Want to save rainforests?

The following link donates money to help save the rainforests! All you have to do is send an ecard (which is free) and it gives money! http://www.care2.com/send/categories

Density Rainbow!!!

Do you know what colors make up the rainbow?
Well, today (Tuesday 12.18.07) in science class, it was a little different. Since we are learning about density, we had a lab today that involved mixing and experimenting with different colored chemicals - green, yellow, red, blue and brown, weighing different amounts. We weren't told what they were, but as a group, we had to come up with a way to figure out the order in which the chemicals went in from least dense to most dense. And, the chemicals had to be in layers on top of each other just like a rainbow!! First we estimated the weight of each of the liquids to see if they were heavy or light. We then formed a hypothesis and finally tested our hypothesis. We were correct! The order was- green, yellow, red, blue, brown. Yellow was oil, green was alcohol, red was colored water, blue was laundry detergent, and brown was honey!
(The picture is similar to the experiment I did, only the colors were different and it was done in a plastic cup.)

Source:
http://z.about.com/d/chemistry/1/0/E/V/rainbow.jpg (Picture)

Froggy Game :)

I found a cute froggy game... (it doesn't have to do with dissection!)

Go to http://www.froggyville.com/frogger.htm

Hope you like it!

(Use your arrow keys to move, and once you pass the cars on the road you have to move your frog onto lilypads and then onto logs and finally into one of the spaces at the end)

I am a Cuban Tree Frog!!!

Believed to have been brought to America as stow-aways on banana boats, Cuban Tree Frogs are the largest tree frogs in North America. They are notorious for cannibalism...if there are other species of frogs in the tank, or even specimens of the same species, they have been known to feast on their neighbors!

What kind of Frog are you?

Word Study Project Trimester1

This is our groups Word Study Project for Trimester 1.
No copying!!!!

Mythbusters Extra Credit

Mythbusters is an interesting and educational TV show on Discovery which deals with past, and even present, myths. The episode I watched starred co-hosts Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman and were assisted by Karry, Tory, Scottie and Christine. This time, Adam wanted to try something different, such as deal with "old adages or homilies" as he said, which basically means finding out more about old familiar sayings. An example of this is the well-known "needle in a haystack" saying, which is usually used when talking about finding something in a big clutter. Adam and Jamie decided to investigate. Instead of the usual experiment, the producer wanted them to have a competition, of which the object was obviously to see who could find needles in a haystack first. The general rules for the competition were that each team had to build their own mechanical device and find four needles, one bone and three steel, from the hay pile, and of course before the opposing team. Adam's mechanism was a simple water tank with three paddles. When the mixed hay went through, it stayed above the surface (as hay floats) and the needles fell to the bottom. Good thing Adam used gloves and safety goggles while putting together his "Needle Finder 2000". Jamie's contraption was more complex, it was a long rotating tube with holes so that the needles would fall through. Underneath there were magnets so the needles would be separated. At the end, there was a burner to burn all the hay and if any of the needles made it through, they would manually go through the pile. Before the competition began, one of the helpers (I'm not sure exactly who) used their bare hands to divide out the hay...it would have been safer using gloves. The race was fast-paced and both teams had no needles until... after an exhausting four hours, Jamie found one steel needle!! He found it by putting his bare hand into the tube. Shouldn't he be wearing gloves? Well, now we know how long it actually takes to find only one needle in a haystack! A while later, when the water in Adams tank was starting to run out, he decided to modify the tank, so he stuck magnets at the very beginning of the tank so that maybe the needles would stick to it before the hay made it through. Thanks to that, Adam's team found all the three steel needles after six continuous hours. Only one more to go for Adam! But unfortunately he confessed that he had never checked if bone really floats...will he be able to make it? Jamie's team found another needle "the old fashioned way"-- It was just sitting at the very top of a pile...talk about good luck! The competition was neck-in-neck with Adam's team having only one needle to go. After Adam's team finished the entire haystack, they manually searched for the bone needle and finally, they won the challenge by finding it at the bottom of the tank. They should have been wearing gloves when searching though! The episode used science because it involves the trial-and-error process (while making machines) and since it also involves magnetism and combustion, it is related to science. You need a science background for a career in special effects because having knowledge about the different types of science like physics, biology and chemistry is extremely vital when dealing with a career similar to Adam and Jamie's. This is because while experimenting, the right procedure, materials and safety rules have to be used so that no one gets injured. Being a Mythbuster is not as easy as it looks!



Watch the show online at: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4415313083196714200

Omega Meme

1. My favorite TV show is Kid Nation as it is entertaining and is about kids our age.

2. My favorite meal is pizza or pasta because I can cook it myself!! I also like dumpling soup.

3. My favorite nonschool activity is playing tennis because it is my favorite sport. I'm not very good, but I like running around and having fun!

4. Someone I look up to is my dad because he is always encouraging and optimistic.

5. My goal for the future is to go to medical school and become a good doctor.

6. In the first hour after school I usually eat a snack and then go on the computer or watch TV.

I have only tagged livexlaughxlovexlife...everyone else is tagged =[

Wiki..Earthquake Short Stories

Earthquakes are devastating, yet fascinating to learn about! First of all, what are earthquakes? Earthquakes may be familiar to you; it is a shaking or vibration that occurs on the Earth's crust. Earthquakes can be big or small. Small earthquakes occur a lot in California, Alaska, Indonesia, Iran and many more places. There are happening all the time, but most of them are so small you can't even feel them!

My topic for the wiki was "Earthquakes & Short Stories" and I was amazed to find so many stories written by ordinary people. I found a story by Mark Twain, (did you know he used “Mark Twain” as a pseudonym to publish his books and he got the idea from boating?) he wrote about the October 8, 1865 San Francisco Earthquake. It was a descriptive story about the earthquake and he shared his personal feelings and experience. Another story I found was on a website (the name of the author was not mentioned). This story was about Hawke's Bay Earthquake. It occurred on October 16 and measured 7.5 on the Richter Scale. It also mentioned the ample amount of aftershocks after the earthquake had occurred.

While researching on earthquakes and short stories, I found a large number of interesting facts—did you know that the largest recorded earthquake in the United States was a magnitude 9.2 that struck Prince William Sound, Alaska on Good Friday, March 28, 1964? And that the largest recorded earthquake in the world occurred on May 22, 1960 in Chile with a magnitude of 9.5? Did you also know that there are “earthquakes” on the moon?
*For more facts visit http://earthquake.usgs.gov/learning/kids/facts.php

I think the whole idea of making a wiki with information on earthquakes is really amazing! I don’t know a whole lot about computers or technology, but I really enjoyed working on this project. This is definitely a different approach to learning for me, but I look forward to doing more projects and assignments along these lines.

Sources

• 
  
  http://earthquake.usgs.gov/learning/kids/facts.php




• 
  
  www.teara.govt.nz/EarthSeaAndSky/NaturalHazardsAndDisasters/HistoricEarthquakes/
  6/en




• 
  
  http://projects.crustal.ucsb.edu/understanding/accounts/twain.html
  

Introduction

This is my new blog. I will start posting soon