This week, I learned about the way humans breath. More specifically, we learned about what we breathed in and breathed out. Our class came to a conclusion that we breathed in oxygen and breathed out carbon dioxide. We tested this by breathing into jars with a gas sensor on it, and if the number on the sensor got larger when we breathed in to the jar, that meant that we breathed in oxygen. If the number on the sensor got smaller on the sensor after you inhaled into the jar , that meant that you breathed out carbon dioxide. By doing some research, we figured out that we breathed in O2( oxygen) along with C6, H12, and O6, which all together and combined create carbohydrates, or food/energy. I also learned about the different combinations of atoms which create different molecules of air, like 1 carbon and 2 oxygens create CO2, or carbon dioxide. 2 oxygens create an oxygen molecule. Another thing that I learned was about photosynthesis. This is the process in which plants use the energy that they collect from the sun to convert it into sugar, which they use as food.

This week, we did not learn much because it was a 3-day week. On Monday, we researched the insides of animal cells and plant cells. These insides of cells are called organelles. There was a nucleus in each cell, and mitochondria as well. In the plant cell, there was something called chloroplast which maintained the green color of the plant. The organelles in the animal cell were all mostly in the plant cell as well. On Tuesday, we talked about the organelles in the plant cell and animal cell and researched the functions of all the organelles. Some of them were that the nucleus controlled almost everything about the cell, like the cell's actions. The cytoplasm keeps everything in place inside the cell. The cytoplasm is like some kind of gel which fill the empty spaces in the cell. On Wednesday, we talked about paramecium which we had to research for homework. Paramecium was shaped like a foot, and was sometimes called the lady slippers. We thought about the places where paramecium could be found, and thought about where most bacteria was found: still water like ponds and swamps. We got a sample of still water full of duckweed, a kind of aquatic plant. Under the microscope, there were many things that looked like paramecium.

This week, I learned about the structures of cells, more precisely, animal cells and plant cells. We looked at our own cells by rubbing the inside of our mouth with a toothpick and rubbing that stuff onto a slide. We then looked at the slide under a microscope and drew our observations onto our notebooks. There were 2 slides we had to make with our partners: one slide with blue dye, and the other one with nothing. I figured out that the slide with the blue dye was easier to find the cells in, and I was able to see the cell more clearly than the slide with nothing. The dye made the cell more visible and showed more details than the one without dye. Our class also researched the many parts of a animal cell and a plant cell. The picture of the cell above ( it mysteriously disappeared) is a animal cell. It has the DNA in the middle, which is purple in the diagram. The green wavy organelle is the endoplasmic reticulum. The red organelle is the Golgi apparatus. There are many more that I have not mentioned.