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Stuff

These are a collection of -What did you Learn?- assignments, created by Latham Piper, for his sixth grade science lessons.

  • A Cell Divides
  • Baby Fuzzy
  • Baby Tumble
  • Bones
  • Build
  • Contract and Relax
  • Dental Work
  • My Body
  • Fat!
  • Fusing
  • Genes
  • Hair
  • Hard to Tell the Difference
  • Healing Cells
  • It's Growing!
  • Line the Bone Up
  • Muscles
  • New Bone, Old Bone
  • Red Meat, White Meat
  • Shedding Shell
  • Skin
  • Starting Off
  • The Egg Changes
  • Top Heavy
  • Ugly Baby Stage
  • Zits AAAAAAAAHH!!
  • A CELL DIVIDES

    What I learned out of this chapter is that the egg after it has been fertilized it divides 16 times into a solid ball of cells. After this has happened some of the cells that were on the ball of cells depart and that leaves a capsule for the Embryo to grow in. I also learned that as soon as the fertilized egg becomes a capsule it sends off Hormone chemicals that tell the Womb lining to stay in place. I also learned that the capsule digs into the Womb lining and at this time the capsule is about the size of a pin head.

    BABY FUZZY.

    What I learned from this chapter is that at 20 weeks old the baby will have finger nails and toe nails, the baby will also have finger prints. Its skin will be covered in a fine down and it has eye brows. By 26 weeks the baby's eyes are starting to open and its eye lids have lashes. By 28 weeks the baby's head will have hair. By 36 weeks old the baby is getting plump and it is making a brownish fat that acts like heating pads. I also learned that if you spray a lemon scented spray in to a pregnant mother rat its baby's won't feed from there mothers nipples unless they are lemon scented too. I also learned that a baby recognizes the smell of her mother's milk by a week after birth.

    BABY TUMBLE

    What I learned from this chapter is that the Fetus nearly doubles in size at the beginning of the 9th week to the end of the twelfth week. I also learned that if the baby kicks inside its mother it goes tumbling and when it is inside its oxygenated water balloon the Fetus won't even feel a bump. I also learned that most of the movements that a Fetus does seem to be for practice only.

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    BONES

    What I learned from this chapter is that a Ligament is a cell that holds bones together. I also learned that a muscle is a large group of muscle "fibers" that are just encased in a cocoon.

    BUILD

    What I learned from this chapter is that if you pull the tendon on the leg of a dead turkey the claws will close together and that is what a leg would do on a live turkey. That is also how a bird holds on to a perch. I also learned that cells inside bones are called Osteoclasts "bone destroyers" and Osteoblastes "bone makers." What happens is a Osteoclasts get into the bone and eat away and then the Osteoblasts come and build more bone. When this happens doctors call it ossified bone. A X-ray can show an ossified bone.

    CONTRACT AND RELAX

    What I learned from this chapter is that a catapillar moves by contracting and relaxing its muscles. I also learned that a muscle needs a skeleton or a bone to work. I also learned that a hydra moves by doing a somersault over and over again.

    DENTAL WORK

    What I learned from this chapter if that bone builders try to space teeth evenly and if a baby loses a tooth before it had replacements in its mouth the bone builder will rearrange the teeth and that would leave gaps in between teeth.

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    MY BODY

    What I learned from this chapter is that all the nucleus in my body have twenty- three pairs of Chromosomes and that all the chromosomes get pulled apart by pairs of cylinders and make two new nuclei in the mother cell. The mother cell divides making two new cells which are called the daughters. While the chromosomes are being pulled apart they look like sewing string being pulled apart in the middle and material that is floating around in the cells fluids is to make other chromosomes. I also learned that the egg that I grew in was one out of 300 to 400; and that the sperm that fertilized it was one out of hundreds of millions. Another thing that I learned is that the mother cell makes preparations to separate, like growing extra "membranes" so that it won't burst when it squeezes in two. I also learned that I share half of my father's genes and half of my mothers. Another thing that I learned is that my body starts copying my chromosomes before they ever started dividing and that the first time that a cell divided in me was just a few hours after the egg that I was, was fertilized.

    FAT!

    What I learned from this chapter is that a woman is born with more fat cells than boys. The reason is that they use more fat in their life than a man - from making room for a baby and putting more calcium in their bones. I also learned that if a fat cell wasn't heeled together by so many collagen strands they would just roll around in my body.

    FUSING

    What I learned from this chapter is that a baby is born with 350 bones but a hundred forty-four of the bones fuse to give the adult number 206. I also learned that this number isn't always accurate because some times the person might have an extra rib. Another thing I learned is that the skull of a baby takes a while for the plates to fuse and parents get worried when their baby looks deformed.

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    GENES

    What I learned out of this chapter is that by the time an embryo is nine weeks old 'a fetus' it can fit comfortably inside a peanut shell. I also learned that the male and female genitals look and start out exactly the same and you can not tell them apart until it is at least a fetus. The way that the egg knows what kind of genital to produce is by what the sperm that fertilized has on board. If the sperm brought a chromosome that is an "x" gene then both egg and sperm genes are x then it is female but if it is a "y" gene then it is a boy. The way that the genes work to tell the egg what to produce is if the gene is a y gene then it like turns on a switch and it will produce a boy or if it is an x, then it will not.

    HAIR

    What I learned out of this chapter is that hair of some 7000 years old is still just as strong as a healthy hair that is alive or growing now. Another thing that I learned is that a healthy hair can stretch 11/2 it's regular size and stretch back. I also learned that a strand of hair is stronger or just as strong as a steel cable the same diameter.

    HARD TO TELL THE DIFFERENCE

    What I learned from this chapter is that after 9 weeks the embryo can be called a Fetus and it's stubs that were its arms have grown identifiable into hands and feet and have toes and fingers but they are still held together by little webs that when the baby grows they will be stubby, and I have them. I also learned that a bat, donkey, whale and human embryos all look the same at six weeks old. After 5 weeks and starting on the six the embryos uncovered eyes point sideways and the rest of the face you can hardly see under the bulging brain. I also learned that every animal makes two sets of kidneys before finishing their final pair.

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    HEALING CELLS

    What I learned out of this chapter is that a mast cell causes itching by putting out a chemical and if you put the itch under the hottest water you can stand it will make the Mast cell put out all its chemicals that it has and it will take it hours to make more chemicals and during those hours the itch wont itch a bit. I also learned that if take a Fibroblast from one cut to another one that it will do just as good a job on the one that you put it on that it did on the cut that it was on, when a fibroblast goes to a twisted ankle or wrist it changes its shape entirely to make cartilage that will hold the wound together.

    IT''S GROWING!

    What I learned from this chapter is that at 20 weeks old the baby has toe nails and finger nail and also has finger and toe prints, its skin is covered with a fine down and it has eye brows. By 26 weeks its eyes are starting to open and its eye lids have eye lashes. By 28 weeks the head will have hair. By 36 weeks the Fetus is getting plump and it makes pads of brownish fat that act like heating pads. I also learned that if you inject a lemon scented odor into a pregnant rat's belly, that the mice won't suck on the nipples unless they are lemon scented too and that a baby recognizes it's mother's milk by smell a week after birth.

    LINE THE BONE UP

    What I learned from this chapter is why a doctor puts a cast on a serious break in a bone. A doctor puts a cast on a serious bone break because chondroblasts fill in the broken part of the bone to make it whole again but it doesn't always heal the bone strait; so a doctor puts a cast on the break to get the bones relined. I also learned that the human jaw and teeth have been shrinking through out the years of evolution and that the human of this time has the smallest jaw of our species.

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    MUSCLES

    What I learned from this chapter is that muscles don't grow by adding muscle fibers to the muscle. They grow by expanding and enlarging the muscle fibers they all ready had. I also learned that if an athlete took a drug like steroids, it gives that athlete a high chance of becoming balled or stunting their growth for ever.

    NEW BONE,OLD BONE

    What I learned from this chapter is that there isn't a bone in me that is over a decade old. The reason that there isn't a bone that is a decade old is because old bone is always being eaten away by Osteoclasts and then being rebuilt by Osteoblasts and this eventually makes a new bone. There is nothing wrong with the old bones. The reason that old bones are made over is because that is what our bodies are made to do.

    RED MEAT, WHITEMEAT

    What I learned from this chapter is that red meat is red because it is made for enduring a long time of, say, walking and so it needs allot of fat, oxygen, blood and oxygen. White meat is white because it has less blood going to it. I also learned that an adult pumps 1 1/2 gallons per minute.

    SHEDDING SHELL

    What I learned from this chapter is that an exoskeleton does not grow with the body that it encases. A crab, for example has to shed its exoskeleton to grow and then an exoskeleton has to regrow over the larger animal that the crab has become.

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    SKIN

    What I learned out of this chapter is that the cell responsible for the itch that you get from a mosquito bite is a mast cell. The mast cell's name comes from the German word pig, the reason that we call the cell this is because it is a plump cell. There are also other cells that come to the scratch. Some of cells that come are a fibroblast, and a white cell. Each of the cells have its own job to do.

    STARTING OFF

    What I learned from this chapter is that every person begins as a single cell no bigger than a period and inside that cell there is a Nucleus and inside that Nucleus is a strand of information that is equal to 100,000 words which is about the size of a three-hundred page book. I also learned that scientists are only now starting to understand how that and when the information is stretched out end to end tied together it won't even reach the end of my pinkie.

    THE EGG CHANGES

    What I learned from this chapter is that by the time that two weeks pass the capsule is about the size of a capital O. The hole where the Embryo dug into the lining has closed up behind it. The Embryo has hardly changed at all, although the capsule has become a pancake two cells thick. I also learned that over the next few days this complicated machine held by cords to the womb starts to act like a "space ship" taking food and putting its waste in its mother.

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    TOP HEAVY.

    What I learned from this chapter is that two weeks before birth the baby does one last somersault to prepare for birth. The reason that a baby is able to land head first when they do that somersault is because the baby is top heavy.

    UGLY BABY STAGE

    What I learned today from this chapter is that the Embryo goes through an "ugly stage," the beginning of this Ugly stage starts with a dent or grove in the Embryo that grows over the back tail and then to about the middle of the Embryo, there it forms a pit. I also learned that the bottom of this pit continues to grow into the Embryo and makes a solid rod. The rod is a place marker to show where the back bone, spinal cord, brain and ribs were to begin. I also learned that the embryo has to do so much twisting and turning that it gets caught up in its own amniotic sack.

    ZITS, AAAAAH!

    What learned from this chapter is that the way a body controls acne is by putting a sack around the germ so it won't spread to other hair follicles.

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