We selected actions we can take to reduce our water usage at home. Share how the process is going. What are your challenges? How are you feeling about saving water? Have your actions made you consider new ideas? Do you have other suggestions for saving water? Please reply to the blog and to each other’s comments but remember to do so in a respectful fashion.
Today we learned about the Water Cycle and its role in the hydrosphere. Having the opportunity to view a video about the water cycle over the course of a day, we gained a greater understanding of the reason for the daily rainstorms in some warm weather places that are near the coast. In addition, we watched videos about Global Precipitation Modeling and its applications to gain an understanding of the importance of collecting data on precipitation to predict floods, mudslides and droughts. To view these videos again, you can find the links by clicking on Science in the heading on the Home page. Then click on Earth Systems and Hydrosphere.
Our class participated in the Flame Challenge run by The Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science at Stony Brook University. The students listened to audio entries and watched video entries entered by scientists who answered the question, “What is sound?” The students critiqued the entries and cast their ballot for the one that best provided an answer that 10 and 11 year-olds can understand. We learned that clearly communicating about scientific concepts can be challenging, and that visuals and comparisons can certainly aid in developing understanding.
April is blue for respect. Cottage Lane’s book of the month, Pinduli, is a surprising story about self-image, self-acceptance, and treating others with respect. After reading, sharing and discussing this special book you will realize how a few tiny words – bad or good – can create something enormous!
Do you think that by hurting someone else’s feelings it made the animals who made Pinduli feel bad, feel better about themselves?
Green with Integrity! Integrity is the quality of being honest, having strong moral principles and total sincerity. Honesty is often viewed as saying the right thing and integrity is doing the right thing. Oprah Winfrey states, “Real integrity is doing the right thin knowing that nobody’s going to know whether you did it or not.” Watch Integrity video and What would you do? Read and listen to our book of the month, Mr. Peabody’s Apples.
A geodynamicist, Professor Spiegelman (a.k.a. Ms. O’Brien’s husband) made a guest appearance at school to stretch what we have learned about the geosphere.
Aaargh!!!! The snow is melting! We tried to make the most of it while it lasted. Recently, we observed how light reflected off white paper but was absorbed by black paper. Aine remembered reading about how Ben Franklin did an experiment where he placed pieces of material of different colors on snow and observed the rate at which the snow melted. Well, we had to give it a try. Instead of material we used construction paper. Hmmm…we learned that we should have placed rocks on our paper so that they don’t travel with the wind. However, we did observed that the snow under the black paper did melt quicker than under the lighter colored papers. Strangely, the yellow paper absorbed quite a bit of water, but had little melted snow underneath, while the blue paper was almost dry but the snow underneath had melted quite a bit.Unfortunately, our white paper had blown away, affecting our results.
Then, we built a “snow castle” on the black top and one, of the same size, on snow. The “castle” on the black top decreased in size more than 50% over a four hour period, while the “castle” on the snow melted just slightly (maybe 15%) in the same time period. By the end of the day, both castles had melted considerably, but the one on the blacktop melted dramatically more. By the way, notice the snow near our “snow castle” on the snow. It melted rather quickly, exposing grass and mud. The snow under the “snow castle,” however, remained.
Finally, since it was Groundhog Day, we had to perform some type of related experiment. We traced Zach’s feet and his shadow at 9:30, 11:00, 12:30, and 2:00. Notice how his shadow moved across the blacktop and how it shrunk and grew. A few people were surprised that his shadow did not disappear at 12:30, as shadows often seem to do in the summer. We’ll have to try this activity again in June.
Don’t wait for a teacher to lead an experiment. Instead, pursue your own curiosities!
Not the kind of secrets that require whispering. These secrets are evidence hidden in air bubbles found deep in snow and ice. What type of secrets are hidden in air bubbles in ice?
Well, we learned that a scientist named Charles David Keeling placed a manometer at the top of Mauna Loa, a mountain volcano in Hawaii. A manometer is a device that he invented to measure the amount of carbon dioxide in air. He kept daily records from 1958 to the present and found that overall the amount of carbon dioxide in our air has increased. However, each year, the amounts of carbon dioxide decreased in the summer and increased in the winter. This change throughout the year is attributed to the change in leaves on the trees and plants. Leaves take carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Therefore, less carbon dioxide is in the atmosphere in the summer than the winter.
Scientists wanted to know about the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere before 1958 and realized that they could look at the ice in core samples taken from Antarctica and Greenland. Glaciologists have been able to study air bubbles trapped in ice samples that date back 650,000 years to uncover the amount of carbon dioxide that existed in the atmosphere at different time periods. They’ve noticed that the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere significantly increased when humans began burning fossil fuels during the industrial revolution when products were made in factories. Ah, the secret is that carbon dioxide is trapped in air bubbles in ice.
We took our own “core samples” and analyzed them. While we could see bubbles and some dirt, we realize that our samples were just a few days old. Then, we did activities to bring to life the idea that sea levels are rising due to melting glaciers and ice caps. Several of us selected spots on model communities for houses that were quickly covered by water.