Blast Lab, Structure Lab and Monarchs

In AP Biology today, we started our BLAST lab which is new to AP this year's new curriculum. Students looked at four genes from and prehistoric animal and tried to decide where this organism fit on a cladogram.  We will return to the computer lab to finish this lab Wednesday ... club schedule tomorrow and we will use this time to review since several students will be out of class.

In Selected Topics we started our building project ... a tower weighing 34 grams and is 8 inches tall to hold the maximum weight ... record is 255 pounds.  This amount of wood is 24 popsicle sticks ...  Tomorrow a study of gravity and more work on our structures.

Rained three inches of rain today.

Good articles about the demise of the monarchs ... Patriot Pollinator Project 2013

http://monarchwatch.org/blog/

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/03/130318-monarch-butterflies-animals-science-environment-nation/

http://www.usnews.com/science/news/articles/2013/03/14/monarch-butterflies-drop-ominously-in-mexico