- Extra Credit
Go on a scavenger hunt:
You can explore nature and the greater ventura area while collecting points for Biology. Each item on the list counts as one point. In order to earn those points, you need to take a picture of yourself or your photo ID with the item. You then need to present those pictures in either a PowerPoint presentation or equivalent. Each photo needs a caption that contains the title of the item pictured and the location where the photograph was taken. Each pictured item earns 1/2 extra credit point. Follow these rules when working on this project.
- Please be careful to NOT DESTROY any habitats as you visit and collect your pictures.
- Plants that have red spots or red areas on the stem or leaf may be poisonous...DO NOT TOUCH!
- A photograph of you with an item can only count for one point once. For example, if you take a picture with a mushroom, that can be used to earn a point for EITHER mushroom OR fungus, not both.
- Do your research beforehand to determine what a specimen should look like and where to find it.
- Be sure to check out local museums or local zoos (Moorpark or Santa Barbara) they will contain many items!
- Maximum 10 photos. Submit the the pics only when you are completely finished.
Read a Book Assignment
Choose a book from the options below. They are organized by reading level; some are easy, some are hard, but all are great.
- Acquire the book either from a library or a book store.
- Click on the title of the book to download the questions for the book. While (or after) you read the book, answer the questions on the worksheet in your own handwriting. Typed answers will not receive credit.
- Complete the supplemental reading verification form.
- Turn in the completed questions and the supplemental reading verification form to earn up to 20 extra points!
Book List
The Woman with a Worm in Her Head: (Pamela Nagami) A collection of infectious disease essays, including AIDS, chickenpox and flesh-eating bacteria.
The Andromeda Strain: (Michael Crichton) A returning space capsule releases an alien virus on the earth.
My Sister's Keeper: (Jodi Picoult) Anna was genetically engineered to be a perfect match for her cancer-ridden older sister.
The Hot Zone: (Richard Preston) The tale of an actual Ebola virus outbreak in a suburban Washington, D.C. laboratory.
The Demon in the Freezer:(Richard Preston). A thriller that focuses on smallpox and the threat it plays as a bioterrorism agent.
Journey to the Ants: (Bert Holldobler and E.O. Wilson). Offer a fascinating glimpse into the world of ants as well as their own personal adventures in the study of these insects.
Through a Window: My Thirty Years with the Chimpanzees of Gombe: (Jane Goodall). A saga of chimpanzee families with an engrossing account of animal behavior.
The World Without Us: (Alan Weisman). If humans when extinct overnight, how long before all trace of humankind vanished?
The Journey of Man: (Spencer Wells). Tracking human relatedness and migration by examining Y-chromosome similarities and differences among current humans.
The Secret Life of Germs: (Phillip Tierno). The story of bacteria, viruses, and prions and their myriad effects on human beings. From toxic shock syndrome to Lyme disease to diarrheal infections of the Third World.
Abraham Lincoln's DNA: (Philip R. Reilly). An enjoyable series of vignettes that explain the fundamental tools of the modern genetics detective in the course of fascinating historical tales.
When a Gene Makes You Smell Like a Fish: (Lisa Seachrist Chiu). A remarkable collection of stories about the discovery and elucidation of some rare or not so rare genetic disorders.
The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat: (Oliver Sacks) Clinical tales drawn from fascinating and unusual cases introduces real people who suffer from a variety of neurological syndromes which include symptoms such as amnesia, uncontrolled movements, and musical hallucinations.
Riddled with Life: (Marlene Zuk). Stories of human parasites and how humans and our parasites have co-evolved.
The Wild Trees: (Richard Preston). Includes the history of old-growth forests, canopy ecology, tells how gadgets and techniques to climb were invented and introduces recreational tree-climbing as a sport.
What Patients Taught Me: (Audrey Young). A firsthand depiction of the hardships and rewards of medical school, this sensitive memoir may serve as a guide to help readers who are considering traversing that same path.
The Immortal Cell: (Michael D. West). A chronology of the emerging science of immortality and a personal journal of the path from creationist to scientist. It was West who announced that through somatic cell nuclear transfer they could create embryonic stem cells.
Parasite Rex: (Carl Zimmer). From tapeworms to isopods to ichneumon wasps, "parasites are complex, highly adapted creatures that are at the heart of the story of life."
Survival of the Sickest: (Sharon Moalem). Addresses a number of provocative questions, such as why debilitating hereditary diseases persist in humans and why we suffer from the consequences of aging.
Guns, Germs, Steel: (Jared Diamond). Through the lens of an evolutionary biologist, Diamond reviews human history on every continent since the Ice Age at a rate that emphasizes the movements of peoples and ideas.
Head Cases: (Michael Paul Mason). This book takes us into the dark side of the brain in an astonishing sequence of stories, at once true and strange, from the world of brain injury.
Ghost Map: (Steven Johnson). On August 28, 1854, working-class Londoner Sarah Lewis tossed a bucket of soiled water into the cesspool of her squalid apartment building and triggered the deadliest outbreak of cholera in the city's history.
Plague Time: (Paul Ewald). Ewald argues that cancer, heart disease, and arthritis are not necessarily caused by a breakdown of the human body, but by the action of infectious agents and by the immune response to those agents.
Primal Teen: (Barbara Strauch). The latest research, including brain scans that show changes in the brain's structure and function that could explain the crazy behavior exhibited by teens.
The Seven Daughters of Eve: (Bryan Sykes). Decoding mitochondrial DNA and using this knowledge to trace the path of human evolution, Sykes relates personal and historical anecdotes, offering familiar ground from which to consider the science.
The Family that Couldn't Sleep: (T.D. Max). The case of an Italian family whose members succumb to a sleeping disorder that causes not only insomnia but certain death. The cause of this disease is determined to be prions—infectious agents derived from proteins.
Listen to a podcast:
You can listen to as many RadioLab podcasts as are listed below. Each podcast has an accompanying worksheet to complete while you listen, worth up to 5 extra credit points. The podcasts are only an hour long and EXTREMELY interesting.
- Stress, Season 1: Stanford University neurologist (and part-time "baboonologist") Dr. Robert Sapolsky takes us through what happens on our insides when we stand in the wrong line at the supermarket, and offers a few coping strategies: gnawing on wood, beating the crap out of somebody, and having friends. Plus: the story of a singer who lost her voice, and an author stuck in a body that never grew up.
- Sleep, Season 3: Every creature on the planet sleeps--from giant humpback whales to teeny fruit flies. What does it do for us, and what happens when we go without? We take a peek at iguanas sleeping with one eye open, get in bed with a pair of sleep-deprived new parents, and eavesdrop on the uneasy dreams of rats.
- Memory and Forgetting, Season 3: Remembering is an unstable and profoundly unreliable process--it’s easy come, easy go as we learn how true memories can be obliterated, and false ones added. And Oliver Sacks joins us to tell the story of an amnesiac whose love for his wife and music transcend his 7-second memory.
- Laughter, Season 4: If you look closely, you'll find that humor has very little to do with it. We ask what makes us laugh, and how it affects us. Along the way, we tickle some rats, listen in on a baby's first laugh, talk to a group of professional laughers, and travel to Tanzania to investigate an outbreak of contagious laughter.
- Race, Season 5: When the human genome was first fully mapped in 2000, Bill Clinton, Craig Venter, and Francis Collins took the stage and pronounced that "The concept of race has no genetic or scientific basis." Great words spoken with great intentions. But what do they really mean, and where do they leave us? Our genes are nearly all the same, but that hasn't made race meaningless or wiped out our evolving conversation about it.
- Inheritance, Season 11: Once a kid is born, their genetic fate is pretty much sealed. Or is it? This hour, we put nature and nurture on a collision course and discover how outside forces can find a way inside us, shaping not just our hearts and minds, but the basic biological blueprint that we pass on to future generations.
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