Unit 5 Reflection

This unit was the "Diabesity" unit, which included the digestive system, metabolism, endocrine system, and Lymphatic system. The main take away from this unit was that what you put in your body is not as simple as going through a tube. Many different systems work together to absorb nutrients, process waste, produce and store energy, monitor sugar content, respond to foreign invaders and more. It is way more complex than just one system that causes or does not cause obesity and diabetes. 

The main setback of this unit was its complexity. Especially the metabolism portion. There are so many new concepts that it was difficult to wrap my brain around them. For example : metabolism starts with extraction of energy from food, but there are already three different steps to this process and each step is completely different from the last.

We did activities such as the digestive system string model, where we make a to scale model (in length) of our digestive system. We made posters of the three states of metabolism, which was personally my favorite and really helped to better my understanding of the states. We also did multiple reading one called " Why Zebras don't get ulcers" which expanded on what we were learning about.

I want to learn more about the diseases and defects of these different systems, how they occur, why they occur, the cure, etc. 

So far I'm doing pretty well with my New year's goals. I;m doing pretty good with my dance goals, and almost good with my school goals. I said I would not procrastinate so much as to leave my homework to do in another class or during lunch, which I have so far not done any homework in school. But I also said I would not stay up past 11 doing hw, studying, etc and here I am 12:46 am doing homework and studying for my test.

Digestive System Lab

    In this lab we made a to scale model  of the length of our digestive system. The point of the lab was to show how truly massive your internal organs are.

    I am 1.7018 meters tall and my digestive tract is about 9.23 meters long. It baffling how this system is more than 8 times the size of me. But theses lengthy organs fit inside of me due to their ability to fold and scrunch together like a spring, more specifically the large and small intestines. 

     My guess is that it takes around 15 hours for food to go through the entire digestive system. But according to Health and Support, it can take anywhere between 12-72 hours depending on what kind of food is ingested. Fruits and vegetables take around 12-24 hours to pass through while red meat takes 72 hours.

      Digestion is the break down of food into smaller pieces and absorption is intake of nutrients from that food. The mouth, esophagus, and stomach are involved in digestion and the small intestine and large intestine are involved in absorption. 

  I want to learn more about metabolism and how digestion, absorption, etc have to do with it. I also want to understand what makes a "fast" or "high" metabolism. What (scientifically speaking) is going on?

New Year's Goals

I will manage my work time better. Managing my time includes, doing homework right after school instead of half an hour before I go to dance, staying up no later than 11:00 to do homework, never leaving homework that is due the next day to do in another class or during lunch.

I will work on dance skills outside of the studio. This includes practicing my solo at least once a week outside of class. Stretching before class on Saturdays, since we don't have warm ups that day. Doing acro (such as aerials, backbends, etc) at home, to work on more difficult skills.

I will focus on myself instead of other people. I will not be rude or selfish, but I will not care about what other people are doing that I am not doing. I will not let people determine my actions, simply because I admire their opinion. I will do what I want to do and not worry about what other people think of me. I will have achieved this goal when I no longer care about what specific people are doing.