Unit 6 Reflection

This unit was about biotechnology, the study and manipulation of living things to benefit mankind. Specifically, we learned about the domains of biotech, which are industrial and environmental biotech, agricultural biotech, medical or pharmaceutical biotech, and diagnostic research biotech, and examples of each domain. We also learned about some technologies in biotech, namely gel electrophoresis, polymerase chain reaction, and sequencing. Later, we learned about recombinant DNA technology, which creates transgenic organisms, and how to implement rDNA tech in the pGLO lab, an example of rDNA. Finally, we learned about morals, ethics, and values, and how these play a part in bioethics.

My strengths this unit were technologies of biotech and recombinant DNA. I found these topics pretty simple to grasp, as they were just processes that followed a logical sequence of steps in order to reach an end result. For me, that made them easy to understand. My weaknesses this unit were the domains of biotech, as I didn't really understand where the borders between domains lie, and bioethics, because ethics are not very logical and therefore harder to clearly understand. Also, I didn't have a lot of practice answering bioethical questions, so I'm also not great at those.

During this unit, we did two major labs: the Candy Electrophoresis lab, and the pGLO lab. From these labs, I learned more about electrophoresis, which is a technology involved with biotech, and how to transform bacteria with recombinant DNA, respectively. These labs helped me understand more concepts we learned during this unit.

I would like to learn of more examples of each domain of biotech, so that I can not only learn about more practical applications of biotech, but I can also understand the distinctions between each domain. I would also like to learn about more technologies involved in biotech, as I found PCR, gel electrophoresis, and sequencing interesting and would like to learn about other similar processes. 

In my New Years Goals post, I said that my goals were to participate more in class and start studying earlier. Since we haven't had many class discussions, I haven't really participated in class discussions. However, we have had discussions in smaller groups, which I have done my best to participate in. Studying earlier hasn't been going as well. Instead of studying a week earlier for bigger tests, I've been studying the two days before.