Biodomes in Spore

This post will go over Chugach science standards 9.10-9.15, these standards cover environmental adaptation that coincides with the evolution of life. Basically how the environment has affected the evolution of life, while in turn how life has affected the environment. To demonstrate this we’ll be using Spore, which you can find a guide here.

Lets start at the most basic level of ecological organization- the individual level. The word individual in an ecological standpoint represents a literal meaning of one living organism. You, the reader, are an example, I’m an example, any singular entity is considered an individual. The next level is population, population refer to a large grouping of individuals of the same species. Getting even larger, communities are defined as separate population living together in coexistence. This coexistence is often defined by a food web.

Moving up another level things become drastically more complex, ecosystems are defined as the interactions between communities and the environment. These interactions lead to evolutionary changes in the individuals who live in the ecosystem. Overtime the populations of species develop adaptations to the environment.  Which leads to the next level of ecological organization, biomes. Biomes are large areas with very similar environments with more than one ecosystem. The final level is the biosphere, the biosphere is the sum of all biomes living together on one planet, basically the biosphere is the earth.

Where do humans come into this? Well humans are currently affecting the biosphere on a level that no other species has done before. Humans have caused various biome changes, whether by bringing invasive species into area that over compete, or global pollution through combustion of materials.

Among these issues I’d like to bring up two, the first being pollution in the atmosphere that’s causing the global warming effect, heat is being trapped in the earth instead of being reflected back out. Moving forward. The second more interesting, in my opinion,  biome pollution caused by humans was the Chernobyl Disaster. The cause was a local nuclear power plant melting down. Irradiating the surrounding area and making it completely uninhabitable to humans, however recent animal life has grown accustomed to living in chernobyl and has established an ecosystem that seems to have adapted to the radiation.

For challenges we’ll be using Spore, basically the students will play through the game and reach the final stage, the exploration of space. At this point you explore different biospheres (planets), analyzing the flora and fauna

Challenges:

Space age of spore:

1. Find five different Biosphere’s
1. Fully explore the different biomes,
1. Once explored, note the key features of the biomes and then do a small write up on the potential evolutionary aspects of the flora and fauna related to the environment. Specifically why the flora and fauna has evolved.
2. in the five different biospheres, of the previous challenge, once you’ve explored the biomes write up a small paper on the possible adaptations that living organisms would have to make to survive there.

Tasks	Emerging	Developing	Proficient	Advanced
Exploring the biospheres of spore	Student explores only 2 biospheres with a very limited write up that roughly explains the biomes and doesn’t explain the potential evolutions of the flora and fauna.	Student fully explores only 4 of the biospheres, records the details of the biomes but fails to explain the evolutions of the flora and fauna,	Student fully explores all of the biospheres, records the details of the biomes and provides a modest explanation of the potential evolutionary path the flora and fauna took to survive in the biomes	Student explores more than five biospheres and records the details of each one, provides a very insightful and well reasoned, explaining the potential evolutionary paths for the flora and fauna.

Cells in Minecraft

In this post I’ll be talking about cells and their various functions. A variety of cells exist in the human body from skin cells to blood cells, they maintain, protect and repair the body. This post will cover the chugach standards 9.4-9.5, which asks about cell process and functions of the cells organelles.

There are two major cell categories, these are Eukaryotes and Prokaryotes. Eukaryotic cells are found in multicelled organisms like humans or plants. Where as Prokaryotes are single celled organisms like bacteria. In this post I’ll be focusing on Eukaryotic cells.

Within the Eukaryotic category there are two general sub-categories: animals cells and plant cells. These cell are mainly separated by one difference, plant cells have a cell wall that differs from the animals cells cell membrane. This is the most easily seen difference between the two cell types.

Using humans as an example, we can see that there are hundreds of different types of cell that exist within the body, some example are blood cells, white blood cells, skin cells and brain cells. There’s a general structure that is consistent in all animal cells.

The general animal cell contains roughly 14 different organelle. These help the cell reproduce, store organic molecules and process the organic molecules into ATP (energy for the cell). Generally they function similar to a humans bodies organs, allowing them to survive and complete their specialized tasks.

These organelle are:

• Nucleolus
• Nucleus
• Ribosome
• Vesicle
• Rough endoplasmic reticulum
• Golgi apparatus
• Cytoskeleton
• Smooth endoplasmic reticulum
• Mitochondrion
• Vacuole
• Cytosol
• Lysosome
• Centrosome
• Cell membrane

What are cells general functions? Well I’ve determined that there are three main jobs that the cells do/can do. The first is the ability to let various organic molecules pass through their cell membrane to process the molecules and turn them into ATP for energy. This allows them to produce proteins to replace degrading or exported proteins and reproduce. Cells can also reproduce themselves by copying their DNA to two new cells creating an exponential growth pattern.

We’ll be using Minecraft in creative mode (You can check out my minecraft guide here) to create a semi-interactive model of a cell in Minecraft. Basically the students will learn about the structure, and functions of animal cells and even plant cell, if you’d like, and then convert that knowledge into a 2d model of a cell. As an example you can check this world save out of a plant cell.

• I’m going to start placing challenges for each task I give. So for this one
• Challenge one:
• Create a plant cell, animal cell and prokaryotic cell.
• Challenge two:
• Make the model 3d, heh, so basically check out real 3d models of cells and see if you can replicate it.
• Challenge Three
• Animate the ingame model with the functions of the cell.
• This isn’t an easy challenge and I couldn’t do it myself. I’d imagine that using redstone and some advanced game mechanics.
• A friends Minecraft creations, he has some tutorials but mostly look at his creations channel, their pretty informative. Here
• Redstone rules
• Wiki,
• youtube
• (Editors note: redstone is pretty complicated stuff to mess with considering the rest of the game’s mechanics are… simple. So this is a very hard task and would rate “super, super, advanced” in the rubric)

Also as a note, this project should be done with a group, especially building the Cell in minecraft.

Scoring guide for this project.

Tasks:	Emerging	Developing	Proficient	Advanced.
Minecraft Cell model	Model is missing several organelle and they were placed in the wrong areas of the cell.	Model has all of the organelle but a few or all are placed in the wrong position of the cell.	Model has all of the organelle for each cell type they’re all in the correct position and even labeled but are only in 2D.	The model has all of the correct organelle, they’re in the proper position and all are labeled. It is in 3D and scaled so you can walk through the cell and see each part of the cell as if you were on a tour.

Mendelian Inheritance in gaming.

This post marks the “official” start of my science based scenarios. We’ll be using Minecraft for this scenario with the mod Advanced Genetics. This will cover Chugach standards 9.6-9.9, which ask for the explanation of basic genetic principles: Mendelian, genetic errors, applied genetics, and how DNA relates to inheritance. Since we’ll be using Minecraft I’ve created a guide for installing Minecraft and Minecraft mods here.

Mendelian Inheritance is a genetic theory developed in 1865 and 1866 by Gregor Johann Mendel who initially derived three laws of inheritance. He experimented with pea plants, cross-breeding them to determine what traits passed down through their generations. After roughly 5000 trials he wrote two papers describing a limited yet initial scientific understanding of modern genetics. The three laws of inheritance are; the law of segregation, the law of independent assortment, and the law of dominance.

The law of segregation states that each parent carries two alleles per gene trait that are randomly chosen and passed down to the offspring. Meaning that both the sperm and egg carry one alleles and when those meet the offspring is united with both alleles. Meaning that the offspring receives one gene trait from both mother and father. The law of independent assortment states that each pair of alleles segregates separately of other alleles. Meaning that each gene trait chosen does correspond in anyway with other chosen gene traits. Alleles possess either dominant or recessive traits, if a trait possess a dominant type then it will override recessive traits, this is known as the law of dominance.

Going smaller, DNA is also important in inheritance. Since it’s the brain of each cell, holding the information needed to create life. DNA from both parents is split in half, giving the child one half from each parent making a similar DNA strand, but completely different. Of course as people progress through life their DNA copies itself onto each new cell that it replicates, copying itself eventually leads to a mistake. which is generally caused by an external environment and or just a mishap. Leading to a mutation in the DNA that can be harmful or beneficial for the subject- and passed down to future offspring.

Humans can also manipulate DNA through science, this process is called applied genetics. It’s used to create bacteria, modify viruses, adapt plants to new environments and even breed animals for certain qualities. This has been done for thousands of years through animal and plant breeding programs. We can now do this in the laboratory directly. Slowly, over time this progression has allowed for humans to strategically modify DNA to meet human needs.

This leads perfectly into Minecraft’s handy dandy Advanced Genetics Mod. The mod allows you to scrape skin scales off of any mob in game, giving that mobs certain skin scale. And once you bring those skin scales through the plethora of gene extracting and copying machines you can synthesize that mobs unique ability, like exploding, flying, more health, so on and so forth.

The players goal in game is to collect all of the skin scales and absorb their powers through using the newly added machines. However, to tie this into standards the players must research on Applied Genetics and understand how the machines ( which are simulated after real life machines) work in game. I’ve created an Advanced Genetics mod guide here. The guide goes into great detail on how to use each function of the Advanced Genetics mod and if that doesn’t answer your technical questions their wiki should, which can be found here. As a side note, I didn’t explain the mod here because I thought the post would grow too big and cumbersome. If you would rather me explain in here, just post in the comments below and I’ll see what I can do.

Advanced Genetics Minecraft mod guide.

First steps to install Advanced Genetics 1.57 for Minecraft 1.7.10:

• First head over to Forge’s main site
• Forge is the go-to modders resource and framework for users and modders alike.
• click on Installer-Win under the “1.7.10” latest Forge Installer:
• Once thats downloaded Double Click it. A installer should pop up, make sure that “install client is selected and then hit okay.

• Once it finishes installing, you should be good to go Forge wise. Now for the actual mod.
• Head here to download the mod.
• You should see this:

• DO NOT CLICK ANYTHING BUT “Skip Add” in the top right hand corner, it counts down from five, then click it.
• Once you download the installer you can doubleclick it and this cute little window will pop up

• I already have the mod installed, so it shows “re-install mod” but for you it should show “install” click that and bam the mod should start installing.
• Now once it’s finished start up your game and login. You should be met with something like this:

• Make sure that your profile looks like mine, I.E says “Forge”. Then you can click play,

• Once you’ve entered the main screen of your game you should see in the bottom left hand corner you should see:

• If you see this then you have successfully installed Advanced Genetics.
• Now hit single player and create a new world. Make sure to set the gamemode to creative by clicking the Gamemode button.

Now that we’re in game we can discuss the types of scenarios and game that you can employ the students to do. So the mod basics are pretty easy to grasp, you can check out a detailed guide here. Basically the process involves getting animal skin scales and going through decryption process and producing a “power-up cell” that gives the player certain abilities.

So my example scenario for this mod is straightforward and fun for the students. Their goal is to collect all of the available power ups through collecting skin scales cloning and combining cells. This will require the students to first understand how the mod works, through use of the wiki, and then learning how scientist in real life study, and modify cells.

Gender Biasisms in the Gaming World.

Gender biasism in video gaming isn’t complicated to see or understand, however solving the very prevalent gender biasism is a very complicated task. This is because male dominance has roots that extend as far as the oldest civilization, and even into the animal kingdom.

Unlike in the animal kingdom humans have, at least, a fraction of intelligence and need not share an animalistic method, simple because males are physically stronger. In this case we’ll be focusing on gender biasism in gaming and how those are affected by real world biasism. I’ll be covering three large controversial gender issues in gaming.These are oversexulization of women, verbal abuse against men or women using sexually biased language and how the role of women in history affects modern gaming.

Oversexualization of women in gaming is an escalating problem for game developers. In games the female characters are general oversexualized in appearance to attract male gamers. This is shown in ads that feature over proportionalized women, sexual postures and innuendos.

The oversexualization of women exists on the digital plane of gaming as the avatars and ads. on the other hand the inside of gaming there’s a plane of sexually biased language that is slung around to insult, express simple minded anger, and trash talk. This environment is well known in the Call of Duty franchise, and yes it’s mostly the “kids” of the gaming world that fills Call of Duty, but that doesn't excuse the “gaming jocks” who also take part in moronic exchanges, League of Legends, and most well known online games that are person vs person based.

I believe these issues are the result of history’s  bleed-over from real life into gaming. Historically women have always been sexualized, objectified, used as tools for power plays and as “entertainment” for the supposedly superior male gender. Several religious books also refer to how women should be kept, not let unchained and they must always be owned by a man.

So in conclusion, women are highly objectified and sexually presented to appease the dominantly male orientation culture of gaming. I believe the issue stems from the game-developers who use women to publicize their games to increase revenue, this of course is natural because subjection of women is accepted in society. It’s also the same deal with in-game trash talk and insults that use gender biased language. Which results in trying to solve this problem in a very integrated social norm. Requiring an overwhelming proportion of the population to change instil new social norms.

Alaska History.

This post will cover the western settling of Alaska. As with my previous RPG scenarios, which you can find here. I’ll give a synopsis of the history of alaska from Russian colonization to present day. This will cover Chugach standards 6.3-6.7; the history of Alaska from native settling to present. This includes Native settlers, Russian colonization, the US purchase and then the development of Alaska by the US.

Alaska was first settled by Native settlers that traveled across the Bering Land Bridge. Arriving thousands of years before the earliest of western settlers, roughly fifteen thousand years before. These settlers were known as Amerid migration group, they continued south and settled across the Americas becoming known as the American Indians.

The next set of migrations to the Americas began around 12000 BP, settling in modern day Alaska and Canada. These indigenous people became known as the Yup'ik, Athabaskan, Tlingit, Aleut, and Inupiat. Western and Southwestern Alaska being  home to the Yup’ik, the Interior is home to the Athabaskan, Southeast Alaska is home to the Tlingit, Aleutians are home to the Aleut and the north slope is inhabited by the Inupiat. The most recent records of permanent inhabited settlements, in the far north, are between 3,500 - 4000 years ago.

The Russians was the first European power to discover Alaska first and were the first to claim Alaska in 1648. The Alaskan colony was established to specifically hunt the sea otter for their pelts. As time went by the Russians with the (forced) help of the Aleut, who they had brutally subjugated, hunted Sea Otters to near extinction. This put Russia in a bad position economically with it’s north american colonies. Fearing loss of their oversea colonies to the British empire without compensation. Russia then sold Alaska in 1867 to the US for 7.2 million, 2 cents per acre. The US also not seeing much use in Alaska was greatly unsatisfied, calling it “Sewards Folly’ after the man who spearheaded the purchase. However, doubts were quickly dismissed when George Kormake officially discovered gold on August 19th 1896 in the Klondike River.  Igniting the second American gold rush. Settlers from all over the US headed “North to Alaska!” attempting to find great fortune.

Due to the gold rush thousands of people flocked to Alaska colonizing and finalizing it as a territory of the US. Officially incorporating it into a territory in 1912. Three decades later during World War II south Alaska became a large base of operations for US forces. Reclaiming portions of the southern Aleutian islands from the Japanese. After the war Alaska obtained statehood in 1948. The result of hard fought campaign by Alaskans in the US congress.

Oil was formally “discovered” on the north slope of Alaska by the Atlantic-Richfield Company in 1968. As a reaction to the 1973 oil crisis, the Trans-Alaskan pipeline was built between 1974 and 1976 to transport it to market and boost US energy independence. This strained the already tense land-right situation occurring between local indigenous groups, the state and federal government. This land-right issue was settled with the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA), signed in 1971 by president Richard M. Nixon. This act was intended to solve these issues by transferring land claims by indigenous groups in exchange for the creation of 13 Native owned regional corporations and numerous local corporations. This was a difficult task to make both parties equally happy and is still being fought over today. In any case this meant that the Atlantic-Richfield Company was able to buy the rights to drill for oil on the north slope, along with the construction of the pipeline.

Giving Alaska a major resource export that has continued to supply the state with money to this day. In fact the oil fields were so massive that they managed to provide 20% of the nation's domestic oil output at the height of oil production.

In RPing terms, you (GM) can choose any part of Alaska’s history to RP on. However, because the history of Alaska is so large, I won’t be able to cover it all with just one RP scenario. So instead I’ll create an example scenario, but don’t feel like you can only play that one. It also could be that you want to do an RP series starting at the beginning of known Alaska history. Anyway the goal of this RP is to complete the klondike trail and find your fortune. This will require traveling over the klondike trail, going down the river and surviving the harsh climate of the north. The players will play as miners and settlers while the GM will help guide the players by filling in as NPC (non-player characters).

Player Roles:

• General Information:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klondike_Gold_Rush

• Settler
• https://content.lib.washington.edu/extras/goldrush.html
• Miner
• https://content.lib.washington.edu/extras/goldrush.html
• Native
• http://www.ankn.uaf.edu/

GM Role

• The GM role will be to keep the players moving by creating challenges, playing important NPC (town mayers, random traveler encounters,) Natural concerns (weather, animal attacks ETC)

Character Sheets will follow a normal format:

Name (Your character's Name, make sure to keep in historically accurate):

Age (Your characters age, keep in mind the average lifespan of people back then) :

Gender (Male or female):

Company/nation/pirate:

Position:

Skills:

Appearance (Writing up two to three paragraphs that describe your character is common):

Personality (Same as the appearance for descriptive):

Biography (Same as the descriptives for personality or appearance):