Bloomington High School South, The Gothic, 2015, Page 53

Description:	goldenWhen asked to describe APBiology at Bloomington HighSchool South in one word, seniorSarah Berry said, engaging.The final three labs of the classcan be described similarly.Were always doing somethingto engage our outside knowledgeto practical applications, Berrysaid.As AP Biology finished theyear, Berry and fellowclassmates found the lastexercises to be some of the mostvaluable. For our final threelabs, we changed traits in plantsand E. Coli bacteria, and weexamined the behavior of fruitflies, junior Bailey Dupreysaid. Like Berry, Duprey foundthese labs helpful in reviewingand applying material. All ofthe labs tied together what wehad learned about geneticvariation, behavior, and DNA -three topics we covered a lot,Duprey said.Each lab required adifferent focus and goal from thestudents. The fruit fly labfocused mostly on behavior,Duprey said. We put fruit flies ina two-sided chamber and testedto see if the flies were moreattracted to different stimuli.Labgroups were able to choose whatthe flies were exposed to in thechambers, from different foodsto various lights. My lab groupput banana on one end andhoney on the other, Berry said.The flies preferred the banana,by far.The DNA labdemonstrated how quickly aspecies can change. Weinserted new DNA into E. Colibacteria that causes it to glowgreen, Berry said. After leavingthe specimen to sit overnight,Duprey explained that somebacteria glowed green and somedid not. Both Duprey and Berryliked seeing such a significantchange in a short amount of time.Along with these two newlabs, students planted a secondgeneration of plants to complete alab that was started in August. Inthe beginning of the year, we cross-pollinated the first generation sothat the second generation wouldhave different physical traits, like amixed-breed dog, Duprey said.We measured the number oftrichomes, or hairs on the plant, tosee if the first or second generationgenerally had more.The end of AP Biology was areflection of the engaging nature ofthe beloved class at South. I likethe class because we never sit atour desks, Berry said. We arealways interacting with other peopleand working with each other tosolve problems.- CAITLYN CHANGACADEMICS 53
Source:	http://cdm17129.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/hs-bloomsouth/id/8886
Collection:	Bloomington High School South

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