Biomolecules and Human Health

[Sean Nash]

Post your reflection from our last two class sessions... our breakdown & discussion of carbohydrates, the connection to diet plans, the role & behaviors of the various classes of carbohydrates in human health, etc... What stuck out to you as particularly interesting or important? What did you or we learn from those things? How did your new learning fit into the individual chalk talk you did to begin the unit? Did we address any misconceptions you had even as late as last week?

Try to describe the change in your understanding and why. Also- find another outside resource to add to our thread here. Link to it or embed it directly, and explain how this item also extends your understanding of this topic.

Also, think about it... October 26th and this was really the first time we played with a version of "direct instruction" of any sort. What are your thoughts? Why do you suppose this was the strategy this time?

[Ally S]

First, I had no idea that the South Beach Diet Plan wasn't a good thing to use! I was really surprised when we read that!

Beside that, when it comes to the image shown above, I like when it's drawn out rather than what's shown in the prompt. To me, it's a lot less confusing.

By discussing this topic, I now have a better understanding of the terms we spoke of in the chalk talk. I also now realize the use of carbohydrates.

In this Wikipedia link, I skimmed it, and some of the things I read were interesting to me. One thing it said in the beginning was that low-carb diets have sometimes been discussed for diabetes in epilepsy. Check it out.

[Miranda Lynn Stanton]

Everything we take in is good for you. Some things we cant have to much of or it is not good for you. As long as you have it in the moderation your suppose to have it in its alright.

[Miranda Lynn Stanton]

There are two different types of carbohydrates. There are simple sugars carbohydrates and complex carbohydrates. Simple carbohydrates are like what you find in a sugar bowl or in suckers. Complex carbohydrates are found in breads and crackers.
You need carbohydrates on your body. They are the main source of energy.
Low carb diets can be good for you if you want to loose weight. You still need to eat carbohydrates during the diet but you will have to watch for the foods you eat for those carbs.
I thought low carb diets was not good for you .I knew your body needed them so i thought you could take something you didn't need out of your diet. I now know that it can be good only if your loosing weight.

[Hannah Rush]

There is really no excuse, but I really had a tough time understanding the whole carbs section. (hence the reason why I slacked off and am now posting a week later..) Growing up, today's society has been put under the influence that carbohydrates are "BAD!!!" There are many different diets that go against carbs, and incourage people to take in less. As an athlete, it is really important for me to understand whether or not they are good or bad for my body. Coming into the class, I was caught up in the misconception that they were horrible for my body, and I needed to really limit the number of intake. I learned very quickly that I can't always rely on what the "media" tells me. The Adkins Diet was one of the most popular diets in the U.S. The problem was, whenever people would come off the diet and go back to "eating normal", they would gain most if not all of the weight back. As you can see, the diet really shouldn't be taken as a diet if you want to lose weight; it should be considered a way of life.

After looking at the diet plans and all of that stuff, we started to dig a little deeper into the subject. We learned about monomers and polymers. Monomers are the individual pieces in a polymer. We also learned a lot about Monosaccharides which are the simple sugars. Examples would be Fructose, Glucose, and Lactose. I remember talking with Mrs. Nash about how she managed to run a marathon (26 Miles :-O It's a pretty legit statement that if I even attempted to do that I'd probably pop a lung) She talked about how she was given a package of glucose. It gave her the energy to finish the marathon. Carbs are where we get most of our energy. If you think about it, it really makes a lot of sense because after drinking a mountain dew, I'm really hyper. Mountain dew is really high in carbohydrates. Another thing we talked about were the enzymes in the monosaccharides. Lactose: Lactace...the enzyme that makes up lactose. We also talked about Polyssacharides. These are the most complex carbohydrates. One that we commonly eat is starch. I guess I never really put 2 and 2 together that starch was a carb. I guess I kind of thought it was it's own little group. =P We learned about cellulose which is the most common carbohydrate on the earth. Humans do not produce the right enzyme to break it down, but some insects do. This is plants way of getting energy.

I must say that I didn't realize the HUGE difference in teaching each other than having a teacher stand up and cram information in our heads. To be honest, no offense Mr. Nash I respect you a lot and I think you are a wonderful teacher, I just don't really like it. It is harder for me to learn the material I guess. I look over my notes and I'm just like "wait, what did I just read and what in the world was I thinking whenever I wrote this down?" I understand that there really was no way around this. Our class had a lot of misconceptions, and without the knowledge that we have NOW about carbs, we would just be passing around things we THOUGHT we knew to be true.

[Sean Nash]

I appreciate your reflection in the final paragraph. It is a huge difference. It is big enough that is takes an adjustment period to fully take over your own learning... and wrestle it from those who would choose to spoon-feed it to you. Trust me, I also had a very similar learning curve when first trying to adapt my practice toward the end goal of promoting better student learning through a constructivist approach. (one that starts with what you now... and gives credit to the fact that true learning takes place when it is owned and at least somewhat-directed by the students themselves)

There were many time that it was far easier to just work less hard... and go right back to spoon-feeding students as opposed to designing a learning environment that features experiences which allow students to build their own knowledge around a subject as individuals... as well as collaboratively.

The bottom line: it isn't about "me." It is about the 20 of you, and I am committed to providing what I feel (and what research shows) is the most effective learning environment for all. What you are going through thus far this year... is just a period of getting used to taking control of your learning. Struggle is painful... but good for you. You are doing well, and will be on fire by the end of the year.
;)

Thanks again.

[Shelby Hawkins]

I don't know why I don't have a post on here, so I'm just doing a new one!

Even though I was absent the day we took notes, I still have learned a lot from them! I really always wondered why when you place a straw in a liquid, the water level is higher. It never made sense to me. Now I understand this is because of surface tension. Surface tension occurs when molecules do not bond to others on all sides, so the bonds they DO have are much stronger. As the liquid goes into the straw, the strong bonds cause the liquid to pull up more molecules. This in turn causes the liquid to "defy gravity". This process, called Capillarity, also helps blood flow through your body, or water through a leaf.

One of the larger concepts we covered was monosaccharides, disaccharides, and polysaccharides. The words sound familiar to me, but I realllly don't recall ever learning them before. I am SO glad I had chemistry last year because i think it has helped me a lot to understand this unit. I love it when that happens! I think what helped me to understand monosaccharides and disaccharides the most was the pictures, so here is a diagram that kind of shows you the relationship between all three:

This website also explains everything very well, especially how our bodies react to carbs.

I also never understood the concept of starches and enzymes! Now I think I understand it pretty well. If something end in "ose", like Amylose, it is starch. When something ends in "ase" it is the enzyme that breaks down the starch. Each pair fits each other perfectly. They are even "handed" meaning that they only work one way. I never knew that our bodies can't break down cellulose. Now I see why it is such a big deal! As far as fad diets, I never considered that some of them may work for a person, it just depends on their body. I just assumed that they were all trash! But now I see that if the diet does make a person eat right, and they excercise, they might lose weight! Just as long as it's not one of those crazy strict diets.

I understand why we were taught this way this time. I think it's because we didn't really have much background knowledge on the subject. Usually we learn by discussion, but we have to understand the concepts we are discussing! It also might have made it easier just because we were getting so much information at once, and notes give us a good reference and study tool.

[Sean Nash]

Nice response... particularly since you were away.
;)

[josh steltenpohl]

The most important thing in the experiment to me was just learning how to break down the food. Things i learned from the experiment was that not all the foods i thought were healthy weren't that healthy. I would not have said all of the things that i did on the chalk talk if i would have known what i do now. The change in my understanding by me no more examples of healthy food.

[Kylie Warner]

So through the last two class periods, I've figured out that anything about dieting that I thought I knew was all a misconception. Like all the media and advertisements about low carbs, zero trans fat, and just the way people think, has been pretty much wrong. I think a good example of this was the pork rines. I felt kind of dumb when seeing that and listening to what people had to say about that because I see things that say LOW CARBS! and I'm like oh that's pretty cool never thought that stuff could be healthy for you..turns out, it's not. And it's not even false advertisement. It's just tricky :)

So I think taking what I know about carbohydarates, I can see what is really healthy and not. I think often, especailly in my family, we think that this certain food is only going to go to your hips. And I think that it was truly an AHA! moment when it was pointed out that the only time someone's going to burn carbs is when they are out running and working out like crazy. It may not do much but you're always burning the carbs.

I'm not sure why but I guess I always though that if you're working out, running, lifting, the whole nine yards, you're going to lose weight. It never really dawned on me that you should change the way you are eating. I mean I'm not so sheltered that I didn't know that what you eat effects your weight. But personally, when I'm out running for softball eveyday and being active I always lost weight and ate everything the same, however, I realized I may have ate all the same things, but my portions were smaller and I ate in longer interavials. So I think that yes, when dieting you should eat healthier but you can eat a salad but if you eat like a huge bowl of salad with a ton of ranch you might as well eat whatever else.

[Laci Shoemaker]

Sorry this is so late but....

Awhile back we learned about carbs & fats, what stood out to me the most is when we started talking about diets, diet plans & diet pills. I think they are all a bunch of bull. As Mr. Nash said, as long as you consume a number amount of calories & do more then there is a chance that you are going to burn off calories and not be "fat." If you do not work out & you consume more calories (so basically if all you do is eat) then yeah, there is that chance that you are going to under go weight gain. As for the diet pills & stuff, I think the big businesses just want the money & yeah, they might work, but you still have to work out to lose the weight, so you are just basically just wasting your money doing something that you can do by just simply working out more with the more calories you consume.

A misconception I had was that carbs were not good for you, but I learned that they are. Too many carbs can be harmful to your body if you consume too many.

I learned that carbs are a good source of energy, but you can become overweight if you eat too much, as said above.