Parker's Journal

 

Day one-12/3/07

 

    Jessica and I are doing the bacteria saccharomyces boulardii. The common name and all of the information is unknown to us. Today we were introduced and I learned that we had a project and the requirements. I started to create the timeline and made the side bar to hyperlink to the pages we had already made. I started to look for websites to look at but the library website is down. This meant I could not look at the subscription databases easily or look at the requirements for the project.

   We created out website and named it after our bacteria. We then set up journal pages and the timeline. I sent Jesica a link to her journal page and began working on mine. We also discussed what should go under our timeline and I went and added it into the page. We agreed on a password and to use my email for any updates.

 

Day 2-12/4/07

 

  I searched for the habitat in which Saccharomyces is found in and soon discovered it was found in fruit by Henri Boulard. It is a probiotic and is used in medicine. It is not used in fermentation simply because it is a yeast. only its cousin cerevisiae is used in fermentation of drinking alchohol. I used google and wikipedia because we couldn't find any websites on our specific yeast. Wikipedia was very useful because it not only held general information, but specifics too. There is much more to this saccharomyces boulardii than Jessica and I once thought.

   After only a small amount of looking I noticed something, saccharomyces is not a bacteria. Nor is it a virus or anything of the sort. It is a yeast. What is a yeast you say? A yeast is thechnically a fungus and not a bacteria. Our bacteria project is not much of a bacteria project. So now we know what it is we are actually looking for.

 

Day 3-12/5/07

 

   I looked long and hard for websites, and found a few. I say many from wikipedia that is very accurate and would be a big help. I decided i needed to evaluate the other websites. I started evaluating the few and discovered it is a very tedious task. It seems easy to look and see if it is accurate, maybe see if it is from reliable scources. But i think that the questions are absurd. Where it asks is it making opinions facts, isnt that the point? To make your idea known? If not isn't that a weak essay and paragraph.

     After searching for websites I updated my bibliography. I also checked to see if our timeline was finished which it was. I made sure that jessica had completed her journal and then i am finishing mine. I also had looked at the medicine in which saccharomyces boulardii is used in. I also talked to my dad about it because he is a doctor that uses it for medicine and he says that they really dont use it.

 

Day 4-12/6/07

 

Today I looked for yeast structure. I needed some help on this. I decided to use the Library's subcription databases for guidance. By using Nettrekker I could still use the free web and it would filter all the crap written by four year olds. I needed to get a lot of information so I looked on britanica online and it was a big help. I went back and cited all my articles.

I needed to have more vocabulary and I filled in the words I couldn't or a normal person might not be able to understand. Afterwords I looked for the specific structure of our bacteria. The structure of saccharomyces boulardii is almost the same to general yeast structure. But, yeast itself is very different. Instead of normal fungus it is unicellular and reproduces by budding. So it is very similar to a bacteria.

Day 5-12/7/07

 

    Today I looked for where saccharomyces boulardii is found. I looked on the free-web and nettrekker but only found that it was discovered on the skin of lychee and mangosteen. This shows me to believe that it is found on or in fruit. I didn't find much but I think it will be there. If I can't  find anymore I will start on tomorows research.

    I ended up finding out it is used for AAD, antibiotic acute diahhrea. It is sold without a subscription and is used on people with aids. Many doctors will never subscribe it but studies are going on right now to find more uses for saccharomyces boulardii. I still find many links going to saccharomyces C. which brewers use for beer. Maybe, it would be better if we had this yeast, which is much more common.

 

Day 6-12/8/07

 

  Today I decided to fill out website evaluations and look harder for harvestation of SB. I saw that by filling out the evaluations it ended up being the same thing. Just by reading a sites data you could almost tell if it would have all of the requirements or not. But you had to look closer for who supported the website and who was hosting it. References meant I could then look at the original document too.The website evaluation does help secure that it is a good website.

I looked to see where they get saccharomyces boulardii for the drug. Then I saw that it was able to be grown in colonies. They grow it like a bacteria and then they place it in a bottle and sell it. It is available over the counter for sale. Yet it can be toxic and is not FDA approved.

 

Day 7-12/9/07

 

    I found that saccharomyces boulardii is used in sourdough bread. It is a lactic acid bakers yeast. I looked the free web and alot of sites that either sold it or informed it on treatments. These websites that sold it offered no alternatives and seemed like a persuasive article. The other sites about treatments seemed more reliable and did better on the evaluation. Many websites simply led you to buying its miracle pills.

    Not all of the selling websites were wrong. Few provided good information but the few that did provided many facts and helped with our research alot. A few websites that at first glance just looked to seem to sell you the pills needed closer looks. Some truely had good information under its background information, even though they did not give alternatives. But, that informations can still be found elsewhere. These websites seem too numerous to cite so I only used one or two.

 

Day 8-12/10/07

 

    looking..........looking........still looking.......nope.......i see nothing......wait.........what is that in the distance Jerry???(my journal) I see.......a web page.....YES THERE IT IS!!!! After years of intense web surfing I found that saccharomyces is indeed found in the skin of fruit and in juice concentrate. It was discovered in the skin of fruit. Mostly it is in kefir now and is cultivated instead of being "harvested" persay. The databases did provide the general information. But it did not provide the DEEP information and the hidden things.

They did provide information on the scientific things but not the everyday knowledge like what everyday things it is found it. Just that it is in the fungi kingdom and is unicellular. There is good database websites but i think saccharomyces boulardii is too specific. Yeast can be easily done and saccharomyces is better, but Boulardii makes it much worse. If it were saccharomyces C. then it would be much easier because it is much more common and has more information.

 

Day 9-12/11/07

 

    Today I decided to start on the classification, and I knew it would need its on page. So i went through and labeled every single phylum and subphylum, and i even explained every single one. It took a while and i tried to use as much databases that i could. The many classes and phylums i used my dads old medical textbooks. He has alot of information he no longer needs just waiting to be used.

I finished alot of information and folowed down the path of saccharomyces boulardii to its roots. I finished another web evaluation and also finished my web page for classification. I talked to Mrs.Janson and she said that using wikipedia was fine as long as we used web evaluations properly. I find wikipedia to be accurate and a good scource for information. There are many links that lead to the phylum and such. It is very helpful and alot of information comes from it.

 

Day 10-12/12/07

 

    Wikipedia, many teachers despise it, yet when a study went out saying that in common searches shared by wikipedia and encyclopedia britanica wikipedia not only had more information but also that it was more accurate. I talked to Mrs. Tucker and she has had some mixed messages but she said to ask Mrs. Jansen about it. So i did and she said it was ok as long as you evaluated it. This is very good because this makes finding the information more organized to find. You look at yeast and automatically you see links to fungi and everything else. I <3 Wikipedia.

    I finished my classification page, with the final peices from wikipedia, like the subphylum. I went through and edited my journal and capitalized my I's and proofed the entire thing. It's so long! But it had to be done. I also decided to add to our vocabulary and finished out many evaluations. The evaluations helped me see which websites were worthless because we had already found the information.

 

 

Day 11-12/13/07

 

    The beggning of the end has begun. Days are left untill the end of this project, and there is things to do. We paced ourselves in the completion of this project quite well. We had what we needed stated through out whole project in the time line. Finishing this project is for tomorow and friday and thats when we make it colorful.

    This will be when i go through with a check list to see what needs filling in. That's why i am doing this now and not sunday, because we still have time to work. The 16th isn't here yet my friend. I will go through and start filling in holes and the completion of the website evaluations will  happen on this day. I do not think that pictures will need to be evaluated, maybe just cited.

    Jessica suggested a slide show today.....-.-..... I dont know if we can finish one in time. I think i'll have her come over so that we can work on it so we can talk face to face about our project and completing it on the weekend.

 

Day 12-12/14/07

    I didnt do any evaluations because we had none that needed to be done. We decided to have her come over tomorow on saturday to check out our project and what needed to be finished. We knew that tomorow we would need to check our project and practice presenting at least once. We thought about what we would need to do the next day.

    I did not do any evaluations, because i had finally caught up. Together we had finished all our evaluations we needed and had cited everything. We then checked our spelling and everything. I did the honor of reading through my entire journal and then read through jessicas journal and checked both our grammer and spelling. I noticed that she had less mistakes than me.

 

Day 13-12/15/07

 

    Jessica came over to day to finish our project. We added pictures and went through the rubric together to make sure we had everything. We checked every single thing to make sure we had information on every subject. We completed our personal things together and picked out a folder. We had a snack and then went to the trail of lights with other people but that isn't important what is is that we finished everything and decided to make everything, well, pretty.

    I went through every website to make sure we needed them and then i finished our evaluations we had found for the day then i was going to draw a cover, maybe i will if i have time. I didn't know what to do left so i checked our notes for mistakes and then checked everything for mistakes again. I fixed it all and checked to see if our pictures had all been cited.

 

Day 14-12/16/-7

 

    Today is the day it ends. I am finished. Done with this Journal and everything. Yet there is much work to do. I have to finish still. I have to complete this project! I WILL TRIUMPH!!! THIS WILL BE FINISHED!!!

    Seeing the rubric made me happy. It let me know what I need and when I need it. It says everything must be color coded so now i made it color coded. I went through and made everything better. I made it all different colors every section. It ended up quite nice.

    Then i noticed the bibliography had to be in scource aid. AHHH!!! so i had to do it all over importing the MLA style and everything over again. I made sure it was all finished. I made it all better. Besides it's Christmas.