Scribe Post On Celestial Body Project

Hello everybody :)
During the science classes of March 25, 26 and 30 we began, and researched for, our Celestial Body Project. Since we had to become “travel agents” for our celestial body, we needed to use a mix of our own imagination and fact to get our projects going. Our brochures had to be interesting yet educational, and had to include some of our own selves in them. Meaning, don't make them boring! We spent the three classes in the lower computer lab doing research and anything that was not finished had to be finished up at home for this Thursday. The brochures. are due on Thursday, April 1; which leaves plenty of room for improvement. Our brochures are being graded on; creativity, appearance, our interest whilst creating the brochure and our interest while presenting the brochure. Meaning, it is due Thursday by 11:30 and must be printed in color. The presentations will be on Thursday, April 1 during science. On Tuesday, March 30 a typed list of our notes that we used in the brochure was due to Ms.D by 4:00. This Thursday, along with the brochure, there will be two other things due; five typed questions + answers about your celestial body, based on information we collected (it must be emailed by 11:30 to dani.dipietro@aisz.hr) and a typed copy of a bibliography in APA format.

The directions and requirements to the project are underneath;

http://zagreb.ceesa.net/file.php/106/Astronomy/Celestial_Body_Travel_Agent.doc

The link for the rubric is included as well;

http://zagreb.ceesa.net/file.php/106/Astronomy/Travel_Agent_Rubric.doc


I am doing Haumea and Make-Make for my Celestial Body Project; the two most difficult to find information on. Some websites I found helpful that everyone could use were;

http://www.iau.org/
http://www.scientificamerican.com
http://www.windows.ucar.edu
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/solar_system/
http://www.solarviews.com/

Remember, Wikipedia is not a reliable source unless you have talked to Ms.D about using it and she has approved your reason.
Other sources can be used as well such as newspapers and non-fiction books but must be reliable and included in your bibliography.

What must be turned in for full credit:
• Travel Agency Styled Brochure- eye catching, colorful, made with Publisher-Due Thursday, April 1st
• Typed set of bulleted notes for the class containing the information used to create the brochure (can be emailed or printed and turned in) - Due Tuesday, March 30th
• Five (5) typed questions about your celestial body for the test we will be having, including a copy of answers to your questions! (must be e-mailed)- Due Thursday, April 1st!
• Typed copy of your bibliography (must be emailed) - Due Thursday, April 1st!

On Thursday we will be having a “Travel Fair”. Each person will visit you and you will have to present your brochure and explain why they should travel to your celestial body. Be interesting; and keep it short. You will be graded by each member as they come visit your travel agency and see your brochure.

As they come to your agency, you will need to sell your celestial body and present it with the bulleted list of notes. Keep in mind creativity, appearance and interest when constructing your brochure and “selling” it.

Underneath is the list of what celestial body each member of the class is doing;

Sun- Kamil

Mercury- Aidan

Venus- Gregor

Earth- Davide

Mars- Abigail

Asteroids/belt- Emma

Jupiter-Arnie

Saturn- Ines

Uranus- Luke

Neptune- Holly

Pluto- Alex

Eris- German

Ceres- Jacob

Hauma & Makemake- Hana

Meteors, etc.- Severyn

Comets- Cornelia

Exo-Solar Planets- Daniel

All of these directions and project notes are posted on Moodle.


The next and final scribe is Abigail.


Good luck everybody!



-Hana

Genetics Debate

On March 4th, 2010 we had a genetics deabte in science class. The class was split into two groups, a cloning group and a s tem cell research group. Each group was split further into con and pro sides of the debate. This debate was not a very formal one, as we used a "fish-bowl" discussion, rather than a formal debate (a fish-bowl dicussion is simply a debate, but no first negative, first positive... and no turns, meaning i can talk when i feel necessary, but I still cannot make personal attacks and such.)

The pro side for stem cell reasearch consisted of Abigail, Hana, Aidan, Emma and Severyn, the con side consisted of Holly, Ines, Jacob and Arnie. The pro side won, ut te con side did show many ethical and moral dileamas shown in the debate. I'll show a bulleted list of negatives and positives of the debate below:

Positives:

• Treatment of Cancer such as lymphoma and leukemia
• In the near future it might be able to cure Parkinson's disease, spinal cord injury, muscle damage.
• Cures heart damage
• Cures baldness, missing teeth
• Might be able to cure deafness and blindness and vision impairment

Negatives (most, if not all are ethical in nature):

• The extraction of stem cells, results in destorying the embryo (except this is no longerr valid, because researchers have showne that you can take stem cells without damaging the embryo).
• The organs grown from stem cells could contribute to the organ "black market" and provide it place to grow.

The pro side for human cloning consisted of Joe, German, Daniel, Luke and Cornelia; whereas the con side consisted of Alex, Kamil, Davide, and Gregor. The con side won, according to majority vote. I will state the positives and negatives mentioned in this list:

Positives

• It may someday be possible to stunt the aging process
• May be able to clone good heart tissue for people with damaged hearts after heartattcks and other heart problems
• Infertility; if a woman wanted to have a baby, but was infertile would have a much bigger chance of gaining a baby through the cloning process.
• You could theoreticly in the clone, give them perfect genes, meaning get rid of all the defective genes in people.
• If an area is underpopulated here is a solution.

Negatives

• According to ethical groups it will lower the standard of human life.
• It will probably cost a lot, making tax payers pay more.
• If allowed unchecked could evolve into "slave labor"
• Discrimination
• Black market would rise and humans would become a comodity as would organs

Next scribe is German

Travel Agent for a Celestial Body Project

Hey guys!

On Tuesday in class we started working on the Travel Agent for a Celestial Body Project. Each student in the class has been assigned a celestial body in the solar system/galaxy to find research on them and some time next week we will present them to the class by having a "Travel Fair" meaning that only a couple of people at once will watch your presentation. You will be graded by the class members who come  visit your travel agency, see your brochure and watch your presentation. You are supposed to show/tell them why they should travel to your celestial body, during your presentation. As they come to your agency you need to "sell" your celestial body and give them interesting facts about it.    

Design a travel agency styled brochure using Microsoft Publisher.  Remember to have a set of notes (bullet format) for each of the members of the class from which you design the brochure. You'll also hand in questions on your celestial body for our open note test. 

If there's anything that's still unknown about your topic, you need to write that on your note sheet. 

Keep in mind (Presentation) : 

• Creativity 
• Appearance
• Interest when creating brochure 
• Show interest while "Selling" and presenting 

You will be turning in a bibliography for this project as well and it has to be in APA format!!!

Some appropriate websites to check out: 

http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/index.cfm

  http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/solar_system/ 

http://www.seds.org/billa/tnp/

http://www.windows.ucar.edu./tour/link=/our_solar_system/solar_system.html

http://www.solarviews.com/ 

We are allowed to use other websites and research materials as well but DO NOT use WIKIPEDIA!!! 

What to turn in:

• Travel Agency Styled Brochure- eye catching, colorful, made with Publisher-Due Thursday, April 1st 
• Typed set of bulleted notes for the class containing the information used to create the brochure (can be emailed or printed and turned in) - Due Tuesday, March 30th 
• Five (5) typed questions about your celestial body for the test we will be having, including a copy of answers to your questions! (must be e-mailed)- Due Thursday, April 1st!  
• Typed copy of your bibliography (must be emailed) - Due Thursday, April 1st! 

Good Luck =) 

Next scribe is Hana! 

-Cornelia 

Moon Phases, Eclipses, and More

On Tuesday, the 23 of March, conversation topics revolved around projects, labs and astronomy. We began the class by reviewing and discussing our current and future labs and projects. First, we focused on the Phases and Eclipse lab who's purpose was to determine how the alliance of the Sun, Earth, and Moon influence moon phases, solar eclipses, and lastly, lunar eclipses. We had then gone over the procedure of this lab in which we had to make 8 drawings of the moon phases, one drawing of the solar eclipse, and another of the lunar eclipse demonstrating how they work.

The IV and DV were also brought up as words that had been defined as:

IV (independent variable): Matter that is being controlled by you.

DV ( dependent variable): the result of the variable.

In class, Ms. D had completed drawing #1 for us which had been in the phase of a "new moon", being a 0 or 360 degree angle, because of its linear stance with the Sun and Earth. Furthermore, she reminded us to think about the object that moves, which is the moon, while completing our drawings and to also, think about their angles and pay close attention to them!

* Keep in mind that the Earth revolves around the Sun, and the Moon revolves around the Earth.

These are just some helpful links on Moon Phases and Lunar Eclipses!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdI1aDjWLlY&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHxcWSiD_4E&feature=related

As the class prolonged, we continued working on our Phases and Eclipses lab with our heads serving as the Earth, white balls serving as the Moon, and light bulb playing the role of the Sun. As our heads (Earth) rotated, along with the moon, we began to observe the many phases of the Moon as the Sun ( lightbulb) shone its light onto the Moon giving us (Earth) the reflected image of the Moon. Ms. D cautioned us to review our work, and to follow the directions of turning in work for full credit.

FULL CREDIT WORK:

• have the title, date and work; lab is on TOC


• the purpose must be copied directly


• include IV and DV


• include hypothesis


• drawings (10 in total)


• answers to the questions


• conclusion

In your conclusion, be sure to include your summary paragraph about what you learned, answer the purpose question, support your hypothesis (or not), and remember to include why. Additionally, you have to be under the impression of how this lab was related to our everyday world, and create a bullet list of possible mistakes in this lab and why they were taken as mistakes from your point of view.

**This lab is due Thursday March the 25.**

As people started to finish up with the drawings of their lab, they headed down to the lower computer lab to get started on a project called the "Travel Agent for a Celestial Body Project".

Cornelia, however, will expand on this topic in her blog post.

The Celestial bodies the students have received in class goes as follows:

Sun- Kamil

Mercury- Aidan

Venus- Gregor

Earth- Davide

Mars- Abigail

Asteroids/belt- Emma

Jupiter-Arnie

Saturn- Ines

Uranus- Luke

Neptune- Holly

Pluto- Alex

Eris- German

Ceres- Jacob

Hauma & Makemake- Hana

Meteors, etc.- Severyn

Comets- Cornelia

Exo-Solar Planets- Daniel

* This lab is due NEXT Thursday*

In addition, we went over the homework and due dates for certain items (listed below)

Due:

• March the 30th is a list of bulleted notes for your Celestial body (by 4:00 p.m.)


• Thursday April 1st is a travel agency styled brochure in color (come to Ms.D if you cannot get hold of a color printer for you do have to use color in this assignment), 5 questions and answers about your Celestial body based on your collected information, and a typed copy of a bibliography in APA format (must be emailed to Ms. D at class time 11:30 a.m.)

Send to: dani.dipietro@aisz.hr or ddipietro.aisz@gmail.com

All of these directions and project copies are posted on Moodle.

There is NO APOD due for Tuesday's class as Ms. D wants us to focus on our Celestial body project!

Also, make sure that your Random Questions are up to date as Ms. D will be checking them while grading our notebooks for the Phases and Eclipses Lab.

There is NO homework for Spring Break but remember BLOG!

Next Scriber- Cornelia

Tuesday 16 March

What we learned in Science Class last Tuesday:

On Tuesday we learned about the phases of the moon and what causes them. We saw a schematic of the Earth-Moon-Sun system. The reason that we see phases is because of the moon's position in relation to the sun and earth.

1. Sun emits light
2. Sun's light bounces off of the moon like a giant mirror.
3. The moon moves, that position then determines what we see on earth.

Here is a schematic:

http://jove.geol.niu.edu/faculty/stoddard/JAVA/moonphase.html

This schematic is in real time, but you can speed it up too.

Also on tuesday we learned about the tides. The moon's gravity (roughly 1/6th earth's) pulls on the earth's oceans and causes the tides. There are about two high tides and two low tides each day. The Adriatic sea has very, very little tide. Only a few centimeters in total.

www.mmscrusaders.com/newscirocks/tides.tideanims.html

We also learned about the rest of the solar system.

The planets go:
Mercury
Venus
Earth
Mars
Jupiter
Saturn
Uranus
Neptune

R.I.P. Pluto :'(

Sorry this is so late. I forgot to do my homework.

The Foucault's pendulum, Moon phases, and more...

Today in class we were assigned to find out what the Foucault's pendulum is. Ms. D explained what it is and how it works. Here is the definition of the Foucault's pendulum: "The Foucault's pendulum is an instrument devised by a Frech physicist Jean Bernad Leon Foucault in 1851 to prove that the Earth rotates on its axis."

It is a tall pendulum (weight suspended from a pivot so it can move freely) free to move in a vertical plane. The direction it spins rotates with time because of the Earth’s rotation. The pendulum stays going in a straight line, BUT the building it is in is on Earth and the building actually moves with Earth and the swinging pendulum does not.

After this we had to choose 3 themes in astronomy that we would like to work on for a future lab.

20 minutes before the end of the class, Ms. D said that we will start a lab. We had to be with the partner number 7 (on the clock). The Lab purpose is to find out "How the relationship between the sun, Earth and Moon determines moon phases, solar eclipses and lunar eclipses."
5 minutes before the end of the class Ms. D gave to each of us a pencil and a white ball which represented the Moon. There were 4 lamps in the class representing the Sun. What we had to do was to try to put the "Moon" in different positions to see how much light it could reflect on the Earth (us).

Here is a video that describes the Moon Phases.


The Random Question sheet if you don't have the random questions.
http://zagreb.ceesa.net/file.php/106/Random_Science_Questions.doc
More information about the Foucault's pendulum
http://www.animations.physics.unsw.edu.au/jw/foucault_pendulum.html

Also remember

-to check Moodle for homework
-to do you APOD for Tuesday
-to do all you need to do for the blog before the 1st April

(Next scribe is Emma)

Planets, Dwarf Planets, & More

Today in class, we reviewed the moon's phases, listed all the planets in our solar system, and talked a little bit about dwarf planets.

Some words that were used in today’s class:

equinox- equal day and equal night ( 12h of light and 12 h of darkness)

solstice- longest day (Summer) and shortest day (Winter)

light year- the distance that light travels in one year

electromagnetic spectrum- UV, IR, X-rays, gamma, microwaves, radio waves, and visible light

Today we went over the eight planets in our Solar System. To remember them, a student showed us a pneumonic device.

Our eight planets in our Solar System:

Mercury (My)

Venus (Very)

Earth (Educated)

Mars (Mom)

Jupiter (Just)

Saturn (Sold)

Uranus (Us)

Neptune (Nine)

Below is a picture of all the planets:

Trip through the Solar System video :http://http//www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y72EizrCkKY&feature=fvsr

After "Nine" there should be "Pizzas." "Pizzas" represented the planet Pluto, however now Pluto is not a part of the Planet group, it is now considered a dwarf planet. A dwarf planet has different qualities than planets. Some of those qualities are its size and clear orbit. Pluto is not the only dwarf planet, there are 5 dwarf planets in total. They are:

Pluto

Ceres

Eris

MakeMake

Haumea

Past Pluto, there is the Kuiper Belt, past the Kuiper Belt is the Oort Cloud.

More about the Kuiper Belt & Oort Cloud : http://nineplanets.org/kboc.html

In between Mars and Jupiter is the asteroid belt. The asteroid belt is a space between those planets, filled with loads of asteroids. Asteroids are rocky metallic things that orbit the Sun.

Random facts from Class:

The light from the Sun to Earth takes 8 minutes!

A blue moon is when there are TWO full moons in one month!

The Earth spins counter-clock wise!

The speed of sound is 340.29 m/s!

The speed of light is 300,000 km/s

Our galaxy, the milky way, is 100,000 light years away!

Next scriber - Kamil

The Moon

In class Friday, Mr. Tim talked about the moon, the phases of the moon, and how the moon causes tides. We took the Astronomy Quiz, that we studied for on Thursday.

1.) What We Learned About The Moon:

We learned the amount of time for the moon to rotate on its axis and for the moon to revolve around the earth is 28 (27.3) days. It didn't always take this amount of time to do so, but after millions of years the dates became the same, 27.3 days.

The "Dark Side" of the moon: Isn't actually dark, but hidden from the earth for most of the time. That 18% of the moon is on the far side of the moon and the sun doesn't normally shine on it, so it appears dark. On some occasions like on Full Moons or New moons that part of the moon is visible and the sun illuminates it.

The moon that revolves around our planet is our only natural satellite and is visible to us because of the Sun reflecting onto the Moon.

The moon is Earth's only natural satellite and the second lightest thing visible. It is made visible because the sun shines its light onto the moon, as shown below.

The Eagle touched the moon and first took samples on July 1969.

The 4 theories on how the moon formed:

1. The fission theory that states the Moon was once a part of the earth, but long ago it split off the spinning Earth.

2. Another theory, the "capture" theory, that means we assume the Moon existed before, and was pulled in by the Earth's gravity.

3. The third theory is that space material, cloud, and dust, was pulled in by the gravity until it gathered to create the lump that formed the Moon.

4. The last theory and most popularly thought of as correct is that a large object would hit/collide with the Earth, so a part of it would break off, and because of it creating the Moon.

Number of Moons on each planet:

Jupiter has 9 moons.

Earth has 1 moon.

Venus and Mercury both have none.

Mars has 2.

Saturn has 61.

Uranus has 27 that we know of.

Neptune has 13 moons.

Comparing Moon and Earth:

Volume of the the moon = 2% of the volume of Earth

Radius of the moon = 1/4 radius of Earth

Gravity of the moon = 17% of the gravity on Earth

Earth's Atmosphere:

Atmosphere was created by the gases that surround our Earth, in the first million years or so.

Earth and Venus both have atmospheres, but Venus's is over heated because it has too much CO2.

2.) Phases of Moon:

- it takes 29.5 days between each full moon

-the dark spots on the moon are the seas

-the light spots are mountains

-moon has no liquid water, except for freezing ice in deep crater shadows

These are the phases of the moon.

Mr. Tim also mentioned a catchy song that spoke about the moon's phases and helps explain what each phase of moon looks like...

The link to this song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQRNzepe4wI

3.) How the moon causes tides:

The moon's gravity effects the pull on the tides. So twice a day the tides "bulge" more.

http://www.brainpop.com/science/earthsystem/tides/-Here is BrainPop video that helps explain how the moon effects the tides.

Other websites you can look at for more information about the moon:

-http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vUObZwLJ8A&NR=1 - video on phases

-http://www.samuelwat.com/peabody/tides.html -tides

-http://www.samuelwat.com/peabody/moon/index.html - animation and facts about the Moon's phases

Next scribe will be Aidan

Thursday, March 11, 2010

Today, Ms. D was gone and we had Mr. Tim as a substitute. We continued talking about astronomy. Mr. Tim told us the correct answers of the pre-quiz that was homework and we had to write down the correct answers in our notebooks. After that, Mr. Tim showed us three Brain Pop videos about the seasons, leap years, and solstices and equinoxes. We also took the quiz after the video and we did pretty well.
Here are the links for the videos:
http://www.brainpop.com/science/motionsforcesandtime/leapyear/
http://www.brainpop.com/science/earthsystem/solsticeandequinox/
http://www.brainpop.com/science/weather/seasons/

We also learned about how seasons change and why does Earth tilt on its axis. Mr. Tim showed us an animation about how Earth revolves around the Sun and he gave us information about solstices, equinoxes, leap years, and at what day does each season begin. Mr. Tim had us draw a diagram about the different angles where the sun hits the Earth and where sunlight is reflected through the atmosphere. We had to write down at what date does each equinox or solstice start. Then, he showed us some YouTube videos about where our place in the universe is and how small we actually are.
Here are the links for the YouTube videos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2cmlhfdxuY This is a slightly different video with commentary
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEheh1BH34Q&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17jymDn0W6U
DON'T FORGET! We have a quiz tomorrow about the notes that we took during class today so don't forget to study!

The next scribe will be Alex.F

On Friday, March 5, we had a Science class with Ms. DiPietro. On this day, we finally finished with genetics and debate we had on the previous day. This day, after genetics, we started the new science topic - astronomy.

Since we just started with this topic, Ms. DiPietro introduced us to astronomy. First we were discussing about what can we find in the sky. Our teacher showed us the pictures of satellites, and different stars. Then we were talking about ISS (International Space Station), where high school students were doing gravity experiments. Also, Ms. DiPietro told us that astronauts that are on on the other planets live in the space stations up to 6-7 months.

During the last 10 minutes of the class, Ms. D showed us the link(http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html) with the astronomy photos that are taken every day. Our teacher, Ms. DiPietro even showed us some cool pictures that are on this site. This is now a part of our homework. Ms. Dipietro guided us through the assignment; she gave us the handout about this assignment and explained us what should we do in it.


DON'T FORGET!!! APOD Worksheet is due Tuesday, March 9 and your work has to be e-mailed to Ms. DiPietro at 08:00 AM!!! Check Moodle site if you want to see directions for this assignment.




By German

Next scribe is Arnie

On Thursday, 4th of March, we had science class with Ms. DiPietro. As you might remember from the previous post, Ines has stated that we will have a debate today on the topic of:

“ Embryonic stem cell research could allow production of what the world currently lacks- organs, tissue and cells for transplants- that may provide progress in the battle against ailments that are difficult and currently impossible to cure, such as Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s disease, Cancer and Multiple Sclerosis. Should use of stem cells be used worldwide?” an d "The cloning of "Dolly" the sheep -- thought impossible just 15 years ago -- has created a new branch of science. Should scientists be allowed to clone humans?"

So, on the beginning of the class, Ms. DiPietro has given us time to get ready and to set everything up for the debate. The side of pros included Hana, Aidan, Abigail, Emma and Severyn. Due to the votes, that were made after the debate finished, both teams won. The time passed by very fast due to the monopolization and "pushiness" of the debators. By the end of the class we could have concluded that the debate on the topic of embryonic stem cell was more rought than the debate on the topic of cloning.

Last, Ms. DiPietro published the homework on Moodle , which was to write a reflection on the debate we took this day. It is due Friday, 5th of March.

Author: Severyn
Next Scribe Post: Davide

The Genetic debate

On Thursday February 25th we had Science with Ms. D. With her we study the genetics of cloning humans and animols. After many explanations we started looking for the debate. My group after much research on human cloning was ready for the debate. The members of my group were Alex, Gregor, Kamil and me. We were against another group. My group was against cloning and the ather was for the cloning. The other group was good at answering questions. In the end both groups won.

The last 20 minutes of the class we totalled the points for the final vote.

There was no homework because we finised with the topic of genetic and now start with the topic of astronomy.

next scribe - Luke