Inquiry Hour Blog Post 1.2: 20 big questions.

Inquiry Hour Blog Post: 20 Big Questions

I liked the question, will we ever cure cancer. I like this question because many people in the world are suffering from many varieties of cancer that can be life threatening. The hypothesis for this question is if more than 3.7 million people get cancer every year and survive, then other people who are suffering from cancer may survive. 

20 questions:

1.Will the world ever end?

Maybe, if Earth remains the same

2. Will extinct animals come back to life?

No, if animals are extinct, they cannot be made again.

3. Can everyone get a robot?

Maybe, if we are intelligent enough to crack intelligence and apply it to a robot. Robots must be affordable for families to buy. 

4. When will a successful time machine be invented?

When Einstein's theory can be applied to more theories relating to it and successfully turning back the clock.

5. Can college tuition be a lot cheaper?
When a petition for cheaper tuition is signed by many people and given to the president to sign.

6. When can we get the faster computers?
In a while till quantum computing and new material that makes computers faster are invented. They are then applied to computers to get sold.
7. When will everyone have food to eat including the homeless?
When we get enough water to grow more food and build more farms and plantations for food to grow.
8.When can we become immortal?
We may not ever become immortal. We can live for a long time, but that will happen by treating yourself well.
9. How can we avoid bad bacteria going into our bodies?
By using antibiotics right and inventing another type of medicine that can go well with antibiotics and helps avoid bad bacteria.
10. When will prime numbers be no longer used?
They will always be used in math in everyday life to solve math problems. So the answer is no.
11. When will the drought end?
The drought may end in a long time unless we start getting constant heavy rain that will last about a year or less.
12. What is so good about blogger?
It helps us make our own blog and to show others your accomplishments you've done. It stores writing that is valuable to them to show to others.
13.What would happen if we had no trees?
We would not have photosynthesis and have no air to breathe into. Also, our air would be polluted and we would not live a long time.
14. What would happen if we had no animals?
We would have no meat in our stomachs and would be not be very muscular.
15. How do we make man made elements?
 By using different types of materials to make unique looking elements.
16. Can we live in other planets other than Earth?
We could live in mars because the weather is similar to Earth, but will be hard to live in because Mars is empty.
17. Who created the universe?
Steven Hawking. He accepted god's role to the universe but argued that god didn't create the universe.
18. Who invented the elements?
Many scientists each created elements which was later put together by Dmitri Mentaleev
19. Where is the best place to obtain water for plants?
Water can be obtained everywhere you go and can be used to drink or water plants. There's isn't a specific place to find water to use in everyday life.
20. Why does animals want to attack humans?
They want to have their own space, fear, food, anger and protect their young from humans.

Unit 2 Reflection

Unit 2 Reflection

In this unit, we learned about the Chemistry of life. We learned about the basic living things in life like atoms and molecules, neutrons, electrons, and protons. We learned that they are used to make elements. We learned about the types of bonds, Ionic and Covelent bonds. Ionic bonds are bonds formed when an atom gains or looses an electron. Covelent bonds are bonds that are electrons shared between atoms. We learned about the uses of water. Water is great for making solutions. It can be mixed with many other solutions. Water is considered a solvent since its a substance for substrate to dissolve in. We learned a lot about acids and bases. Acids tastes sour, corrosive, becomes less acidic when mixed and is attracted to bases. Bases tastes bitter, slippery, and can become less basic when mixed with acids. Acids are  Acids, bases, and pH can be measured and scaled. Acids and bases can be identified by a scale. 7 is neutral, 0-7 is acidic, and 8-14 is base. 

 We learned about proteins and sugars. We learned that there are sweet and plain sugars and good and bad sugars that are used in many food products that are sold in stores. We did a lab about testing sweet and plain sugar by tasting them. This was a fun experience to taste different types of sugars and knowing how sweet or plain they are. We did another lab about making cheese. We added milk and products that create cheese to a test tube. We then shook the test tubes and put them in our armpits for a long time till our test tube created curds for cheese. This was fun to learn how to create cheese by using milk and other products. We also watch a video about the making of cheese in factories and stores. It was fascinating to see the many varieties of cheese and how the experts make it. 

My favorite part about this unit was learning about miniature biology. We learned about the 4 macromolecules, carbohydrates, lipids, nucleic acids, and proteins. We learned about the structure and function of each macromolecule. Each macromolecule are included in many food products that we eat mostly on a daily basis. Enzymes was a important part of this unit as we learned about the structure of protein and enzymes. We learned about the factors that affect enzymes which includes, pH and temperature and denature. There are 4 types of structure in proteins and enzyme structure, Primary, Secondary, Tertiary, and Quaternary. These all involves amino acids to create bonds. 

Cheese Lab Conclusion

Cheese Lab Conclusion

In our lab, we asked the question: What are the optimal conditions and curdling agents for making cheese? Our hypothesis was that if rennin is an enzyme from a calf stomach that digest caesin and make curds faster, the the optimal condition will be normal. We found out that warm conditions and a acidic curdling agent was useful to make cheese. Chymosin, Rennin, and Buttermilk worked best with an acidic curdling agent. It only took about 5 minutes to create curds. For the base curdling agent, It took Chymosin 20 minutes to create curds and for Rennin and Buttermilk, there was no curds in the amount of time given to us. For the pH control, Chymosin and Rennin took 15 minutes and 10 minutes. None of the curdling agents did well in the cold, but was effective in the warm temperature as it took Chymosin and Rennin 5 minutes. For the temperature control, Chymosin and Rennin took 10 minutes. This shows that Chymosin is more effective at making curds than rennin and buttermilk is the least effective. This is because of the optimal condition. Chymosin was more effective under warm conditions than Rennin and Buttermilk. It was better for the acid, and base.

While our hypothesis was supported by our data, there could have been errors due to the timing of our lab. We had continued to run the timer while we were timing the curdling of the acid, base and control. We never stopped the timer and as a result, our times may have been off by a few seconds. Another error that happened in our lab was the amount of clothes people wore. One person in our group was wearing a jacket and two people wore a t-shirt. The person wearing the jacket probably got faster results than usual people testing for the base, acid and control than the people wearing a t-shirt because a jacket is thicker than a t-shirt. In order for the results to become more accurate, we should stop the timer at a certain point and check and then keep the timer going once everyone has their test tubes on their armpits. Also, people should all wear the same type of clothing and people that have not been sweating recently from physical activity.

The purpose of this lab was to know the best curdling agent to create cheese curds from milk. We learned about the 4 curdling agents, milk, cultures of bacteria, Rennin, and Chymosin. We learned about how cheese is made and what is required to make good, and fresh cheese. We also learned about where the curdling agents come from and how it’s used. This lab was related to what we learned about proteins and enzyme structure. We learned about the 4 structures of enzymes, primary, secondary, tertiary and quaternary. We learned about the factors that affect enzymes which is pH and temperature. This lab can be applied to other situations involving a fast, and effective way to make cheese and to get the right ingredients to make cheese that will make a person’s mouth water.

	Time to Curdle (minutes)
Curdling Agent	Chymosin	Rennin	Buttermilk	milk (control)
Acid	5	5	5
Base	20
pH control	15	10
Cold
Hot	5	5
Temp control	10	10

Sweetness Lab

Sweetness Lab Conclusion

          In this lab, we asked the question, how does the structure of a carbohydrate affect its sweetness? We found out that the monosaccharides are the sweetest, the disaccharides are sweet and  the polysaccharides are the blandest. The monosaccharides, Glucose, Fructose, and Galactose were very sweet as we gave them a degree of sweetness of 90 for the Glucose, 115 for the Fructose, and 50 for the Galactose. The disaccharides, Sucrose, Maltose, Lactose were sweet as we gave Sucrose a degree of sweetness of 100, 80 for Maltose, and 20 for Lactose. The polysaccharides, Starch and Cellulose were plain as we gave Starch and Cellulose a degree of sweetness of 0. Monosaccharides have one ring, disaccharides have 2, and polysaccharides have many rings. So this shows that the less rings a carbohydrate has, the sweeter each carbohydrate will be.

Carbohydrate structure affects how they are used in cells and organisms in many ways. They have rings of carbohydrates and stores energy for us to do work. The three types of  carbohydrates, Monosaccharides, Disaccharides, Polysaccharides. Monosaccharides have one ring, disaccharides have two rings, and polysaccharides have many. They are digestible and indigestible. Some sugar are bad like Fructose. It’s is contained in fruits, soft drinks, and bread. It needs lots of cellulose to process it. Also, bad sugars like this can lead to high blood pressure, high cholesterol, higher calorie consumption, and increased fat. The ratings we gave may not be accurate as others. This happens because of the different serving amounts people used in the experiment to try each one of the carbohydrates, people may have different taste buds, and the amount of time that the Carbohydrates have been left out for. Tasters can rank these carbohydrates differently by doing exact measurements for each carbohydrate by using a measuring cup and adding the same amount for each Carbohydrate.

Carbohydrate	Type of Carbohydrate	Degree of Sweetness	Color	Texture	Other Observation/ Connection to Food
Sucrose	Disaccharide	100	white	granular	sugar
Glucose	Monosaccharide	90	Transparent white	granular	granular sugar
Fructose	Monosaccharide	115	Transparent white	granular	granular sugar
Galactose	Monosaccharide	50	white	powder	powdered sugar
Maltose	Disaccharide	80	brownish white	granular	brown sugar
Lactose	Disaccharide	20	white	soft, powder	powdered milk
Starch	Polysaccharide	0	white	soft, powder	corn
Cellulose	Polysaccharide	0	white	soft, powder	celery

1. Monosaccharaides are the sweetest out of the other two, disaccharides and polysaccharides. From our observation, the average degree of sweetness for the Monosaccharaides is 85. The average degree of sweetness for the disaccharides is 66.6 and the average degree of sweetness for the polysaccharides is 0. Monosaccharaides are found in many foods that contain lots of sugar, disaccharides have food that contain sugar, but a little less than monosaccharaides. Polysaccharaides have foods that have little to no sugar.


2. The structure of carbohydrates differ by the amount of ring each type contains. Monosaccharaides contain one ring, disaccharides contain two, and polysaccharaides contain many.

3. No, the ratings were different. This can happen because of the different serving amounts each person used to try each carbohydrate, the amount of time each carbohydrate had been left out in each petri dish, and people may have different taste buds from others.

4. Humans can taste sweetness by their taste buds. Tasters can rank the sweetness of the same carbohydrate samples by smelling each carbohydrate or keeping each carbohydrate on a certain part of the tongue for a long period of time.

Jean Lab Conclusion

          On the Jean Lab, we had to solve a question about which bleach is the best for fading out denim from Jeans. Our hypothesis what if heavy bleach turns a dark color into a light color on denim jeans, then it will make jeans lighter. The results we got was that the Jeans faded it out best on the 100% bleach. We got this result by putting some denim jeans in each of the of the concentrated bleach. We had one that had 12.5%, 25%, 50%, and 100% bleach. The 12.5% bleach didn’t fade the color of the jeans very much as it we rated it 2.5/10. The 25% bleach affected the color of the jeans better than the 12.5% bleach as we rated it 4.5/10. The 50% bleach was affected the color of the jeans as we rated it 7/10. The 100% bleach affected the jeans the most as we rated it 8.5/10. This result is likely caused by the amount of bleach used per concentration and shows a change of each concentration.
          While our hypothesis was supported by our data, there could have been errors due to how we did this experiment. We did not add three pieces of denim fabric at a time which affect our results a lot as we didn’t have a third trial. Our averages may have changed from this mistake. Also, another mistake we made was our timing. We were a little bit off on the timing as we took a little too long to get the denim jeans out of the petri dishes. The few seconds may affect the accurate results of the denim jeans. I would recommend people to be careful and read the directions before doing what's needed.
           This experiment was a good experiment for showing which bleach is most effective for fading out denim jeans. We got this result by having different concentration amounts of bleach in each petri dish and found that the 100% bleach was the most effective for fading out denim jeans. This lab was related to the scientific method where we used the steps from the scientific method to get an answer from our question. This experiment can be applied to other situations like fashion line makers who want to try and fade out their clothing products to make clothing look more fashionable.

Concentration(% bleach)	Average
0%	0
12.5%	2.5
25%	4.5
50%	7
100%	8.5

Concentration(% bleach)	Average
0%	0
12.5%	1
25%	3
50%	2
100%	1