I'm stuck on this question for biology

Question

Develop an investigation and describe the data that will be collected to test how changes in an external environment can impact the internal conditions of a living system. Use background knowledge and textual evidence to support your answer(s).

Answer 1

So this can be a very interesting way to develop a research plan, basically what the question is broadly asking is to link environmental changes with physiological changes. Now lets divide the problem in three different categories, control group, experimental group one and experimental group 2. lets say I want to test it with bacterias, we know that bacterias get their nutrient from environmental sources so lets design the experimental conditions, we can have bacterias in high nutrient condition, low nutrient condition and control condition. You will notice that bacterias in control and high nutrient condition are not producing antibiotics but the bacterias in low nutrient condition is producing antibiotics, so environmental change is causing change in bacterial physiology. it is expressing genes that can produce the antibiotics based on the presence and absence of nutrient.

Answer 2

If you are walking outside on a hot day, the temperature outside (external environment) may effect your body temperature (internal condition). Normally, the body prefers to maintain a specific internal temperature that supports the functions of the body. If the internal temperature deviates too far from normal, enzymes begin to not function properly, meaning cells cant carry on their normal functions. Since the body is made of cells, the body may undergo damage and you could potentially die unless the internal body temperature is brought back to normal. The body therefore has mechanisms to prevent such deviation in internal temperature in response to the external environment. If the body gets too hot, a cluster of cells within an area of your brain called the hypothalamus initiates cooling mechanisms such as sweating and dilation of blood vessels near the skin in order to release heat from the blood. If the body is getting too cold, a different cluster of cells within the hypothalamus, will initiate heating mechanisms such as shivering (muscle contractions to generate heat) and constriction of blood vessels in the skin to prevent loss of heat from blood.

Knowing this, you could design an experiment where you expose the the body ( of human or other animal) to a variety of external temperatures for certain amounts of time and record the changes that occur in the body as a response. If the animal is placed in a hot environment for a length of time, its internal body temperature will rise and you will see symptoms such as sweating and red skin due to blood vessel dilation. Following this the internal temperature may stabilize again or at least stop climbing up. You could record the degree to which these symptoms occur as you manipulate the outside temperature and length of time the animal is exposed to that temperature.

Answer 3

Hello Jessi! I'd love to help you out with this question.

It seems pretty general and I'm not sure what knowledge this builds off of, so I'll try my best to give you some pointers on how to answer it! The passage is asking you to come up with a research question, with the internal conditions referring to the maintenance of homeostasis in the body (ie. blood pressure, respiration, hormones, etc) and the external conditions referring to the environment it is in.

So, what kinds of environmental changes can bring about a change in your body? As an example, cold temperatures result in restricted blood flow, especially to extremities, as well as increased heart rate and blood pressure in order to conserve heat to vital organs. It's likely you've experienced this before!

The question also asks how you can test this and collect data. For the example above, you could try lowering the ac, testing different temperatures while taking your own blood pressure, or even take a dip in an ice bath! There are many ways to go about testing this and it's up to you.

Hope this helps. :)

-Janine