Health Collage

When our group was asked to define health, we had several answers that we individually came up with. However, when we came together to decide on one definition, we settled with a single word: happiness. I really enjoyed this particular thinking, right or wrong as it may be. Mental health really affects overall health, I believe. There is no point in exercising and forcing yourself on a diet if you cannot be happy with your life. Everybody is unique, and it's a shame that some don't realize that and take advantage of the fact that they're alive. Along this note, I'm a rather positive person, so I would say that my strongest pillar for my health is the fact that I worry so little. My stress levels are relatively controlled, and I never, ever let my anxiety control me. I can be emotional, but that does not change my positive outlook on life and my mental state. Unfortunately, this really affects one of my other pillars. Not worrying sometimes makes me a little slow regarding my efficiency with work, and I end up sleeping very late. My sleep schedule is not healthy, and I have had many many microsleeps during school, and sadly behind the wheel in the past. I definitely need to work on that. I have learned a lot about health, especially regarding nutrition and functions of certain nutrients, but I'd think it be nice to learn more about exercise, and the different types of exercise.

Unit 1 Reflection

This unit was all about introducing us to anatomy and physiology, as well as giving us some basic information on cells and histology. Some essential themes were:
Form fits function.
Anatomical Directional Terms help locate a specific place on the body.
Four macromolecules: carbohydrates, proteins, nucleic acids, lipids
Four tissues- epithelial, connective, muscle, nervous
Extracellular matrix- Fibroblasts, Macrophages, Adipocytes, Mast cells
Inflammation- neural response to damage, allergies
I had a lot of prior background knowledge, having taken freshman biology and AP biology, but the specificity on the tissues is a new page I have turned. I took in everything rather smoothly, and I can safely say I understand everything well. In the tissue lab, I was able to take a closer look at a lot of cells from all the types of tissues, and I got a tidbit of an experience of what it's like for a scientist who works with human biological cells and tissues. This can easily be applied to medical research and developing cures. It's obvious that it can be used for diagnoses, and being able to identify harmful things will definitely be something interesting if we were to go into that in the future. The preface is really nice though. A histologist is actually rather important in the medical field, and along with some computer work, there's also a lot of hands on stuff going on. It's awesome that we could get a taste of what it's like at such a young age. This unit has been a great start to a year that I am looking forward to!
http://learningpath.org/articles/Histologist_Career_Info.html

Tissue Lab Relate and Review

The tissue lab was all about exploring different types of cells and tissues through microscopes. After spending a few days learning about histology, it was great to see what we learned about in real life (aside from the skin we see everyday). Using optical microscopes, we took a look at all four types of tissues. They really reflected what we learned what we learned about in class, especially for the slide labeled "nerve human c.s. and l.s" and "skeletal muscle." For the nervous tissue one, the axons were clearly seen in the picture, and the fibers were also very visible. It was easy to tell that it was a nervous cell because only those have axons to receive and send signals. Additionally, the skeletal muscle slide had dots that stuck out from the picture which can be easily identified as nuclei. It also had the striations which made it very obvious that it was a skeletal muscle. Every slide that we looked at was different than the others just because of how specific the shapes were to their specific tissue type. The axons were an excellent example, because they have a specific function, and they could be identified in the lenses to indicate that what we were looking at was a nervous tissue cell. The skeletal muscle was also good because of the striations that were evident, and could be related to the voluntary movements that we can control.