🌲How do Cells and Diseases Interact?🌲

🌲Hello and welcome back to the forest of learning! Today I shall walk you through the process of creating a comic book about a disease or a cellular process. I personally chose to create a comic book about the bacteria salmonella typhi which can cause typhoid fever (a disease). This project helped educate me on topics I was interested in; cells and diseases so I enjoyed it a lot! If your interested in seeing the full process of creating my comic book, keep reading!🌲

As always, we followed the project path throughout the project;

To start off the project, we watched a movie called “Osmosis Jones”. This movie was a great way to spark interest on the topic. I personally did not like the movie very much though- I found it to be pretty disgusting actually. I appreciate the scientific facts, and that this movie is educating people on the human body, but I personally believe that some of the scenes were just unnecessarily gross. There were some scenes such as the “puking scene” (I think the title is fairly self explanatory) that just really made me feel woozy. 

After watching the movie, we started milestone one in which we created a mind map. This mind map would consist of questions and previous information about cells and diseases. Asking questions is always important because it sparks interest in the topic. Overall, organizing our knowledge about cells and diseases will help contribute greatly towards our final comic book. I believe that in this milestone It showed the competency “questioning and predicting” best. I think this because I needed to be curious about the topic, as well as representing previous knowledge I had gained about the topic. In this milestone, curiosity came with the interest in cells and diseases. 

In milestone two we created a disease “WANTED” poster. We were instructed to pick a disease that existed between the 1400s – 1600s. Once we picked a disease, we would research facts about it and create a poster. I chose typhoid fever which had suspected to be around even before Ancient Greece, and is still effecting people today. Typhoid fever comes from the bacteria “salmonella typhi”. Salmonella is most commonly found in raw eggs, raw meat, raw fish, unpasteurized milk, unfiltered water, and vegetables and fruits that were not washed. I believe that milestone two was where I best represented my “scientific communication” competency. I think this because I needed to present information on a poster using correct scientific language in order to inform my audience about this disease. 

⬇️Here was my poster!⬇️

After milestone two, we participated in a class activity! We learned about disease and how to track it; similarly to how people track the spread of Covid 19. Each person had a clear container filled with clear liquid and a dropper, one person had a container with liquid that when mixed with another chemical would turn bright pink. That person was the disease spreader. Each person is required to give drops of their liquid to three people, and you cannot refuse liquid from another person. 

⬇️We kept track of who everyone infected through a chart⬇️

By the end, I was infected by the disease! We found that the original spreader was my friend Nolan (go check out his blog!). I found that this activity really got me engaged on the topic of disease, it was really awesome!

Milestone three was fairly difficult. In milestone three we completed a lesson on Kahn academy about cells. I did learn a lot, but I personally don’t gain knowledge the best through Kahn academy. Lucky for me, there were some articles during the lesson, but the majority were videos. I find I learn more through reading than watching videos, but everyone’s ideal way of learning is completely different. I believe milestone three was when I demonstrated my “evaluating” competency best. I think this because I developed an understanding about the topic, and had to test my knowledge about the topic. Overall this milestone was a great way to learn about the way cells and diseases work!

In milestone four we needed to make some big decisions! In the milestone, we created our story board for the comic book. We were instructed to create a story board with at least twelve frames of main events in our story as well as a plan of which science vocabulary words you would use in our story (we needed at least ten). By this time, I decided to stick with the same virus as milestone two; typhoid fever. I decided on choosing this because I love to make food, and I had heard of many people talking about the dangers salmonella while cooking. It had always interested me, so I decided to choose it as my focus of the comic. 

⬇️My story board is pretty messy, please ignore that⬇️

In milestone five we were creating our comic book! I was pretty excited but there was one thing I wasn’t very excited for; the drawing. Sometimes I enjoy drawing, but I find it difficult when I imagine something in my head and I can’t express it on paper (or in my case, and iPad) the same way. Other than drawing though, it was pretty fun! I enjoyed learning about my disease, I found it very interesting and I learned a lot through it. By the end, I am very proud of my comic book, and although I am not necessarily happy with my art, I am proud of the time and effort I put into it.

At the end o the project, we wrapped it up with adding to our mindmap! So here was my project end mindmap:

🌲I really enjoyed this project. I truly believe I learned a lot through it and I had fun creating my comic book. I am really proud of my finished product, and I think that I did a really great job. Some parts of this project were difficult, but it is incredibly satisfying to have overcome and completed them. So, how do cells and diseases interact? Well, every cell and disease has a different way of interacting and behaving with each other in the body. My disease; typhoid fever or salmonella typhi interacted and fought cells through injecting toxins through it’s syringe into the cell. Overall, this was a great project, I gained a lot of knowledge through this experience, and it’s a great way to wrap up a great year!🌲

As always, thanks for watching me grow in the forest of

🌲learning🌲