alex 8th grade page

Signing Off!

2009-05-07T18:20:00.000-07:00

This year has been a great year in 8Th grade earth science. All these posts are in response to assignments given by this blog {click on link to see}. I have learned a lot this year. My favorite topic I learned about was the Weathering and Erosion section because I learned a lot in it and I can actually see all of this happening to apply my knowledge. I think about weathering and erosion every time a see an example of it now, which is almost every day. Mechanical weathering was one thing that was cool to learn, because I had never thought about ice splitting rock.

Astronomy
In astronomy, I think I enjoyed learning about the different layers of the earth because I've always wondered where weather and stuff formed. The hot air ballon lab was pretty neat too.

Weather and Climate (Earth's Atmosphere)
In this section on Weather and Climate, I liked learning about the different fronts (cold and warm). I never knew what the weird symbols on a weather map meant, but now i know they stand for different kinds of fronts. The computer lab where it showed the formation of clouds in between fronts was really neat.

Geology
I've already done plate tectonics so that was kind of bland. Learning about the different kinds of volcanoes was sort of interesting because i have seen every kind discussed before and now i know how they formed. It was also neat to learn about all the rocks volcanoes form.

Earth's Waters
In this section i liked to learn about wetlands, lakes, and ponds. I never even thought about the process of eurification which can slowly "kill" a still body of water. I also had fun taking a picture of a river for the science project.

-Farewell

-Alex

Colorado Springs Water source

2009-05-04T19:05:00.000-07:00

In order to reach Colorado springs our water goes from the Homestead reservoir --> Turquois lake --> twin lakes reservoir --> clear creek resevoir --> Otero pumping center --> Twin rocks pumping station --> Rampart reservoir. 200 miles total distance built in mid 60s old price 150 million - nowadays price 950 million. Water mostly from snow melt. Great water quality. Finally discharged into fountain creek. Conservation is initiated in Colorado Springs. Maybe a new pipe line system in the future.

Water cycle

2009-04-22T22:58:00.000-07:00

The water cycle is basically the system of condensation, evaporation, runoff, and precipitation that refreshes and purifies our water and transports water from the ocean onto land (or vice versa).
The same water we have now has been around sinse the Earth first formed water, so it might have begun billions of years ago and it will never have and end until the water is somehow gone from the earth. It is a continuous cycle.
First the water in the puddle evaporates and turns into water vapor, then it condenses on dust or pollution particles until its gets heavy enough to fall down as possibly rain.

2009-04-21T18:18:00.000-07:00

Earth day presentation

2009-04-21T07:40:00.000-07:00

Annotated Bibliography

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_energy
This source was one of my main information centers. It has almost everything you could want to know on one page of data from economics to the functions of a solar panel. This was one of my best sources.
http://www.howstuffworks.com/solar-cell.htm
This explained indepthly how a solar panel works. It basically said that there are bunches of little solar cells on a solar panel that all collect energy. This energy is then fed back through an electrical wire.
http://www.alternative-energy-news.info/technology/solar-power/
This basically explains that solar power is the power from the sun(witch can supply our energy needs 8,500 times over). It said our main problem was to harness it efficiently.
http://www.otherpower.com/otherpower_solar.html
This listed all the other ways to use solar power, like passive solar, and gave a basic description of solar power in general. This site was also very helpful because it gave some new information that i didn't know.

2009-04-16T07:39:00.000-07:00

What, specifically about your topic, are you going to research?

Our Groups topic is solar power, and the Question i am seeking To answer is this: What in essence is solar power and how does it work?
In essence solar power is the power that comes from the sun. The energy from the sun that reaches the Earth is said to have so much energy it could supply our energy demands 8,500 times over. The problem facing us is how to capture this energy cost effectively and efficiently. So far the main method to do this is with solar panels.

What conclusions did you come to? What do you recommend average citizens do to make a difference? Be specific. This is the main part of your assignment. A great way to both save money and live greener would be to power businesses/homes with solar panels. I have a solar panel on the top of my house and it cuts our electric bill more than in half. I recommend everyone have solar panels installed.

What would happen if, worst-case scenario, nobody listened to your recommendations?

The world as we know it would end. The air would be to polluted to sustain life and carbon dioxide emmisions from cars and factories would overheat the planet and kill all life on earth. Worst case scenario.

What would happen if, best-case scenario, everybody listened to your recommendations?

The world would prosper. We would have an energy efficient self sustained planet that would not run out of energy until the sun exploded.

Penny Surface Tension

2009-04-14T17:17:00.000-07:00

Penny Picture From
This experiment is designed to tet how many drops of water can be dropped onto a penny without the water falling off the penny. I predicted that 6 drops from a water dropper would be all. What actually happened was it held 32 drops of water before it overflowed. I think it took so much water to overload the penny because of surface tension, or water "sticking" together because it is polar.

Universal Solvant Poster {click on link}

2009-04-09T19:15:00.000-07:00

http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dd97qxk3_61c7scj4gb

Florida Everglades

2009-03-30T07:49:00.000-07:00

Photo of Florida Everglades

This is a blog on my trip to the Florida Everglades. I am here to study the vast amount of water in the Everglades and how it creates the diverse variety of organisms living there. The Everglades are a large swampy area home to crocodiles, alligators, fish, birds, and many other living things. Every season flood waters carry nutrients from the flooded river onto the vast Everglade flood plain. This naturally makes the soil very fertile, and the grass very tall, and the animals that eat the grass very healthy, and the animals that eat those animals healthy, and so on and so forth.
While I was there, I must have seen at least 12 alligators and crocodiles.
The water in the everglades is some of the richest in nutrients anywhere, due to all of the decomposing organisms on the bottom of the river. What I observed from my trip to the everglades is that the quality of water determines the quality of all the life around it. When I was there, I also noticed lots of human development in the area. I picked up at least two pieces of trash in the river. If the humans continue to pollute the river, both by trash and by chemical runoff from nearby farms and buildings, it will ruin the water and kill the diverse life forms relying on the water. The fertile soil and plants will also cease to exist if this continues. The Everglades are very beautiful and very diverse. Please help to keep it that way. Thank you!
HERE IS A LINK TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THE EVERGLADES

http://www.cotf.edu/ete/modules/everglades/FEmain.html

earth quake web quest

2009-01-20T18:38:00.000-08:00

1.)When I looked at the charts, it seemed to me that most of the earthquakes happened along mountain ranges.

2.)I think the reason for this is is that where mountains are there are likely to be earthquakes because of the fact that earthquakes formed the mountains, and are still forming them today. What caused the formation of the mountains was the rise of lava, so these areas also have lots of magma trying to push through the crust.

3.)It is called the ring of fire.
Earthquake pics:

4.)The nearest earthquake to Manitou was in Nevada. This earthquake problably was not felt. Magnitude 2.9. this earthquake is about 100 times more powerfull than a scale 1 earthquake.
Date-Time

* Tuesday, January 27, 2009 at 01:15:34 UTC
* Monday, January 26, 2009 at 05:15:34 PM at epicenter

Location 40.987°N, 114.977°W
Depth 16 km (9.9 miles) set by location program
Region NEVADA
Distances

* 14 km (8 miles) S (183°) from Wells, NV
* 26 km (16 miles) ESE (109°) from Deeth, NV
* 34 km (21 miles) NW (308°) from Spruce, NV
* 68 km (42 miles) ENE (76°) from Elko, NV
* 261 km (162 miles) W (277°) from Salt Lake City, UT

Location Uncertainty Error estimate not available
Parameters Nph= 13, Dmin=0 km, Rmss=0 sec, Gp= 0,
M-type=local magnitude (ML), Version=1
Source

* Seismological Laboratory, University of Nevada, Reno

Event ID nn00273625

5.) Here is an earthquake the just happened near Indonesia. I did some reasearch and found that earthquakes do often occur in Indonesia.

6.)In the event of an Earthquake, one should try to find a sturdy tabl to be underneath.

weather fronts

2008-12-05T07:44:00.000-08:00

sumaries:
1.cold front: This forms cumulus and cumulonibus clouds, snow, rain, lightning, or normal clouds.

2.warm front: Can cause storms and rain or fog that can linger for days.

3.stationary front:Can cause rain, snow, fog, or clouds often for days.

4.occluded front: Can turn Cloudy rainy or snowy.

The front that I think brought snow was a cold front.

CLOUD DIAGRAM XD

2008-12-02T08:07:00.000-08:00

VOYAGE#3

2008-11-20T07:51:00.000-08:00

Trip Itinerary and approximate latitude: Lima to Cape Town

Travel time: 15 days

Direction travelling: south then north easternly

Were you successful? yes

How many attempts? two

How were you successful? I went slightly into the winds in the opposite direction so they would blow me back on course.

What winds did you take advantage of or compete with during your travel?I used mainly pervailing Westernlies

VOYAGE#2

2008-11-20T07:47:00.000-08:00

Trip Itinerary and approximate latitude: San Fransisco to Sydney @ approx 45deg lat.

Travel time: 13 days

Direction travelling: south westernly

Were you successful? yes

How many attempts? one

How were you successful? I used both sides of the trade winds

What winds did you take advantage of or compete with during your travel?I used both of the trade winds.

VOYAGE#1

2008-11-20T07:39:00.000-08:00

Trip Itinerary and approximate latitude: Havana to London aprox. 27deg. lat.

Travel time: 9 days

Direction travelling: north easternly

Were you successful? yes

How many attempts? one

How were you successful? I traveled using the upward winds in that direction

What winds did you take advantage of or compete with during your travel?I took advantage of the North Westernly winds.

Climate change paper

2008-11-17T20:55:00.000-08:00

OZONE :) =]XD rofl ^V<>-}

2008-11-11T07:53:00.000-08:00

Ozone is a form of oxygen, o3. In the upper atmosphere, it absorbs ultraviolet rays, thereby preventing them from reaching the surface of the earth. In the lower atmosphere it is a pollutant. Ozone is being depleted by a human produced chemical called CFCs witch contain chlorine, fluorine, and carbon atoms that are bound together. This tears apart the ozone and turns it into oxygen. There is a giant ozone hole right over Antarctica. SAVE TH O3!!!!

london smog

2008-11-04T07:42:00.000-08:00

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e1/LondonSmog.jpg

100 years ago, London's air was dark and dirty. This was called london smog. Factories burned coal, and houses were heated with coal, filling the air with soot. This makes it hard to breathe and fills the air with smog. The simplest way to prevent this is to burn less coal.

london type smog

2008-11-04T07:40:00.000-08:00

(Earth's atmosphere ----*******#####):(:):)XD rofl :)

2008-10-29T07:16:00.000-07:00

The earth's atmosphere is much different than the moons. For one, all objects that come into earth are usually burned up due to our atmosphere. The atmosphere is earth is made up of 70% nitrogen, 21% oxygen, and 1% of other gases like argon. Our planet, Unlike others, also contains life. Our atmosphere protects us from the sun and gives us oxygen to breathe. Its pretty cool that there used to be no oxygen at all, but tiny bacteria converted the carbon dioxide into oxygen. The moon has very little atmosphere. Caters and footprints are still on the surface of the moon because there is no forces to erode them away. The is also no water on it to sustain life. Because of extreme atmospheres found in the other planets, no planet but Earth has intelligent life on it. No life that we know of anyway. Earths atmosphere is what makes life possible on Earth.

Space Exploration part 2

2008-10-13T19:21:00.001-07:00

Space Exploration

2008-10-13T19:16:00.000-07:00

Summaries

2008-10-01T07:53:00.000-07:00

The science of rockets:
NASA used to use atlas rockets to put satellites or spacecraft in space. These rockets had three parts. The Atlas witch launched the rocket into space with it fuel cells, then the Centaur, witch maneuvers it into the proper orbit, and finally, the third stage witch is the payload, or the satellite or spacecraft realeasement. Now they've been upgraded and offer launch company satellites into space.

The space program:
NASA's job is basically to explore space. So they needed to put humans in space to explore it. NASA eventually after a few tests was able to send people into space. Project Apollo put humans on the moon. Apollo 13 attempted to put people on the moon again, but was unsuccessful. The astronauts barely made it home alive. By 1972 three other NASA spacecraft had explored the moon. These other observers sent there found ice deposits on the moon.

Exploring space today:
On the international space station they have designed a working “helper robot.” This robot can float and is powered by solar energy cells. It can monitor pressure, air quality, temperature, and has a videophone so astronauts can communicate with each other. They also perform regular safety sweeps on their own.

Using space science on earth:
Many people think space exploration is a waste of money, but NASA says that it helps our economy. We have also had many breakthroughs here on earth because of what we learned in space. NASA just pushes people to explore the unknown.

Moon

2008-09-29T13:52:00.001-07:00

Gizmo paragraph-seasons

2008-09-19T07:24:00.000-07:00

According to the research done, the seasons are cause by the tilt of the earth witch is 23.5 degrees. When the sun shines at the earth, it hits the side that is tilted toward it more. This side is then in summer while the other side is in winter. When the sun is hitting no angle in particular, both hemispheres have the same temperature and amount of day and night. This is called Equinox. After Equinox the hemispheres start to change temperatures in different ways. One goes into winter again and the other into summer.

Eqinox-solstice

2008-09-16T18:21:00.000-07:00

Get a Voki now!

Zoom

2008-09-15T19:56:00.000-07:00

Zoom is just an endless maze. You automatically infer that you know what is going on and you’re all that is happening but it your tiny frame of view is just a small part of the detail of what is all out there. Compared to space our world is an unnoticeable speck. In the zoom book you infer a scene is only that, when it's really a scene in a scene in scene ECT.......
Take a picture of a wall. Take a picture of the picture and keep repeating. It never ends. Our perspective of things is actually very limited. We can go millions of powers of ten (we are not able to but it’s possible) smaller or larger, and we as humans can only see a few of them. Kind of puts things into perspective. There is so much going on that we don't know about.

Enigma box

2008-08-29T07:34:00.000-07:00

In order to attempt to solve the mystery of the Enigma box, I had to use my scientific observing skills. Inferring was a big part of the process because I had to take the data I knew and make a guess as to what happening inside the Enigma box. I also had to observe what was happening in order to make a good inference.

The Enigma box is a 3D rectangular prism. It has one big hole on top. After 470mL is pored in through the large hole the water rushes out through a tube on the bottom. Before it reaches the 470mL mark, it very slowly drips out the bottom.

I think the Enigma box works like a fish tank water vacuum. I don't remember what its called, but I know water sticks together so once it starts flowing it keeps on flowing until all the water is vacuumed out. With the tube you stick in the fish tank and it makes all the water run out through the tube. I think the Enigma box works something like this.

The Enigma box really uses a siphon. The water fills up until it reaches the top of the siphon. Then gravity pulls the water down the tube. Water sticks together so it pushes almost all the water out through the tube. That is how it works.