The external anatomy of a stingray was really interesting to see in person. The eyes are on the top of the head, fairly spaced apart. The tail is much longer then I expected, at almost double the length of the body. Also on top just behind the eyes is the gill intakes. On the underside, the most prominent feature is the mouth. There is also the gill exits and on either side of the mouth there is two small dots that are the nostrils. Finally, the stingray has two sets of fins. The small ones next to the tail are used to keep the stingray off the sea floor, while the larger fins that make up most of the stingray's body are used for propelling it forward.
One of the things that I learned during this dissection was that stingrays have bones like their rib cage. I also learned that they have large livers, and that their eyes are one of the only organs on the top of their body.
Domestication Project
. For the domestication project we learned a variety of information. We learned first about genes, and how they are passed down from parents to their offspring. Then we learned about the cellular processes of mitosis and meiosis and the different stages. The main part of this project though was learning about the effect of domestication on animals, that's where we each specifically broke off and had our own ideas. My project specifically was about the effect of domesticated dogs on humans, intermes of personal health. I picked this because I own two dogs and I love them, but I know plenty of people who would never own a dog. I was curious to see how they might effect me and other people. I collected my information both through experiments and research. For the test I had a 39 year old, 15 year old, and an 11 year old who didn't live with the dog that I used. I took blood pressure before they interacted with the dog and after their interaction to see if dog interaction was linked to lower stress levels. I had them also before and after rate themselves on a scale of 1 to ten what their personal stress level was to see if they rated themselves to have less stress after interacting with the animal. The other part of my research was research and this was done by studying similar studies to what I was conducting. My results turned out somewhat what I expected but also somewhat question invoking. From my blood pressure test I found that the 15 and 11 year old subjects had a drop in blood pressure while the 39 year old's blood pressure stayed the exact same. All three subjects rated themselves to have lower stress levels after interacting with the dog. In my research I looked at a study involving senior citizens and dog interaction. The results were drastically lower blood pressure in almost every case. I also looked at surveys involving positive and negative interactions with dogs. Majority said that positive interactions with dogs lowered stress levels while negative interactions increases stress. This data arose the question why does the positive effect of dogs seem to stop after 15 year olds and start up again with seniors? A parent at exhibition pointed out that this age gap is when people start to become full time employed. In the future I would be interested to see if there is a link between employment and personal effects on a relationship with a pet.