The Project
This project focused on my love for animals and biology. I decided to make a research book about evolution that included human evolution, herptile evolution, reptile anatomy, amphibian anatomy, and even some Amazonian myths about reptile or amphibian-like creatures. There was also a vocabulary page for each section (if there is a number next to a word in a paper, it is in the vocabulary). Along with the book, I made a life-sized salamander sculpture.
Human Evolution from Fish
My first section was on human evolution from fish. I researched and wrote about different parts of the human body that are also seen in fish. I used hiccups and Gonands. Hiccups were seen in ancient tadpoles and they used them to open and close the gills and lungs so that water couldn't get into the lungs. There is no use for hiccups in people, but they do show that we could be distant relatives with fish. The other body part that i researched was the gonands. In sharks, the gonands are located up high near the liver. In people, the gonands also start up high, but unlike sharks, they descend. In women, they become the ovaries, and in men they turn into the testicles.
human_evolution.pages | |
File Size: | 829 kb |
File Type: | pages |
vocabulary_for_human_evolution.pages | |
File Size: | 728 kb |
File Type: | pages |
Myths from the Amazonian Tribes
In the next section, I researched Amazonian myths. I picked two called El Cuero and Eh Hambre Caimán. El Cuero is a creature said to live deep in the Andes Mountains in a small lake. It has a head shaped like a bovine along with sharp claws, a mosquito-like probosces, and two stalk eyes that are almost snail-like. The creature is said to suck the blood of its victims which are either human or other animals. It is considered to be amphibious. The other myth, El Hambre Caimán, is about a man who fell in love with a woman he saw at the market. The girls father, however, was very strict and said his daughter was not allowed to see the man. After that, the man would order rice and watch her bathe in the river and he would wish he was allowed to be with her. One day, he went into the river to talk to her, and her father turned him into an alligator.
amazonian_myths.pages | |
File Size: | 922 kb |
File Type: | pages |
vocabulary_for_amazonian_myths.pages | |
File Size: | 588 kb |
File Type: | pages |
Amphibian and Reptile Evolution
This section was all about herptile evolution. I started from the beginning of amphibians and talked about how they had to evolve into reptiles because of Pangea (the supercontinent that formed during the Jurassic age. Pangea was all one piece of land, and this caused less bodies of water to exist, so that meant less room for amphibians, and if there would ever be some kind of drought this would be a large issue. If there was little to no water near an amphibians habitat, that would mean they could no longer repopulate and that would result in extinction (they have to lay their eggs in water). Reptiles however, could lay eggs on land and if they had to, they could live away from water completely.
evolution_of_amphibians_and_reptiles.pages | |
File Size: | 924 kb |
File Type: | pages |
vocabulary_for_evolution_of_amphibians_and_reptiles.pages | |
File Size: | 596 kb |
File Type: | pages |
Amphibian and Reptile Anatomy
The last section of my book was about the anatomy of amphibians and reptiles. I found pictures of a salamander (for my amphibian) and a lizard (for my reptile) to make infographics to explain the differences between amphibians and reptiles.
amphibian_anatomy.pages | |
File Size: | 2148 kb |
File Type: | pages |
reptile_anatomy.pages | |
File Size: | 882 kb |
File Type: | pages |
vocabulary_for_anatomy.pages | |
File Size: | 727 kb |
File Type: | pages |