REFLECTION PAPER

At the last meeting, we had two groups of reporters. The first group discusses natural and
artificial selection. I learned that natural selection is about a process that favors traits that can be
passed down and help an organism live longer and have more offspring. While artificial selection
is about how you decide what kind of pet you want or what kind of food you like best, Natural
selection refers to when people pick out desirable traits in agricultural products or animals
instead of letting the species change and evolve over time on their own, as in natural selection.
To further discuss natural selection, I learned that natural selection is the way that groups of
living things adapt and change over time. People in a population vary by nature, which means
they are all different in some ways. This means that some people have traits that fit their
environment better than others. People are more likely to live and have children if they have
traits that give them an advantage. These people then pass on the traits that help them survive to
their children. Over time, more and more people start to have these good traits. Through this
process of natural selection, traits that are good are passed down from one generation to the next.
Speciation is when one species gives rise to a new species that is very different from the old one.
It is one of the things that makes evolution happen and helps explain why there are so many
different kinds of life on Earth.
Artificial selection, on the other hand, is when people find traits in plants and animals that they
like and then take steps to improve and pass those traits on to future generations. Artificial
selection works in the same way as natural selection, but in natural selection, these decisions are
made by nature, not by people. The importance of natural selection is that it causes a wild
species' traits to become even more suited to its natural environment. Because of this, in the long
run, natural selection will lead to more happiness. While artificial selection can make things
worse, it can also make things better. Artificial selection seems to be an important way to help
domesticated animals feel better and suffer less.
The next group discusses bioaccumulation and biomagnification. Bioaccumulation, from what
I’ve learned, is the way that pollutants (like metals) get into a food chain. It is also the way that
contaminants get into the bodies of aquatic organisms from things like water, food, and sediment
particles in the air. I also learned that bioaccumulation is caused by ingestion and absorption.
Ingestion is a way for the chemical to get into the living thing faster than it can be broken down
and used by the living thing. This means that more is going in than is going out, so the chemical
builds up inside the body. Another main way bioaccumulation happens is when a chemical gets
into a living thing and the thing can't break it down or get rid of it in some way. In these
situations, the chemical keeps building up until it becomes too much for the living thing to
handle.
To give an example of bio accumulation, cars and trucks not only put chemicals into the air
through their exhaust, but they also drip oil and gas on the ground. The chemicals that come out
of the exhaust go into the air. When chemicals get into the air, it is called "air pollution."
Animals can breathe in chemicals from the air, which starts the bioaccumulation process. When
it rains, the water mixes with the chemicals, and the chemicals fall to the ground, where they get
into the water supply and soil. Chemicals in the soil and water will be taken up by the plants. The
chemicals will also start to build up in the bodies of animals that drink the water. When people
eat plants and other animals, biomagnification starts to happen.
I also learned that because toxins are put into ecosystems, bioaccumulation and biomagnification
have bad effects on the ecosystems. To explain, an ecosystem is a group of living things that
interact with each other and the nonliving things around them. In the ecosystem, there is a
balance, and there are also different niches. To create positive feedback or to move the system
away from its equilibrium state, which makes it unstable, is to upset the balance. Most of the
time, pollution made by humans is what makes an ecosystem unstable. Which is funny, since
these pollutants not only hurt ecosystems but also make people sick with diseases and other bad
effects.
We can prevent these things from happening by doing things like eliminating or reducing the use
of some heavy metals; cleaning of contaminated locales; being cautious about using treated
wood; watching out for lead paint; avoiding usage of PVC. These little things that we can do can
be a bigger help in the long run, so we need to be mindful of the things that we will do.
This lesson is full of information that will be helpful not only for me but also in preserving
balance and also helpful in protecting the environment and its people from the harm that these
things might cause if we are not knowledgeable enough.