Blog
Addison 3/26/19
Some study skills that have helped me in this class is handwriting a study guide because when I write stuff down I attend to remember it better.I think studying what might be on the test is also better because then you are more prepared for your test.Also when I do the study guide I usually color code it to help me remember what is under each color because I’m a visual person.I feel like the study guide helps a lot of people.
Also the Focus notes once a unit help me a little bit sometimes because usually I do the crossword.The crossword helps me because I also do it in colors.Also you have to draw images and i feel like that would help if you draw images and your a visual person.That might help you study and remember things better.
Eli 3/26/19
A current scientific event that is largely affecting the world at the moment is the amount of pollution currently taking over Mongolia. The city that his article focuses on is Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. In this city, coal is used for most everything (enough that at one point the amount of harmful airborne particles hit 133 times the safe amount set by the World Health Organization)-- but the biggest reason is to heat yurts. In Ulaanbaatar, there are ger districts-- areas in the city that consist of yurts and small wood and brick houses. The citizens that live in gers are too poor to afford houses or apartments, and therefore cannot afford heating during the winter. Because of this, they need to put coal in a small stove in their yurt in order to provide heat during the winters.
This problem is getting worse for two reasons. The first reason is that, due to climate change, more harsh winters are coming. This means that the ger districts will require more and more coal than usual (a single family yurt already goes through over two tons of coal in one traditional winter already). The second reason is that more and more people are moving to Mongolia. This is increasing obviously increasing the problem because more people means more coal being burnt. The Deputy Mayor, Batbayasgalan Jantsan, has made an announcement that if people wish to immigrate to Mongolia, but can’t afford a house or apartment, “then I’m sorry, we will not receive you.” This would make the situation at least slightly better, but now people are illegally immigrating to Mongolia, increasing the population still and therefore increasing the problem.
Spencer 3/26/19
For my blog post I am doing the study skills option. Study skills I have found useful for this class (or any class) is to study every night. When I study at night or before I go to bed, I think about the subject more and become more focused. Also when I study right before I go to bed, it helps me be able to remember what I studied, because that was the last thing I did or remembered right before I went to bed. Oxford learning states, “More peace and quiet Fewer distractions. A clearer mind for creative thinking. Sleeping after studying can consolidate information and improve recall.” Those are just a few really good benefits when you study before you go to bed.
Another good study skill (or study habit) is to study long before the test or quiz (or whatever). When you study a week or two before a test you will not fail it, no matter how un-intelligent you think you are. Fast web states, “If you always start ahead of schedule, you’ll never be cramming the night before an exam. You’ll almost always perform better in doing so!” Those are just a few wonderful reasons why studying ahead of whatever you are doing will help you succeed!
So make sure you study every night before you go to bed. Also check your calendar when your next test will be and study prior to the test.
Matthew 3/12/19
For my blog post I am going to be doing the option of filling a student in on what we did last week. First Monday, on this day we continued our long journey of making balloon cars. This was the last day left before the race, so everyone was working hard to insure themselves a spot in the race.
Next was Tuesday, on this day we went ahead and finished up our balloon cars, and the entries for them. We then proceeded to head down to the cafeteria for the race. After the races were completed, we then came back to class and worked on our notes and GC #37.
Wednesday we learned off the smart board with Mrs.Kipperman pretty much all period, the two subjects were, Thermal Energy and Momentum and Collision.
Thursday was my favorite day of the week, first we started with Ketchup and Pickles for 20 minutes(which was nice). Then we moved on to a new project called “save the penguins” primarily focusing on helping keep penguins cold in the case of the polar caps melting.
Lastly Friday, we got into our groups and dove right into it, we worked as a team to figure out the best methods in which to keep and ice cube cold. Hopefully this new project treats me well.
3/12/19 Layza
A piece of work that I am proud of is my I wonder project because I got to answer one of most confusing science question.I really liked it because I got do it and it taught me how to write data and many other things. If I got to do this again I would pick another science related question to answer. I would totally recommend many people to do it because while answering your question you can also conduct experiments to answer it.
Sam 2/25/19
Interstellar
Interstellar is a film about family, bleak hope, and humanity working to solve a common problem.
The film is set in the mid-21st century, and crop blights and dust storms threaten the survival of humanity. What is so great about the film is that not only was it tried its best to stay scientifically accurate, the director of the film had a scientist on set to help out with its plot. For example, a black hole, nicknamed a Gargantua, has a planet orbiting it, so the protagonists is sent to the planet. but since the planet is in the horizon of Gargantua, it essentially is affected by a time dilation.
For every hour that has passed on that planet, seven years will have passed on earth.
To put it simply, Einstein’s theory of relativity is set in motion, so a person closer to the black hole will significantly get slower, but won’t be noticeable by that same person.
Meanwhile, the person further away from the black hole will have much faster time.
This is demonstrated when the main protagonists return from their trip to the shuttle parked further out into space, and discover that the person onboard had essentially waited 23 years for their return, as well as earth.
This is scientifically accurate, and there are more events like this happen throughout the film, and it got recognition for it.
The movie is also just overall very well constructed, and it showed.
One of the songs, called Stay, was played throughout the film, and it was based around how the main protagonist left his family (Not in a bad way) to save humanity. His daughter begged him to stay, for both of them did not know how long he was going to be gone.
There was also the characters, such as TARS, the humourous AI in a otherwise bleak story. It was designed to have a hopeful/sassy personality to boost morale aboard the shuttle with the main protagonist on it.
I highly recommend watching this film, as it blends family, hope, and survival all into one film with a beautiful theme.
Emma S. 1/17/19
Hidden Figures
This weekend I watched Hidden Figures. It was a great movie. It showed all the components of getting a ship into space. I learned that there are lots more people working on the getting the ship up into space. The main characters in the movie were a big part of the space project but they were given little credit because of their color and gender. At first they thought Katherine was no help but with out Katherine’s help with all the numbers the spaceship wouldn’t have left the ground.
I think this movie is a good one to watch if you are interested learning more about how a spaceship is built and how they find the launch and landing points using numbers. This movie is really good and I think that most people would really enjoy it.
Mark 1/14/19- The Martian
My opinion about the Martian is that overall it was a pretty good movie. One thing that I liked about it is how they showed how he managed to survive by using a Macgyver style construction of several things. These things include a garden, oxygen, and making a bomb out of the spaceship. The other thing I liked about it was how Matt Damon played his role as an actor. In the movie he seemed calm while he was lost but at the same time had a sense of urgency knowing he couldn’t stay forever.
One thing I didn’t like about the movie is how he (Matt Damon) succeeded in making a garden out of basically sand, and human feces. I get how you would use the feces a s fertilizer, but I don’t get how the dirt would even then be suitable for a garden. The other thing I didn’t like about the movie is when he was impaled with the pole how did he not use enough oxygen to suffocate and then die?
Matt Damon in the movie uses a little bit of the scientific process in his work when he rejects/accepts his idea when he was trying to create vital things he needed to survive.
Though this movie had some bad things about it I still would recommend people to watch it, because it was pretty good.
Sam 1/14/19- The Martian
My opinion of the Martian was that it was probably not possible. I think this because with the winds on the planet ripping apart his suit his air would almost instantaneously loose air. These are some of the reasons that this is a impossible feat. Another thing that would show that this is impossible is that when he is on the planet without food or water he survives for a really long that would probably not be possible.
Another reason that I think that this feat would be impossible is that he grew potatoes in sand and that is very hard to do without high tech equipment. This would mean that he would starve to death. Also one other thing that would kill him is that when his helmet cracks he would almost have no time to fix it because the air would decrease significantly in a very short time. This is why I think that the Martian movie is impossible to ever happen.
Lily 1/10/19
In the past week, we have been learning about Material Science and States of Matter. Material Science are the Elements of a substance or the parts of which something is composed or able to be made. Material Science include metals, ceramics, polymers, and composites. The States of matter are the physical forms in which a substance exists. For example, a solid, liquid, gas, and/or plasma. An entertaining lab we recently performed was called states of matter investigation. In this lab, we answered why a balloon expanded and inverted into a flask due to the temperature of water. I learned that different particles react differently when put in temperatures. For instance, the balloon got smaller when put into cold water because the particles became more dense and grouped together.
With doing this lab, I was able to get involved and socialize with my tablemates. We were able to problem solve together and talk through all of our answers to the questions.
Taylor 1/10/19
Coffee or tea? Your preference may be written in your DNA
Did you know whether you prefer coffee or tea can actually depend on what is written in your DNA! People who have a gene that makes them have a sensitivity to caffeine and its bitter flavor are most likely to be coffee drinkers and people with low sensitivity to the bitterness in caffeine are more likely to be tea drinkers. Many people think it should be the other way around because don't you think if you were sensitive to something you would stay away from it. Researchers in australia examend more than 400,000 people to try and see if this hypothesis is correct. The data that they got proved that the hypothesis was right.
It is kind of a human instinct to stay away from bitter foods because usually bitter means chemicals and poison. John hayes says “bitter is always bad, let’s avoid it” . whether it be chemicals not good for your body or poison we all now that we probably shouldn't drink or eat it. Hayes states that the chemicals like caffeine, quinine and propylthiouracil are all not usually found in food or drinks other chemicals in coffee may trigger you to think you are drinking those bad chemicals.
All in all your genetics can decide whether you like coffee or tea better.
My reference was:
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/coffee-tea-preference-dna-chemical-sensitivity-taste
Zeth 11/28
https://www.voanews.com/a/what-causes-a-tsunami-117813908/167170.html
What causes tsunamis?
The meaning of Tsunami is “harbor” and “wave”. Tsunamis are made by large waves and an abrupt movement on the ocean floor cause by an earthquake, an underwater landslide, a volcanic eruption, and rarely a large meteorite strike.
Tsunamis can come in many sizes, they can grow from small to large in a matter of second when they reach shallow water, it can grow up to 9-30 meters tall. Tsunamis can be really harmful when people are close to undersea quakes and it can travel as fast as a jet airliner.
Julia 11/28
There are three types of rocks.Every type of rock is able to change into any of the other types.
First Type - Igneous Rock
Igneous rock is formed when rock is intensely heated up, turning it into magma. The magma then cools down and igneous rock is created. The igneous rock can then be turned into any of the other types of rocks.
Second Type - Sedimentary Rock
Sedimentary rock is formed by weathering and erosion. Weathering and erosion is when wind, water, and other natural elements break apart rocks into small pieces. Depostiation then occurs, which is when the small pieces of rock are moved to another place. The small chunks of rock are tightly compacted into the ground as more layers of rock are deposited on them. This creates immense pressure on the rock, causing it to compact together, creating sedimentary rock. The sedimentary rock can then be turned into any of the other types of rocks.
Third Type - Metamorphic Rock
Metamorphic rock is formed when rock is heated until it becomes soft. The heated rock has pressure applied to it, causing it bend and contort. The metamorphic rock can be then turned into any of the other types of rocks.
Cole 11/28
This is a full explanation of plate tectonics, and all of the results. Plate tectonics start with general motion in the Earth’s core, led by convection currents. This motion’s convection begins with an extremely viscous substance, showing that the most dense stuff will rise to the top, before getting cool and sinking again. This process is just convection led by large scales on Earth.
This process has many assorted effects, some of which interesting, and some of which quite terrifying to watch or be near at that current time. These processes always have different startups and it honestly depends what situation you’re in at that point.
The most well known supercontinent is Pangaea. Pangaea is well known for being the most recent. There were a lot of supercontinents like Laurasia, Rodinia, Columbia, Gondwana, Euramerica, Pannotia and a lot more. However, Pangaea is the most viewed in eyes of science, as most people actually know what it looks like.
You might be wondering some consequences of tectonic activity. The first one is the most obvious, happening on sliding boundary plates a lot. The sliding boundary plate’s worst outputs are earthquakes. These earthquakes are caused by buildups of pressure through refusal to slide. The longer the pressure has been building up, the worse the earthquake. People might wonder if there is anything that can predict these earthquakes. There are (kind of.) They are called seismographs, which always measure Earth’s seismic activity.
These instruments are inaccurate, however, and as earthquakes are spontaneous, it can be very difficult to predict when they will come.
The earthquakes themselves are from when the pressure finally decides to release and the sudden jolt will cause the earthquake.
This is not the tip of the iceberg of tectonic activity dangers. Do you want to know what happens when you mix divergent boundaries, which contain lava, and normal seismic activity near the sea? Well later, I have to tell you about the volcanoes first.
The volcanoes are formed when a divergent boundary eventually does what it does best and splits apart. It’s in the name. The tectonic plates just split apart from each other, and the magma rises to the top because of its heat. That’s convection currents. This lava can then go to the ocean or land, and when it cools, it becomes obsidian or other igneous rock. (It becomes sedimentary by getting hit with rain or waves until it goes to the bottom of the ocean and hardens when it meets with other rocks. It will also become metamorphic when it hits the bottom of the ocean and is cast under sediments.)
The next (and last) danger of these plate tectonics are tsunamis. These tsunamis happen when an earthquake happens underwater, (yes, there are underwater tectonic plates), and the wave builds up for a while and consumes a small island or kills everybody on it. I’m not kidding. (Oh yeah, sometimes, both happen!) This happens in Japan a lot, although accuracy of the instruments used to predict tsunamis is mediocre. This is kind of off topic, but if you’re still not convinced not to go to Japan, they have giant hornets that are as long as your thumb.
(Yeah, I wish I was kidding)
Lily 11/27
Hidden Figures
I have watched Hidden figures about three times now and it gets better each time. I love how they focused on a part of NASA that no one ever thinks of, and on people everyone else usually ignores. I also loved how they explained what it was like to be demoted and treated poorly not because of your skill but just simply because of the color of your skin. This movie was very impactful to me in showing that you can do anything if you work hard enough for it.
This movie is a perfect movie to watch especially now getting into 2019, as the world is becoming more diverse and more inclusive. Even though some regions are still in the dark and don’t believe that everyone should be equal, or that there are races that are less than everyone else. I believe everyone should watch this movie because it was a really interesting, enlightening, and overall is a great movie. The movie taught me more about equality and how anyone can do what they want no matter your race.
Elijah 11/27
This week (November 19-20th, 2018) in class, we presented our I Wonder Project in front of the class. Our I Wonder project is an individually self-conducted experiment that took place over a span of two months.
For my I Wonder project, I had five people play three rounds of Terrorist Hunt on Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege, and record the amount of kills they got each round. The question was “Can Listening to Music While Playing a Video Game Affect the Players’ Performance?’ After the first three rounds of playing normally, I had the five people turn on a rap song and turn off the game volume. They played three more rounds, recorded the kills, and played a different song. They repeated what they did for the last song, and then after recording the second song, they played another third song and did the exact same thing as the first and second song. In the end, I found that my hypothesis of the experiment was correct-- the players performed worse at the game while listening to music without game volume.
Layza 11/8/18
Have you ever if salt water or Tap water boils faster well here is the answer neither. Salt water and Tap water actually boil at the same rate.As you can see in the video.It may change tough if you change the temperature in which you boil them. But in conclusion Salt Water and Tap water actually boil in the same time.
Noah 10/26/18
Interstellar is a movie about a man who goes into space to start a colony for humans because earth is becoming a bad place to live. The man is a former pilot and engineer and he finds out that NASA still exists in an underground facility. He agrees to try to start a colony on planets that people where sent to explore a few years prior to this expedition. They have to go through a black hole to get to the planets that they want to explore and colonize. I thought that it was very interesting and was very intriguing. I like the way that the movie was put together and how they science and math in the movie to explain some things.
Lily 10/23/18
Movie Watched: The Martian
Review: From being absent, I watched the movie, “ The Martian.” I really liked this movie because the main character, mark, was a great fit for Matt Damon. The little bursts of humor kept the movie a little bit more in my interest and the suspense ini some of the struggling parts really pulled me in. The storyline of this film was made for fame! It was so interesting to see Mark problem solve and plan out his routines to survive.
All in all, this movie is a great family movie to watch! It is super interesting to see how the main character figures out how to communicate with earth, and also his food supply. I would definitely recommend this movie for a fun educational Friday night type of movie!
Elijah 10/7/18
One thing we’re currently learning in science is how to conduct experiments. The way we’re doing this is each individual in the class asks a question that he or she has and uses the scientific process to answer this question. The question can be anything as long as it is appropriate, doesn’t harm yourself or others, and isn’t way too complex.
For the experiment, you need research done on the topic and notes written in advance. The research can be done in class at designated times, however all of the tests must be done at home. In the end, all of the work must end up on a Google Site, including your hypothesis, procedures, materials, results, pictures of the experiment, a conclusion, and more.
Taylor 10/1/18
A study skill that has really helped me improve on learning topics is definitely writing notes and maybe even finding a song or funny phrase to help you remember. These have helped me many times because they are often stuck in your head and hard to forget. If you are not quite getting a hang of it You might want to try watching a movie on the topic you are trying to get a grip of. I know it can kind of be a challenge to try and learn something on last minute cramming which we have all been there before. Even if you are not very interested in the topic the best thing you can do is pretend you NEED to know this and you are very interested in the topic because if you are not interested in the things you are learning your brain is going to want to tune this new information out. These helpful tips can get you an A on that quiz.
Elijah 10/1/18
A zoo has a hybrid animal called a liger. The ligers parents were two different species, the liger parents were a male lion and a female tiger. Thousand years ago, two species of birds started mating with each other. The offspring initially had crowns that were dull whitish-grey, and grey-yellow feathers from Opal-crowned Manakins .
Julia 9/16/18
While conducting science experiments, there are three variables to know and record to create a fair test. A fair test is a science experiment were all variables being tested on are the same, with the exception of the independent variable. An independent variable is the manipulated variable. There is only one independent variable in an fair test. The independent variable is change to get a result from the dependent variable. The independent variable is what causes the dependent variable to change.
A dependent variable is the effect of the independent variable. It depends on the independent variable to determine its outcome. This variable is measured to observe the effects of the independent variable. There is only one dependent variable in a fair test.
A controlled variables are things that stay consistent throughout the experiment. There are many controlled variables in a fair experiment.
Matthew 9/11/18
I watched the movie “Hidden Figures” and thought it was amazing. I was impressed by how intelligent those colored computer girls were, and how little credit they were given. Just because of their color and gender they were treated differently and looked at as unintelligent, even though they were very bright women. When the U.S space department was in a tough situation against Russia in the battle for space, Katherine was underestimated in a very important situation.
I thought that the movie had a really good turning point when they finally accepted Katherine as someone who knew so much about math and science that she could help NASA actually meet their goals. Then the team really started to excel and work as a unit.One thing I really got out of this was that, when people underestimate others, nobody will benefit. If you are working in a group, for a project and you think of your partner as useless or not helpful, nobody will get anywhere. Therefore everyone will get weighted down and the goal becomes to compete against each other instead of finding the strength of each individual to achieve the best for our world.