Unit 7 Reflection

In this unit we learned about the different parts of the muscular system and how they worked together to allow the body to move and function. We learned about the different movements of synovial joints, and in order to understand the movements and functions better we created dances to go along with them, using the vocab words like supination, pronation, rotation, and circumduction. It was fun and challenging to try and imitate popular dances like the "macarena" using only anatomy terms.

We got to further explore the different muscle groups in a chicken dissection where we labeled all of the major muscles. The chicken dissection and of the major labeled muscles can be seen at this blog post. Here's a photo that didn't make it onto the blog post, it was interesting and weird to see how there was a hole in the bottom of the chicken where all of the "giblets" were stored.

Next we got into the more molecular based part of how the muscles move, and learned about the different types of fibers that make up our muscles like actin and myosin, and how the two work to make our muscles contract and elongate. The process itself is composed of a variety of steps, and to help us understand the process better, we created a stop-motion muscle contraction video. 

From there, we learned about the individual muscles themselves and the groups that they were a part of, as well as the types of motions that they facilitated and the location of each muscle group. One of the ways that I was able to learn all of the different types of muscles was by creating a concept map that listed the location and motion of each major muscle.

One thing that I would want to learn more about is the structural differences (if any) between voluntary and involuntary muscle groups, and the diseases that affect muscles. Many problems arise because of muscle atrophy, and it would be interesting to see how the atrophy first began and what was causing it. 

As the year starts to come to a close, and finals and AP tests are seen right around the corner, it often feels like I'm sacrificing sleep to keep up with the workload rather than maintaining a balance between the two. I've started to figure out new ways to study so that I'm studying smarter instead of harder, and so far it seems to be working, so hopefully I'll be able to make up for lost hours of sleep. It's at this time that I'm really happy that I chose classes that I'm interested in, like this class and AP Bio, because the homework and studying doesn't really feel like work, it feels more like a project where I get to deepen my knowledge in topics that I already wanted to learn about.