Reflect on your semester and year in biology What were your successes? What were your failures? What did you learn that you will never forget?

Blog 14 Compare two of the organisms that we have dissected Discuss at least 2 similarities and 3 differences

Blog 13 What was most interesting about this week's dissections?

The most interesting thing about this week's dissections is

Blog#12 What surprised you from the worm's dissection?

What surprised me from the worm dissection is the inside of the worm. I didn't think that it would be so interesting. To me it looks like the inside

Blog #11 Get a picture of alternation of generations put it in your blog and explain how it relates to plants

  

Alternation of generation refers to life cycles where organisms have two different multicellular stages: one that is diploid, one that is haploid. This is different from us. Human beings at any multicellular stage, are diploid. The only haploid stage we have is sperm and eggs - single cells. Gametophytes are the haploid stages of plants. It's the part that makes the gametes (sperm & eggs). In some plants, the gametophyte is the dominant stage, like in mosses. The green stuff you imagine when you think of a moss is the haploid stage. There are males that make sperm and females that make eggs. In most plants, however, the gametophyte stage is very small. In larger plants, the pollen is the male gametophyte. It contains cells that make sperm. The female gametophyte is the ovule and is inside the ovary in the flower or cone. But, even though they are small, they are still multicellular. The sporophyte stage is what is produced after fertilization and is therefore diploid. So, the actual plant or tree that you think of is the sporophyte. The sporophyte makes haploid spores by meiosis that become the gametophyte. The gametophyte then grows and develops and makes the gametes by mitosis which, when fused through fertilization, make a new sporophyte.