Lit. Poems

"The End of Heaven on Earth"

Himmel Street
Lively, friendly
Loving, respecting, reading
Family, together, destructive, breaker
Chirping, frightening, uncaring
Deadly, powerful
Bomb.

"Strength of a Dead Man"
(from the perspective of Death)

Jew, colorful, caring
Who loves the feeling of safety
Who feels fear about every corner he turns in life
Who needs a daily weather report
Who shares the dreams of his struggle
Who fears the sound of a Nazi's boot
Who'd like to see the book thief again
Who dreams of defeating the Fuhrer
Who ends up beating the odds

Aquarium Adventure!

Last Friday we went on a trip to the Camden Aquarium. Since we have been studying animal classifications in science class, this trip would help a lot in out understanding of this topic. It did. There were so many interesting animals in all the different exhibits. Animals ranging from jellyfish that were the size of my finger to huge hippos sleeping on the edge of the water, everything was so extraordinary. I was most interested by the sharks, especially the shark tunnel. There were so many different species of sharks in the tunnel. Although it felt so weird to look through the bent glass, it was amazing. The first exhibit my group went to was the touch pool. In this pool, there were many species of small sharks. As each shark swam by, I was able to feel their skin. It felt a bit rough but smooth at the same time. Their skin felt like there were scales on it, almost like snake skin. Both shark exhibits were my favorite part of the trip to the aquarium. While I learned a lot about the different animals, I also learned not to talk to strangers!

Greenhouse Effect Questions

1a) Three forms of radiation from the sun are infrared radiation, ultraviolet radiation and visible light.
1b) Infrared radiation has the longer wavelengths while ultraviolet radiation has the shorter wavelenghts.
2a) Most of the sunlight that reaches Earth is scattered through the atmosphere. The sunlight is scattered by the gas molecules in the atmosphere.
2b) About 25% of the incoming sunlight is reflected back into space by clouds, dust and gases in the atmosphere.
2c) When the sunsets, the sky looks red because the sunlight has to pass through a thicker part of the atmoshpere. As the light is scattered through the atmosphere, more of the blue end of the spectrum is removed so the result is more reds and oranges. Scattering causes the differences in colors when the sun is at different points in the sky.
3a) The energy that is absorbed by the Earth is radiated back into the atmosphere as infrared radiation. This radiation can't travel all the way through the atmosphere, so it is absorbed by different gases in the atmosphere. As the radiated energy heats the gases, they form a "blanket" around the Earth holding heat to the ground.
3b) If the Earth didn't have the greenhouse effect, we would all be dead. As humans, we need the greenhouse effect to survive. It provides us with heat and allows many of the substance we need to survive to prosper. Although we need the effect to live, to much of it can hurt us. There is a great increase in greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and the increase is whats harmful, not the original greenhouse effect. Without the greenhouse effect, there would be barely any life on Earth.

Popping Popcorn with Convection Currents

Who knew that a tasty snack such as popcorn could be cooked with a form of heat transfer. Out of the three different types of heat transfer, popcorn cooked in a microwave is using convection currents, or the transfer of heat through a fluid. When the popcorn is placed in the microwave, the heat travels through the air in the form of convection currents. Within each kernel of popcorn is a small drop of water the turns to vapor when the convection currents heat the drop enough. When the pressure inside the kernel is too great, it has to find a way to escape. As it forces its way out of the kernel, the piece of popcorn pops. Through this process of heat transfer, you get to enjoy a tasty snack!

Imploding Cans

Air pressure dictates our existence on Earth. Simple changes to that pressure could cause so many different occurrences. One of the occurrences could be the implosion of a soda can. When a can is heated with a small amount of water in it, the water will come to a boil and change to water vapor. Once this happens, the air pressure in the can is increased because the molecules are moving at a much faster pace. Then when you quickly invert the can in ice water, the molecules in the can rapidly slow down causing the air pressure in the can to decrease. The pressure outside the can is greater than the pressure inside the can. Due to this imbalance in air pressure, the can will implode. Its amazing how something that we live with everyday can be so powerful to crush the alumni of a can.

Class Response - Frog Dissection

While studying the animal unit in class we knew that we would have to dissect a few different animals throughout, but the frog was definitely going to be the biggest dissection. We recently learned about frogs and completed the dissection on them. As predicted, this was the biggest dissection. Due to the fact that the frog was the largest and most complicated animal, it was the hardest to dissect. Will doing the dissection, we had to look for the vital organs in frog, like the liver, lungs, heart, fat bodies, stomach, and intestines. During the dissection, my group had some trouble. We couldn't locate some of the organs that we had to find. Maybe they just got mixed in with some others and we miss took them for something else? All in all the frog dissection was a crucial part of the animals unit and in showing us the differences between certain animals and humans.
Part of our unit of study in animals was to complete dissections. The most important dissection was the frog. I felt that although it was important to learn about the animals, i didn't know if we had to do the dissections. It just didn't make much sense to me why learning about the internal anatomy of animals like a frog was so important to us. Most of the organs they have are different or work differently then humans. In my opinion this unit could have been short and simpler, but it was still and interesting topic to learn about.

Math Connects to Global Warming

Global warming is racing around the world creating so many different changes. This problem alters the temperatures. In most parts of the world, like the arctic, the temperatures are rising at a rapid pace. The temperature fluctuations can be very dangerous to many places in the world. Also, percents relate to global warming when scientist talk about the percentage of polar ice that is being lost each year or the percentage of animals species that could become endangered or extinct in the next years. Each year the percentage of these numbers increases causing an increased effect on the natural world. Most of the effects are happening on the natural world, but they are being created in the man-made world. The amount of pollutants in the atmosphere is such a large number, and each day a certain amount more is being released. Global warming has so many aspects of it that can be directly related to math, like temperature, percents, and simply numbers.

Global Warming

Global warming is an issue that has been present in our society for a while. Since humans are releasing such a large amount of carbon dioxide in to the atmosphere, it's causing the Earth to heat up at a rapid pace. Although this issue is effecting humans, it has a greater effect on the helpless animals and their environments. In the arctic, polar ice ice is melting destroying habitat and hunting ground for animals, like polar bears. Also, the gases are causing the oceans to raise effects beaches and small islands. As humans we can create different materials to help our society control the effects of global warming. But unlike us, the animals don't have the ability to adapt like humans.

This problem was created by humans, and we have the power to stop it. Global Warming is destroying most of the beautiful and natural creations on our Earth. We need these things to be around for a long time, because, although we may not see it everyday, the creations in nature help us survive and live the lives that we do. Global warming is something that has to be reversed to insure the sanity of our planet!