I’ve been looking forward to this campus crawl ever since my brother first went five years ago. Time seems to have flew by since then. The trip was an interesting mix of excitement and exhaustion at the same time all throughout the two and a half days. Starting off I unfortunately got absolutely no sleep on the entire ride there except for a couple of minutes where I would occasionally doze off. Making the best out of a hapless situation two other friends and myself decided to construct a makeshift table out a blanket and play cards. It was a hilarious half hour where we continuously attempted to keep our best efforts of “table” intact while simultaneously keeping a game going. The most memorable thing I heard on the trip was at Cal Poly Slo when someone asked if the school had a strong Biology program and they replied with saying it’s a, “hard sciences” school. That was definitely a selling point for me. I’m looking for a university that will constantly challenge and push me to pursue my interests and this school was one that I hadn’t put much consideration into before but now has really moved to the top of my list. My final takeaway was just to enjoy what I have left of high school. For some time I thought that I was super ready to at any point leave to university. There was a moment at Santa Cruz where I just realized that I wasn’t ready for college and I knew that I needed my final year and half of high school to mature and then finally dive into furthering my education.
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Throughout these past three days my perspective was widened on so many topics. Day to day my top choices varied but one that definitely stuck out to my was Ylenna’s presentation on body image and what it does to the brain. I believe this is a huge topic that is not always brought up. In humanities I am actually also researching this topic and how it affects our culture whereas if I committed to it in biology I would have the opportunity to discovering the biological aspect of it! Through the presentation something that really surprised me was that our brain actually contains a highly distorted model of what we actually look like. Researchers at UCLA found that those with body disorders have less brain activity when processing images as a whole -- what they call the, “big picture” -- than they do when looking at things in greater details. This information is crucial to understanding how the brain perceives the body this way. There is also a lot of stigma surrounding this issue. Many people believe and stigmatize those facing a disorder as “crazy”, “weird” and most commonly, “attention seekers”. This is why I would like to be an advocate for this topic, it’s a huge issue that affects so many people and is only talked about in hushed voices whereas instead we could be reaching out and educating others on the importance of acceptance and awareness of what's actually going on. My burning question would be, “do any other parts of the body contribute to these disorders? If so which ones and how? The nervous system had never really had a particular grasp on me. Of course I enjoy learning about several aspects of it more then others but it doesn’t particularly strike me. During this week I was able to learn a lot about the nervous system through our dissection packet. Surprisingly this was definitely the system that grossed me out the most. You’d think it would be the digestive system that would be the most gross, but in the end it personally wasn’t. I really didn’t like hearing the skull break so my other group members did that and I helped out with the vertebrae and spinal cord later. The brain has always freaked me out a bit. I find it hard to wrap your mind around the fact that everything you are is in this one particular organ which is definitely why I wanted to stay away from the brain and focus on the vertebrae and spinal cord which was personally easier for me to work with.
Completing my observation journal is a lot of work but I have found it’s a really good way to gain a deep understanding on all the different parts of the system were looking at. While researching the first discussion question about the gyri and sulci and how it changes throughout life, I was able to find an amazing article that showed me a comparative image of the grey matter in a 5, 14-18 and, 20 year old. The difference was shocking! Through those images I was really able to see and understand how the gyri affects the grey matter as you mature and age. The article spoke of “early” sensory and motor areas as well as “association cortex”. Both were really interesting parts of the brain. While reading there was also a small section about intelligence and the area in the brain that pertains to it. That made me think of the growth mindset we focus on here at High Tech High and question how much relative intelligence affects someone. How much does “growth mindset” affect someone's learning? |
AuthorHere I will be uploading weekly reflections on my Teen Brain Health Project! Archives
April 2017
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