Unit 9 Reflection

The title of this unit was: What on Earth Evolved? As you can probably tell from the title of this unit, we learned about the different groups of organisms that evolved on Earth and the order in which they evolved. So starting off, the most primitive life on Earth began with unicellular prokaryotes like bacteria and archaea. Some may argue that viruses are living, but they don't have many of the characteristics of life.

Then, there evolved the domain Eukarya, when prokaryotes began living inside each other as symbiotic organelles. In the domain Eukarya, there were four kingdoms, namely: Protista, Animalia, Fungi, and Plantae. In the kingdom Animalia, we humans belong to the phylum Chordata, class Mammalia, order Primates, and so on. We are considered one of the most recently evolved organisms. A good way to see how new traits evolved and created new groups is a phylogenetic tree. Below I have attached an image of one regarding all the organisms within phylum Chordata.



One of the major projects in this unit was the What on Earth Evolved? presentations. My presentation went quite well, and I attribute my success to the fact that I practiced a lot in front of the mirror, my parents, my brother, even my dog! I got feedback from the mirror by making sure my posture was good, and that I didn't sway. My parents gave me helpful feedback by suggesting certain topics I should include in the presentation to make it more engaging and interesting. This made my presentation not only get a good grade, but I was able to enjoy the process of presenting something that was quality. In the future, I will always make sure to overprepare for such presentation, as the payoff is always worth it.

The link to the actual slideshow can be found right here. The topic of my presentation was the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV)

Although the Geologic Timeline assignment was a Unit 8 assignment, we only completed it during the beginnning of this unit, so I would like to attach the link to my reflection right here. If you really think about it, the Geologic Timeline actually ties in quite a bit with taxonomy, because it shows us the huge amount of time that Earth was inhabited by only unicellular organisms, and how long it took to evolve complex organisms, and that we humans only occupy a tiny sliver of time compared to life on Earth.

This unit has definitely helped me grow as a person. Being put in front of a classroom of 30 students and presenting really pushed my out of my comfort zone. I feel a lot more comfortable now speaking in front of large audiences. However, one thing I still struggled with this unit was trying to pay better attention to other people's presentations. I need to improve my active listening so I can learn more.

Here is a photo of a chart I made for the taxa observation of organism to help me better understand common characterstics.