**Please use your WPR Rubric and WPR Improvements documents to push your own writing**

What did we do these past two weeks?

Monday (9/19/16):
WPR Share
Nervous and Endocrine Systems reading and Visual Vocabulary.
Tuesday:
Honors: Choose your animal, Finalize your final product idea
Class #2 (Birth Control Methods) with Marcy from Planned Parenthood
Wednesday:
Honors: Final decision on your Human/Animal Anatomy Product (e.g. human
anatomy puzzle)
Ocean Institute Website Exploration
Thursday:
Ocean Institute Overnight (see your reflection sheet for details)
Friday:
Ocean Institute Overnight (see your reflection sheet for details)
Team and POD names
Monday (9/26/16):
Kerri Danil - The Case of the Dead Dolphin: Here.
Respiratory and Circulatory Systems reading and Visual Vocabulary.
Tuesday:
Honors - Final Product Design and Explanation (go get feedback - 8 sets of eyes).
Class #3 (STIs/STDs) with Marcy from Planned Parenthood
Wednesday:
WiLD Wednesday: Silent walk and 10 minute draw what you hear!
Internship preparation: resume graphic organizer and resume draft
Thursday:
Pacific White-Sided Dolphin Necropsy with Kerri Danil and assistants at NOAA!
Friday:
WPR #1 review
Bio/Env Sc WPR #2
 Student Name:
Due Date: Monday, 10/3/16 (submitted to Google Classroom by the beginning of class)

Weekly Personal Reflection (WPR) #2

1) Experiences (what did you do)? Please choose one (or two) experiences, explain in detail, and
back with evidence (specific examples, scientific vocabulary, related data, scientific articles).
Write in paragraph form, 12 font, and single spaced.

An experience from the last two weeks that stood out to me is the Dolphin Necropsy. It was
September 29, Thursday. Some of the people that were selected to go: Amy, Victor, Jakob,
Jose P, Andrea, Kevin, Mathew, Rhianne, Caitlyn, Raya, Elizabeth, April, Ilse, Jose, Kylie,
Ivan, Rylan, Nikki, and Sebastian. The people in my group were: Kevin, Victor, Sebastian,
Aprill, Nikki, Amy, Andrea, Elizabeth, and Matthew. Right after we had arrived and checked
in, you could already smell the Dolphin before the two giant metal doors opened. Once the
doors open you could see a 6ft dolphin lying on it's side with incisions already made near the
dorsal fin. However before I could see more, my half of the group had to move on to other
things while the other half would stay and begin the Necropsy. Later, after we have walked
around the facility as an impromptu tour and had lunch outside of the building, it was finally
time for our turn. When my group approached the, now open metal doors, the smell of the
Dolphin was even more potent than before. When I finally came in sight of the Dolphin it
became clear why. The entire left side of the Dolphin, the side it wasn't laying on, had been cut
open: lungs, stomach, and intestines in view, with ribs removed. Many of my classmates were
disgusted, me and others however, were very intrigued. Kerri Danil tells the safety protocol
while the assistant continues to clear away the few remaining ribs. After we had all put on our
white plastic aprons, baby blue gloves and were huduled around the dolphin in anticipation
Kerri Danil starts to explain what we're looking at. She goes over the reproductive system, it
was a female and had just been fertilized, the stomach, very large and to which it has three, the
lungs, the diaphragm, the intestines; all of this had been a brief overview of course, we would
go in much more detail as we would remove each organ one by one. While she was explaining
all of this Kerri had passed around the left pectoral fin, just before it got to me I realized how
morbid this must look: one species emotionlessly taking apart every part of another species
that had once kept it alive, even passing around it's fin like show-n-tell in elementary school.
All of this however was for the sake of science, and no other school that I could think of,
would even get the chance to do this. So I was grateful and ready to learn. As Kerri Danil
began to cut out the stomachs she went over their purposes and what they did. The Dolphin
had thrown-up, due to stress that she had received from being trapped in a net that had
ultimately cause her to suffocate. Kerri closed both ends of the stomach to prevent the contents
from spilling. Kerri let the few students who already had face masks on, hold the heavy
stomach. After they had finished Kerri gave the stomachs to her assistant to measure and
weigh. Next was my turn to contribute. The next thing Kerri was going for was the lungs.
Kerri had asked me to hold up the "Goose beak" as she detached the lungs from the body. The
"Goose beak" was attached to the blowhole and traveled down to the lungs, it's purpose was to
 block any food that comes in, from coming into the lungs, and I got to hold it up as she cut out
it's lungs. Kerri put the lungs on a tray held by her assistant and moved them over to table. I
followed Kerri over to the table because I wanted to know what she was going to do next. I do
not know what the other students were doing as Kerri continued to work on the lungs, I did not
even have to step back to let others see, because as I recall it was just me and Amy that had
followed Kerri here. Kerri began to cut open what I quickly recognized as the heart. Once she
cut it out people paused her process for what will be my favorite picture of the trip: me,
wearing a face mask, baby blue gloves, and an apron, in a laboratory, holding a Dolphin's
heart. After that, Kerri got a scalpel and cut the bottom half of the heart off. She showed it to
me and I noticed that there was two holes and one of them was much thicker than the other,
before I could ask she said, "This is the left ventricle. The reason why it's so thick is because,
the left ventricle pumps blood from the lungs to the entire body, and that takes a lot of
strength. So all that thickness you see there, that's muscle." Wow was all I could think of. Not
just at the heart, but at the fact that I'm looking at it, I could be sitting down at a desk right
now, reading, "The left ventricle is the thickest part of the heart, this is so it can pump blood to
the rest of the body." But here I am looking at a real heart, seeing it first hand. I'll definitely
never forget this trip and all the things I learned there, and I'll definitely never forget why the
left ventricle is the thickest part of the heart.

2) Skills (what can you now do or do better, e.g. observation/field research skills, dissection
skills, computer skills, reading/writing-related skills...)? Please choose one (or two) skills,
explain in detail, and back with evidence (specific examples, scientific vocabulary, related data,
scientific articles). Write in paragraph form, 12 font, and single spaced.

A skill that I am continuing to work on is observation. In the last two weeks I demonstrated
my growth in observation by...
In the Ocean Institute and the Dolphin Necropsy, I believe that I pretty much had to do a lot of
observing. At the Ocean Institute, September 22, when we (David, Rhianne, Krueger,
Michelle, Jem, Andrea, Raya, Ruben, Eduardo, Nethanel, Mathew, and some others) were
dissecting, our counselor was very effective at making us think about what we're seeing. We
had to look at our squid, which I dissected with David, and tell if it was male or female. We
had to look at our squid then look back at the diagram of a male and female squid and find
distinguishing features. Comparatively this is much more practice at observation than if I went
to regular school, where I would just learn the names of the parts of the squid. I also observed
our counselor wrote "suction cups" next to the suction cups to show that's what they are, so I
wondered why she hadn't put the scientific name for it like she had done for the others. It turns
out that that the scientific name for "suction cups" is Suction cups or Suckers; I am fairly
 disappointed in science for that. Later that day during the fish dissection with, Rhianne,
Matthew, Eduardo, and Raya, we had to cut open a fish and identify organs of the body. That
was also practice for observation since they weren't just pointed out to us.
September 29, Dolphin Necropsy. When it was my group's turn (Kevin, Victor, Sebastian,
Aprill, Nikki, Amy, Andrea, Elizabeth, and Matthew) to work on the Dolphin Necropsy, I feel
that I practiced very much in observation skills. I noticed that when we started to walk into the
lab there was still some ribs left, but by the time we got all our gear on they were taken off, I
mentioned this in class on Friday. I also noticed the markings on the Dolphin's dorsal fin,
which turned out to be from most likely another dolphin, because when dolphins play
sometimes they'll scrape their teeth against the dorsal fin of other dolphins. I also asked Kerri
Danil what the string like structures inside of the dolphin were, and if they were muscles. I
remember when you were explaining to students next to me that the sawed off ribs were the
vertebrae that extend from the spine, to which I corrected you saying that the vertebrae you
were talking about would be more aligned with the dorsal fin and that what we were looking at
were the sawed off ribs. To me, all of these examples show how I have practiced in observing
and maybe even dissection skills.

3) Scientific Content (what have you learned - CONCEPTS, VOCABULARY)? Please choose
one (or two) pieces of scientific content, explain in detail, and back with evidence (specific
examples, scientific vocabulary, related data, scientific articles). Write in paragraph form, 12
font, and single spaced.

A piece of new scientific content that I learned in the last two weeks is the concept of (or new
vocabulary word) the atriums and ventricles of the heart and the heart itself. I have
demonstrated my understanding of the atriums and ventricles of the heart and the heart itself
concept (or vocabulary word) by
Before I could get to the Atrium and Ventricles part of the reading, I went to the Dolphin
Necropsy, September 29. As I had mentioned before I had noticed that a part of the heart was
much thicker than the rest. Kerri Danil told me that's because that's the left ventricle, and the
left ventricle is the part that pumps blood to the rest of the body. So when I came across a
diagram of the heart in the textbook I immediately noticed how it showed the left ventricle
with a lot more tissue. It didn't say so in the book, but I gathered that what makes the atriums,
atriums and the ventricles, ventricles, is that the atriums is the chamber where the the blood
physically enters the heart and the ventricles is the chamber where the blood leaves the heart.
The left ventricle is stronger than the right because the right ventricle only has to pump blood
to the lungs, a much closer distance. So I got to thinking about why and how, two sets, of two
chambers makes a pump. I figured that the right atrium for example, is closed, and so is the
right ventricle. And to get the blood to enter the heart, not only is there already flow in the
 circulatory system, but that the right atrium can also go from being in a closed state to open
one, creating negative pressure, this sucks in the blood. Now to get the blood into the right
ventricle, the right atrium begins to close again the right ventricle begins to open, allowing
blood to flow in. Now the right atrium is closed and the right ventricle is full of blood. Next
the right ventricle will begin to close, and with the right atrium closed the blood has nowhere
to go but through the pulmonary system and to the lungs. The blood then returns from the
lung, now rich in oxygen, to the left atrium which would use the same low pressure technique,
in cooperation with flow from previous pumps to get blood into the left atrium. The left atrium
closes as the left ventricle opens, all the blood is now in the left ventricle, and the left atrium is
closed off, so the left ventricle uses all its muscle to push blood through to the entire body.
What I had just said is how the heart works and I gathered that from Atriums are the two
smaller chambers on the right and left. and Ventricles are the two larger chambers on the
right and left.

4) By signing this document I (the parent or guardian) acknowledge our conversation about this
weeks biology/environmental science class and my daughter/sons personal reflections on
her/his personal growth.

Parent (typed) signature: Rosalinda Magana-Castillo Date 10/2/16

Parent Comments (any language is welcome):

Dear HTH, I am grateful for the unique learning opportunities that you provide for our
children. I love how the school strives to help our children grow personally and how you try to
inspire curiosity and an interest in learning about the world around them. Personally, I have
seen a tremendous growth in all areas of learning for my son Alex. I especially love to see his
enthusiasm, whenever he has the time to share with me about all that he learns at the school.
Sincerely, Rosalinda Magana-Castillo
5) Students personal (please no parent input) numerical reflections on their performance during
this week in biology/environmental science class. Please take into account the following six
criteria which will cumulatively add up to a possible 60 points. Please be honest with yourself
this should be a lifelong endeavor!

1. Are you striving to be a positive community member in our class: 9/10.

- Specific reasoning (with evidence):
I have (or have not) been a positive community member this past week because
I did ask questions while on the Ocean Institute trip and the Dolphin Necropsy that I think
helped with clarification on the subject at hand. I asked clarifying questions about the heart
and why the left ventricle was thicker than the rest of the atriums and ventricles. I also helped
intrigue my groupmates while on the Ocean Institute trip during the cow eye dissection on the
second day. I believe that some of my groupmates were: Rhianne, Nathaniel, Raya, Matthew,
and some others. I told them about the blank spot in your eye and how to find it without the
piece of paper: by closing one eye looking at something straight ahead, covering it with your
thumb, and moving your thumb in the direction opposite of the closed eye while continuing to
look at the straight ahead object. I mentioned this again in class on Friday. Also when we were
leaving NOAA I noticed that Eduardo forgot his backpack in the lockers so I brought it to him.
I also helped with the box of clipboards when we were leaving. Also while at the Ocean
Institute, when we were on the boat, I motivated some classmates like Chloe, Victor, Nikki,
Dany, and some others to try out the Hearing through your chin section of the boat.

2. Project work time (were you an active participant during WiLD Wednesdays, the Ocean
Institute (and the dolphin necropsy - if present)): 9/10.
- Specific reasoning (with evidence):
I was an active participant in WiLD Wednesdays by After the Silent Walk we were asked to
talk about what we felt during the walk. I started a conversation about how, when I was
walking I was thinking about something irrelevant, then when I tried to think about how long
we've been walking with our eyes closed I couldn't remember. I had totally lost track of time, I
had no idea if we've been walking for 1 minute or 10. The person I was talking to, Jakob,
nodded his head and we were about to get into conversation when we had to stop and continue
walking. Then later, after we had done the Draw what you hear with our eyes closed, we were
sharing our drawings with people I remember sharing with Ilse, Rhianne, and Arthur. I talked
about the flies I drew, the pencil and paper I drew and some others, then I asked them about
what they drew and why.
I was an active participant on our trip to the Ocean Institute by When we were on the boat I
asked clarifying questions about plankton, like, "What species of plankton are we looking at
right now?" and "What's the difference between Phytoplankton and Zooplankton?". Later on I
encouraged others to try out Hearing through your chin section of the boat. Later on during the
squid dissection that same day, I asked what the scientific word for the suction cups were, only
to be told that it is, Suction cups, I mentioned this during the end of the day when we were all
 in a big circle in the room with the whale skeleton. I also helped cut open and identify and
clarify parts of the squid with my dissection partner David. Then in the morning during the
cow eye dissection I told my groupmates a cool trick you can use to find your blind spot, to
which I go in detail about in the above category.
(I was an active participant during our dolphin necropsy by) I asked multiple questions
about the dolphin: "What are the tiny strings in the body for?", "What are tubes doing in the
heart? Isn't it just blood by itself?", and other questions I can't quite recall. I was also very
involved with the necropsy, even in the photos I'm always either next to Kerri Danil or
participating in some way. I followed her to the heart dissection so I could get first hand
knowledge of whatever she was going to do and asked questions on what she was doing.

3. Attendance (please review your PowerSchool and see if you were Absent or Tardy. If so, what
day(s) and why?): 9/10.
- Specific reasoning (with evidence):

It was Sept. 27 and it doesn't show in powerschool, but I remember walking in late to class and
you said something along the lines of, "Everyone who walks in here after now is late." Just
before I had walked into the classroom I got a text from my father with a picture, showing that
my Dad's Brother had just become a dad. My new cousin had just been born.

4. Assignments (A. Nervous and Endocrine Systems reading and Visual Vocabulary (all 37
highlighted vocabulary words included), AND B. Respiratory and Circulatory Systems reading
and Visual Vocabulary (at least 20 highlighted vocabulary words included)): 10/10.
- Specific reasoning (with evidence):
A. I read all the text and did all the vocabulary words. You checked the papers so you know I
did the vocab words. I'm not sure how to prove that I read it, there was one part of the text that
mentioned how our senses influence our behaviours and the examples it gave were, "If a room
is dark, you'll turn on a light." I thought that, that was so redundant it made me laugh.
B. I read all the text and did the 20 vocabulary words. I was also so intrigued with some of the
 things i was reading I took notes at the bottom of the papers.

5. Honors (Human and Animal Anatomy Final Product Design and two sets of eyes): 10/10.
- Specific reasoning (with evidence):

I contributed (or did not contribute) to my groups efforts to our final Human and Animal
Anatomy Product Design by I did do my share of the 8 sets of eyes by asking two other
students from different classes: Ermel Twano and Marco.
I gathered (or did not gather) feedback from two students (outside of my class) about Ermel
said that he liked the idea of using 2-D and 3-D, to which I assume means the idea for the
paper mache heads. Marco said asked where we will put after exhibition.

6. Completion of this WPR sheet (including effort put into reflections, spelling, grammar, parent
conversation, and turned in on time): 10/10.
- Specific reasoning (with evidence):
I have (or have not) completed this WPR to the best of my ability by For example, my
efforts have been demonstrated in the Experiences section of this WPR by
I spent a lot of time on the experiences portion of this WPR, and I feel that I did a very indepth
job at describing "the scene of the crime". I described pretty much everything I did in the lab
as evidenced by what I stated in that section.

Total: 57/60