; immune defends against pathogens; digestive processes food; integumentary protects and regulates temperature; muscular enables movement.

Credits (Verywell Health)

Exploring the greater depth of organelles, we learned:

1. Nucleus – Contains the cell’s genetic material (DNA) and controls cellular activities.
2. Mitochondria – Known as the powerhouses of the cell; generate ATP through respiration.
3. Endoplasmic Reticulum (ER) – Involved in protein and lipid synthesis; divided into rough ER (with ribosomes) and smooth ER (without ribosomes).
4. Golgi Apparatus – Modifies, sorts, and packages proteins and lipids for secretion or delivery within the cell.
5. Ribosomes – Sites of protein synthesis; can be free-floating or attached to the rough ER.
6. Lysosomes – Contain digestive enzymes to break down waste materials and cellular debris.
7. Chloroplasts (in plant cells) – Conduct photosynthesis, converting light energy into chemical energy.
8. Vacuoles – Storage sacs for nutrients, waste products, or other materials; large in plant cells

Extended organelles that I researched:

Centrioles: These are cylindrical structures composed of microtubules. Usually, they come in pairs and lie in the centrosome. They have an important role in higher-order cell division because they help to organize the mitotic spindle, which functions in the separation of chromosomes during mitosis and meiosis. Centrioles are also concern with the formation of cilia and flagella. Both cilia and flagella are structures used for the movement of cells and also the movement of fluid across cell surfaces.

Nucleolus:
The nucleolus refers to a dense, globular structure that lies within the nucleus. The main purpose of the nucleolus involves the assembly of ribosomal RNA or ribosome subunits. The nucleolus assists in forming ribosomes that are required by the cell for producing proteins.

Credits (LibreTexts and NHGRI GOV)

Things I struggled with:

I wouldn’t exactly summarize the time I spent learning about these things a “struggle”, because I would exemplify this unit as pretty straight forward and easy to understand. Major things I could improve on is diving into deeper researches, while I was probably discontinued by procrastination. With more discipline, I could’ve researched more about the “Transportation and Communication in the Cells”, and special diseases of mechanisms. There was more things I could’ve uncovered, and that’s a good goal for next time.

During this unit, we re-built a wooden car with the span of about 7 classes. We also extended our learning to an app called “OnShape”. We designed something we would like to add on our RC Cars, and it was recommended to be unique and should not be plagiarized.

For my extension, I wanted to design something that was more towards the “Unique”road, and I got some advice from Mr. Hatt to improve the cars speed. This model was originally 30cm+ long, and was going to take nearly 3+ days to laser cut, so I designed it to shrink a lot. It was a back support on my RC Car, and according to the instructions we could do whatever we want, make whatever we want.

My classmates were making designs off of movies, superstars, and how to make the car faster. I wanted to design this from the “Maze Runner” because the surface was going to be cool. A maze on the surface was very eye-catching, and I always loved the book as it goes through intense moments where we could all learn from. If you look closely towards the bottom-left corner, the “Maze Runner” is protruded on the model. The various circles were meant for a reverse type of maze, and it’s hollow. The other side had the actual walls protruding, like the actual walls in the story. There’s a dot located near the word maze runner, but it’s barely visible. That’s suppose to be the griever, and the other small dot is suppose to be the survivors.

In this unit, I struggled with some of the harder tools, like curving the whole model with curved lines. This could be one of the major goals I work on, using more advanced tools and making more advanced shapes to improve.

In this project, we got assigned a client to describe what interests they have, so we could make a clock to represent what they like and give it to them. The clock project is very simple, but the small errors you make can effect the overall design of your clock. In the beginning, my client said she likes “nature”, and she likes colors like green and blue. I decided to make a clock with a big vine in the middle, because my client likes nature. My final designs are like this:

It is the 5th one on the sheet:

• U: What do you understand in this unit?
• N: What new information did you learn in this unit?
• I: What was interesting in this unit?
• T: What was tricky for you in this unit?

U: During this unit, I understood what scale factors are, what they do, how to help solve the equation and it’s function towards more advanced forms (Perimeter and Area). I understood that scale factors originally can be formed from dividing the following numbers, given in the equation or model. For the “Scaled Area” formula, you have to multiply the original area with the scale factor squared. For the “Scaled Perimeter”, you have to multiply the original perimeter with the scale factor.

N: The new information that I learned is the scaled factor. In math mathematicians minds, it is equivalent with the “Constant of Proportionality”. Given that both function as a number that is divided with two corresponding numbers, they are “partially” equivalent but a scale factor is used in geometry to resize a figure, while a constant of proportionality is a general term that indicates how two quantities change together in a proportional relationship. The main new information that I learned during this unit was the “Scaled Area”. When the instructor gave out some practice sheets, I figured out a formula to find the scaled area because there were no possible way to find the scaled area.

I: The things that were interesting this unit is how things actually mathematically work. For instance, the original area multiplied with a scale factor squared can someone make the new area. That usually would not happen, but this formula actually works. I also like how the scaled perimeter is rather simple than hard. These things can happen in the real world, like finding the scale factor for various amount of things. In the real world, the scale factor is used to create blueprints, maps, and to tell if two shapes are similar. On a map, this might be shown using a key that reads, 1 cm = 1 mile . This means that there is an actual distance of one mile for every one centimeter on the map. Scale drawings also have benefits for the real world. They can be used to compare different ideas for projects and in order to estimate the number of materials needed and costs to complete the project. Scale drawings can also be used to create images that can help with understanding small objects like tiny insects and microscopic cells. Various amount of things in the world right now are brought from scale drawings, scale factors and more. (All the things we are learning in the following unit).

T: There were a lot of tricky things that challenged my problem-solving skills this unit. In the start, I was a little off and didn’t pay attention to the specific details. Later on, I learned a lot of formulas to solve the equations. Later on, it was starting to make sense and I had no more problems.

To conclude, the unit was fun and challenging at the same time.

These are my comments for my first media post, the video.

LINK: IMG_0099.MOV

A lot of feedback I got was having more confidence. Confidence was a thing that I always never had because I’m only used to basketball games with lots of people watching. For academic purposes, I’m always worried but as I get older I overcome things, and I’m still overcoming this.

I’m proud of explaining a product that was from my own imaginations, and being extra creative. One thing that I had to improve on was my confidence, like I mentioned earlier.

From my earlier presentations in 6th grade, there was a significant change in my confidence. However, I still need to improve it. My next steps are to cut down my stutter words and have a lot of confidence when I do speeches like this. I’m going to present to people in my house more to see my further improvements.

BIAS DEFENITION:

A good outcome of people having the same perspective is that people can spread the news in a good way and they can relate with each other and now have conflict. A bad outcome of people having the same perspectives is they start lying about the situation because they think people agree with them, so It doesn’t really matter about what they say.

• U: What do you understand in this unit?
• N: What new information did you learn in this unit?
• I: What was interesting in this unit?
• T: What was tricky for you in this unit?

1. I understood a lot about in this unit. I understood how to calculate equations about trying to find proportions, I understood how to find the COP, how to find the x and y axis, and reciprocals. Now you may ask, what does this have anything to do with dividing. Well, if you want to find the COP, your eventually going to have to divide if you don’t have whole numbers. Your going to have to convert it into fractions to make your life more simple, and that’s where we reach the reciprocal.
2. I learned finding the COP, making an equation and what it takes to make an equation and lastly, how we could make equations. For COP, it was the easiest to understand. You just need to divide y with x. For solving equations, you need to first write out Y, then Y=COPx. Lastly, you just need to spread out your numbers and make sure your equation really makes sense.
3. What was the most interesting thing in this unit is that I figured out the COP is really similar to Unit rates or finding the mean. It’s all kind of the same concept, finding the mean is probably a tiny bit different but in summary all include dividing x and y.
4. The tricky thing that I faced was writing the final equation sentences, although I struggled for 2 days, I quickly learned it.

This unit was my most interested one throughout the year. Why so? Well we made our own poster with our changemakers significance, and the things they did.

During the unit, Barack Obama was my number 1 choice which I got, and he was a true legend. After my research, I figured out what Obama really worked well because he dumped money into the economy when needed, and most importantly, Obamacare.

I think my partner and I did really well because we didn’t just write whatever we wanted online, we actually searched things up and go to the websites to find out what he said, what he did and how he impacted the world by doing those actions.

We need to work on paying attention to things that are either what Obama did, or what he said but didn’t really do. We added lots of things that he said but didn’t to do, but we changed part of it.

In conclusion, we can just easily check citations and see if the information is accurate to improve finding key parts of Obama and finding about what he did not say. Overall, this unit is really good.