Final Reflection- Module 14

    The overall idea I took away is that evolution is always occurring and there are many mechanisms and conditions that contribute to this. Some aspects can be observable to the eye while others work on a genetic level and make changes that way. Also, the speed of evolution varies, and adaptation is a big part of many populations. One important aspect I learned from the breakout rooms is that there can be multiple perspectives on one topic, and that sometimes there is no one specific answer, especially when hypothesizing about something.

    From the R exercises, I learned how different factors such as mating, gene flow, genetic drift, migration, and natural selection impact a population; an important part of genetic diversity is heterozygosity. Even though the coding was difficult at first for me, I am glad I was able to learn this skill set. I was happy when I was able to figure out the coding by myself later in the course. I also learned how important it is to be able to read and interpret data. There were some graphs that I understood very well and right away, there were also some where I was understanding what I was looking at, but not able to process and accurately read the graphs how they were supposed to be interpreted.

    Overall, I enjoyed this class more than I had originally expected. I really liked how concepts I was learning in microbiology lined up what we learned in class. This helped me understand some information better during the microbiology lab. One example of this is antibiotic resistance and evolution of disease. It was fun to be able to know what is going on and it made my lab work and reports a bit easier.