Self Reflection

1. I think that so far, I'm doing fine. I feel that the research I've done is very good and very informational. I feel like my interviews could have been better but overall I feel happy with my senior project. I feel that my senior project deserves a P, because I have done all my research, and I have done most of my blog assignments on time, answering them to my fullest potential. 
2. I think I have done well on my research, all the research I do, helps me with my project and informs me very well.
3. I would like to improve on finding more and better interviewees, that actually have information for me on infectious diseases.

Science Fair Proposal- Growing Bacteria

1.  If a keyboard is used for a general day then the amount of bacteria on it will be exponentially high.
2. My dependent is the bacteria growth, my independent variable is the days, and my controlled are the keyboards.
3. The connection that my science experiment with my EQ, is that it kind of is one of the answers to my EQ, What is the most important thing to know in the diagnoses an infectious disease? In my interview with Dr. Chase, I asked him what skills are needed in being an Infectious Disease Doctor. He responded that you should have a varied knowledge in bacteria, viruses, biochemistry, organic chemistry and anatomy. Calculating the bacterial growth, can help me learn a lot about how a bacteria colony works. 
4.  Materials:

•  80 Plastic Petri Dishes & covers, 90 x 16 mm.
• 8 Agar Nutrients Bottles (125 ml)
• 80 Cotton Swabs
• Disinfecting Wipes
• 10 Keyboards
• Tape
• 80 Zip Lock Bags

• I will come in the 1st Monday morning and I will disinfect every keyboard in Ms. Melagno's class. Then I will come back Tuesday morning to collect samples, and prepare the Petri dishes. I will get my bottle of Agar Nutrients and cover the Petri dish with it, then I use the top half of the Petri dish to loosely cover the bottom and allow the solution to cool and harden for at least an hour. I will roll the clean cotton swab over the keyboards, then swiggle them on the Agar gel. To get a better sample, I will dip the cotton swab in water. Cover the Petri dish with the top half and use a piece of  tape to label the dish with "Keyboard #". Then I will place the sealed Petri dish inside a zipper-lock bag and seal it closed.  I will place the plates in a warm dark place to grow. From then on I will record the growth of the bacteria on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I will be doing this experiment over and over again for about 3 weeks.

5. My category will be Animal Biology and Physiology.

What I've Learned So Far

1) What have you learned how to do since you started working on your senior project?
    I have learned what different aspects deal with diseases and effect diseases. I also learned what defines an infectious disease and what makes them so infectious. I learned more about diseases as a whole. I also learned different ways that diseases can be transmitted.


2) The clip on video on E Coli from Animal Planet http://animal.discovery.com/videos/killer-outbreaks-e-coli-0157.html this was a video of the E Coli. outbreak and how it was now transmitted through being inside an egg instead of in the meat of the chicken.

3) What research helped you to do this and how?
I think the most important research that helped me a lot was the book Pandemonium, the book helped me because it specified on different outbreaks throughout the world, it led me through what happened in the days of the outbreaks and where it started. Like how the Avian Flu started in China, most likely deep into the meat markets.

Independent Component 1 Plan Approval

 1.)  I am very indecisive so I have three ideas for my Independent Component:

• I plan on  volunteering at the Kaiser Permanente Hospital in Fontana. I am hoping on working in the emergency room where most infectious diseases are found, if not I think I will be helping with patients in the hospital. With this I want to do my service learning as well.
• I plan on doing extensive research on my topic and going more into depth of what each disease is caused by, its symptoms, its relations to areas or other diseases ect.
• I plan on taking a college class at Cal-Poly, the Microbiology Lab, so I can learn more about the study of microorganisms, and the role the play in the enivornment and how the disease process is.

 2.)

• This will meet my 30 minute requirement because I will be clocking in the hours of how long I will be volunteering there. Also I plan on volunteering twice a week, and volunteering for 5 hours each day.  
• I will clock the hours of research I do, with the note-taking and the reading. I also believe that I will meet the 30 hour requirement, because I will be looking up disease after disease, and reading intensely on each disease. Knowing that there are thousands of disease I am sure that I won't run out of research or new things to learn.
• I will meet the the 30 hour mark because I will try and take Microbiology Lab at Cal-Poly, where the class goes for almost three hours every day, twice a week. And from that I will do my work as well for the class adding more time, for me to put.

3. This relates to my EQ, because;

• This relates to my EQ because I learn how to interact with sick people, and that will help me see how seeing a patient's symptoms, on the outside, help a diagnosis. I will also learn how to be more careful around people and to listen more carefully when they speak. This is essential when you listen to a patients complaints and past medical history. My second interview taught me that medical history is very significant in diagnosing a disease.
• This relates to my EQ because it helps me learn more about diseases, with this I will have knowledge of more disease helping me understand, what is essential on knowing to diagnosis a disease.
• This relates to my EQ , because to know how to diagnosis an infectious disease, you need the basis knowledge of how microbiology works, and what causes the microorganisms to wreak so much havoc in a body.

Defining the Essential Question

1.  What is the most important skill to have when diagnosing an infectious disease?
2. Skill-A particular or specific ability, diagnosing-identifying a medical illness by examining symptoms, infectious disease- a disease transmitted only by a specific kind of contact, usually extremely contagious.
3. An acquired knowledge of diseases, problem-solving skills, an open mind, and quick thinking.
4. My most important sources would be a book and a television show, because they give me a very specific look/information on how diseases infect/affect the body and what causes them. My first book would be Pandemonium, by Andrew Nikiforuk, and my second source is a television show called "Killer Outbreaks" by Ali Moghadas.

Second Interview Questions

My interview questions will be somewhat vague because I am still trying to decide what I specifically want to study. My interview questions are;

1. What in your opinion is the most important factor in solving a epidemiological case/diagnosing a disease?
2. What is the one thing that people do now that makes the transmission of  diseases so much easier and much more powerful?
3. What made you want to go into this profession/study disease/go into epidemiology?
4. Do you have a favorite disease( to study) if so, what is it, and why?
5. Have you ever gotten an infectious disease or have been part of a disease outbreak?
6. Which skills are needed to be an epidemiologist/infectious disease doctor?

Presentation Reflection

Blog 4: Interview & Presentation 1

1. My first interview affected my presentation because I didn't have a really good interview, since it was last minute and my main person had to go to vacation. It did help in the way, I understand what a pathogen is, and that helped me explain it to the class.
    
2. I think what really stood out of my presentation was that I took the class, and made them go through the steps of solving an epidemiological case. I taught them a new skill and that made me really proud. I asked 3 different students to fill in the three missing links to solve "a case in Africa" that turned out to be Malaria.
    
3. I think the most challenging thing was to start of presenting, I knew that the way I was explaining was so confusing and that I needed to be more clear on it. I was so nervous I didn't know how to fix it so I went on and tried to save my presentation by doing my activity and to me it worked out perfectly.

Final Draft Presentation 1

Lesson Plan- Epidemiological Triad

Objective: I want to show people how to identify a disease using the epidemiological triad/circle. Using these three choices that can help lead to a disease, environment, hosts and pathogen. I would like to also show people how knowing two of the choices.

Intro- I will start off by introducing epidemiology and follow with what I am going to do.

Procedure:

1. I will show my visual, my version of the epidemiological triad, and explain each part.
2. Following that I will ask the students “ Can you name a well known disease?” and write them down on the board.
3. I will pick about 1 or 2 diseases from the ones they named. I will draw the epidemiological triad.
4. I will then ask them, can anyone name where this disease is seen at/in? And if they can I will fill in the environment part.
5. I will ask in anyone knows the hosts? Then I will follow that with filling in the hosts part.
6. With that I would of have finished the epidemiological circle, and I will follow with another example of when we use the pathogen circle, and not know the disease.
7. If time allows it I will add in, when in epidemiology do we use this triad and when we only have a two or one filled in, we can still solve the disease.

Check for Understanding:
    When I am choosing a disease as an example I will choose on people to ask them, what is the environment, pathogen, ect. If they understand, they should know the right answer, if not I will ask someone to help them, since we learn best from our peers.

Senior Project Presentation 1

I will start off asking the class if they can name any diseases that they know. After writing down the list, I will choose a disease from the list given, and show how the disease relates to the Epidemiological Triad. Which is a Venn Diagram, with three circles, the first one says Host, the second one says Pathogen, and the third one says Environment, where the circles meet will say Disease. So for example, Malaria, would be the disease, The host of Malaria is a mosquito and human. The environment that Malaria is usually found in is in, humid tropical. The pathogen is a eukaryotic protists called Plasmodium. My visual would be a poster of the epidemiological triad.

Interview Check

1. I will be interviewing Dwight Culver, from University of Irvine. I am interviewing him because he is into a different type of epidemiology that I want to learn more about. I also think that he can help me learn more about epidemiology.

2. I will be asking these following questions,

• Where would you recommend to do service learning?
• What other professor or professional could I interview that would also help my senior project?
• Do you know any hospital that would let me volunteer there?
• What kind of sickness can happen due to chemicals in the workplace?
• What is one major epidemiological case that you have worked on in the past?

Blog Questions

1.)  My topic is Epidemiology, is the study of the factors that cause or encourage diseases. Some diseases are more common in certain geographic areas, among people with certain genetic or socioeconomic characteristics, or at different times of the year.
2.)  After studying this topic all year I hope to have this topic as a possible career option, that I could go to. I have always been interested on how diseases work and what makes it that they spread so fast, and how genetics play a part in it. Since I was in Pandemics house freshman year diseases have interested me. I learned that you could work for the CDC or WHO to figure out how diseases were started, and who was patient zero, I wanted to work in that field.