Evolution Project Blog | 11/17/18

Evolution and Antibiotic Resistance Project Brochure

Summary:

       This week in science we finished our evolution project (mine was about evolution and antibiotic resistance) where we first had to research about how evolution affects antibiotic resistance and antibiotic resistance in general. Then communicate our findings through creating a brochure. What I learned from this project was what antibiotic resistance is, how evolution plays a part in antibiotic resistance, how natural selection influences antibiotic resistance, how national and international agencies combat antibiotic resistance, how the public can help combat increased antibiotic resistance, and animals play a part in this whole situation. What one national agency, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) does to combat antibiotic resistance is making diagnostics stronger by substantiating lab tests, educate research and development to evolve drugs like antibiotics and antifungals, evolve diagnostic devices, tests, or assays, and satisfy a request or support an application to the FDA. In addition, CDC also completes testing to assure drug effectiveness, study biology and pathogenic mechanisms, and find new and noteworthy/odd public health resistance threats. The public can also help to combat antibiotic resistance by taking prescribed vaccinations from doctors. We can also clean up scratches, scrapes, cuts, wounds, etc. As well as critical or chronic conditions. Other things we can do are be able to recognize if a wound is infected; contact or get further help, clean the environment around you, anything and everything carries germs and bacteria. The most important strategy that we can follow however, is to use antibiotics more responsibly and wisely (through using them less often and only when you really need them). As for how animals play a part in this, Scientists and public health officials fear that due to our overuse of drugs in food products, human health is affected. According to the Centers for Disease Control, at least 2 million people are infected by drug-resistant bacteria every year in the United States, and at least 23,000 people die because of such infections.” in the article titled “THE TROUBLE WITH ANTIBIOTICS Study: Antibiotic Use in Animals Projected to Soar” by Priyanka Boghani, Frontline.

Backward-Looking:

       What I knew about the subject before we started was what evolution is and what natural selection is. Evolution is any change in the heritable traits within a population across generations. Evolution in simpler terms is the slow descent (or increase) with modification. It is changes in the genetic pool over time.. Natural selection is a change in DNA (these changes are random) that is passed on into the next generation's gene pool. Natural selection can also be described as survival of the fittest. I also knew what antibiotics were and the fact that antibiotics are used for animals and crops/produce. The process I went through to produce this piece was a four step process. The first part of the process was researching about the topic, and inputting information onto a document. The second part was designing and figuring out what our brochure was going to look like (and what was going to go on it) using google draw. I then actually created the brochure on a program called Canva. Lastly, I revised and iterated the product. In the past, I actually have done similar work like this. This is due to how in both sixth and seventh grade I created a brochure using Canva.

Inward-Looking:

       I feel pretty good about this project. This is due to how I feel that it was well done and informative. The parts of the brochure that I like are. The part of the brochure that I dislike is our choice of images. This is due to how I feel that we could've chosen different images that would've better enhanced our brochure and made it more informative. I dislike this part of the project due to how I feel that it may have made our project a bit worse. In addition, I also disliked the fact that our project had a couple of really long paragraphs. This is due to how brochures shouldn't really look like that so I feel that we also kind of drifted away from what a real brochure looks like. What I enjoy about this project is that it displays a wide range of antibiotics and evolution. This allows for a lot of different types of information to be expressed.

Outward-Looking:

       If I were the teacher, the comments that I would make about this piece are that it is very informative and displays all needed information. The grade that I would give this project is an A-. This is due to how it met all parts of the rubric. The only problem however was the images and how some of our information was too long as mentioned above. One thing that I want people to particularly notice when looking at our work is that we used information from many different places. Also, that we quoted a lot of different sources. This is due to how it displays that the information on our brochure is factual which I believe is very important.

Forward-Looking:

       One thing that I would like to improve upon is being more concise as I write and my researching  skills on the internet. This is due to how I have really struggled with writing too much and I feel that it would be really important thing to improve upon, especially for assignments/products like this one. I would like to improve upon my researching skills so that I can find better images to display for my projects. This is due to how I feel that images really help to enhance the final product so picking/finding good images is very important. Three things that I would change in the next revision of this piece is writing less, using better images, and having more graphics. This is due to how I feel that those are really the only two improvements that I could make in making this project better. These things would really make my project more attractive and pretty. Lastly because I feel that it would bring my project from an A- to an A.