The fast plant lab showed me a lot. I realized how plants are not as simple as they seem! Crossing plants and maintaining healthy plants is not as easy as you would think. I am sad to say my plants died very fast. I had hope for them but it failed. The parent plants stayed alive for a week or so. Then, our F2 generation never even did anything. Eventually, all our plants died. My group did everything we were supposed to but they did not thrive. Maybe if we checked on them twice a day they would have redeemed themselves. Of course, genetics and the environment affect the phenotype of an organism. The phenotype is the physical traits. For example, color, height, and width. The environment is what affects this. No water or light will make the plants die out. Little things can affect the plants as well as how they grow. The perfect environment for them will allow them to thrive in many ways. This course taught me to expect the unexpected. I was excited for my plants to grow. I was excited to see what traits would be passed down from the parents and see how fast it would take. I really was interested in this topic and how the outcome would be. I was expecting a lot and it took a complete turn. A turn that was very unexpected. I would definitely like to try this experiment again. I would give more energy and time into it. I would hope for a better outcome. This fast plant project did not turn out how I wanted but it still showed me something and still interested me.

Did the F2 generation look like how you predicted them to look? The f2 generation didn’t look like how I expected them. I thought my plants would be a lot smaller than the f1 generation. When I checked the plants, they seemed taller than the first ones. I did expect the colors to be the same since we basically planted the same seeds the first and second time. Did the parent generation or the F2 generation grow faster? The f2 generation did grow faster than the first. With the first generation, it took about a week until I seen some sprouts growing. I planted the f2 generation and within a couple days, sprouts were growing in the soil. What might have hindered your plants' ability to thrive? I think some abiotic and biotic factors could have hindered the plants. Some abiotic factors would be the air and water. The air would sometimes be hot and cold. At times, I believe we watering a little too much. Some biotic factors could be the surrounding plants a. The surrounding plants would grow very close to ours. How do genetics and the environment affect the phenotype of an organism? The genetics affect the phenotype by having different mother plants and father plants. So if two of the same exact plants mate, their offspring would be the same as well. But if the mom plant was heterozygous and the dad plant was homozygous, then their offspring would be different. The environment could affect the phenotype because of the location of where the plants are and the temperature in the air. Which is a greater indicator of how an organism will look? A greater indicator would have to be the phenotype and genotypes of the parents. The genes of the parent will assist in the making of the plant’s genes. Also, the parents’ phenotypes will help with the offsprings’ phenotypes. Meaning the phenotypes could be mixed or one phenotype only from one parent. A summary of what stood out to you during this course and why. During the fast plants, I would say what stood out to me is the actual plants growing. When I was young, I would plant plants but they wouldn’t grow to their full potential. They would have a few sprouts until they died. Even when I did what I was supposed to with the plants. Another thing that stood out to me was the seeds inside of the f1 and f2 generation. I’m being completely honest, I didn’t think plants could have babies. So when I saw the seeds from the plants, I was surprised. The fast plants' mini project was fun to do and to actually have plants grow.

For the quarter 4 benchmark, my group and I chose to do how overpopulation can affect an ecosystem. Some key things that stood out to me were some of the solutions that were presented to us in fixing this issue. Also, how overpopulation connects to ecology stood out to me. This material stood out to me specifically because I want a big family. So with people like me, who have big families, and take up lots of space even with use of materials around the world the topic got to me. I am still wondering how overpopulation will be prevented in the future, and how people will ensure that it is not an issue