Weekly blog 5/1/16

Summary: This week in science we got a biome to research with a team and me and my team got the coniferous forest. Some of the things I learned about the coniferous forest is that the most common trees to grow there are confirs but the most common confirs are spruces, pines, and firs. A confir is a tree that is an evergreen, grows needles instead of flowers, and it also grows cones instead of flowers. There are also predators in the coniferous forest such as wolves, bears, foxes, and wolverines. A wolverine is a small yet very fierce carnivore and it's also related to a weasel and a stout. Other animals that aren't predators are moose, reindeer or caribou, and maybe deer.

SP1: Asking questions and defining problems

Science begins with a question about a phenomenon such as “Why is the sky blue?” or “What causes cancer?” A basic practice of the scientist is the ability to formulate empirically answerable questions about phenomena to establish what is already known, and to determine what questions have yet to be satisfactorily answered.

Did you ask a scientific question?

A question that the teacher asked us was that what were some things that would help you survive in a specific biome and what would be a threat in that biome. There were some things in the forest that we needed a description for and what it would do to us. We needed to state what it would scientifically do to us.

Scale, proportion, and quantity

SCALE, PROPORTION, AND QUANTITY HELP US UNDERSTAND HOW NATURE IS DIFFERENT WHEN WE STUDY THE VERY LARGE AND VERY SMALL.

Tell us what have you learned about how things change at different scales. This can be something that you notice in class or outside of class.

Identify a topic affected by scale, proportion or quantity and explain how things changed at different scales.

We also needed to put how many predators, eatable plants and animals, resources for shelter, and resources for fire we needed.

Message in a bottle story

 One day the Briedis-Ruiz family was on a cruise but the ship crashed in South america. The family had left all of their stuff on the ship including the money they had brought with them so they threw a bottle with a Message in it into the ocean in hopes that a relative or someone would find their message and come to get them. The bottle started it's journey off from South america and it traveled by currents. The bottle first got caught up in the Gulf stream first and traveled towards the Canary current. The bottle then goes downstream of the Canary current towards the South Equatorial current and then goes downstream again from there. When it goes downstream it gets caught up in the Brazil current and once again goes downstream in the Subpolar gyre. The Subpolar Gyre leads the bottle to the west wind drift current up towards the west Australian current. The bottle detaches itself from the current and ends up in Australia. 

A family from Australia finds the bottle and reads the message and the message was: "Please help we are stranded somewhere in South America. We have sent this bottle in hopes that someone will find the message inside. Please find us we need help!" The family find a fisherman and ask for his help and the fisherman kindly helps them. The fisherman is currently trying to find out where the Bredis-Ruiz family is. He finds the place where the Bredis-Ruiz family is but wants to make sure so he is trying to find a Route the bottle took. The fisherman finds the right route and explains it to the family who found the bottle "The bottle went from the Gulf stream, to the Canary current, then the South Equatorial current, the Brazil current, the Subpolar Gyre, then the Australian current, and finally towards Australia. But these currents also have differences such as salinity and some currents such as the Gulf stream, the South equatorial current, and the Brazil current have less salinity which means that they have more salt in them. But other currents such as the subpolar gyre, the West wind drift current, and the West Australian current have more salinity." the fisherman said as he finished explaining.

"But why does the Gulf stream, the South equatorial current, and the Brazil current have less salinity?" one of the children asked. "Well that's because there are other differences besides salinity such as temperature and density. The warmer the water the less salinity and density it has and density is the weight, mass, or thickness of something. But if the water is cold then it has more salinity and density because when things get cooled down their Molecules slow down causing them to get closer together and it occupies a smaller volume making the density increase. If something has less density then that means it doesn't have that much mass and isn't that heavy." the fisherman explained. 

"What about wind, how are the currents connected to it?" asked the father. "Well as for wind it's connected to ocean currents because wind creates currents. If your wondering how they're connected well it's because the winds go into a certain pattern like if the wind goes right then a current will also go right and now let's find that family." They all set off to find the Bredis - Ruiz family and they eventually did find them. They rescued the Bredis-Ruiz family and they all lived happy lives knowing that they learned something.

Weekly blog 4/10/16

Summary: This week I learned about ocean currents and wind circulation and how they're connected. I also learned about what a gyre is and how it's connected to both wind and ocean currents. A gyre is a circle or sphere and when wind currents form they form a gyre but not out of wind. When the wind currents are swirling around like a circle it has an effect on the ocean's currents because ocean currents are made from wind so when the wind goes a certain way the ocean currents move in a circle forming a gyre. The wind forms a circle by bouncing off of land masses (continents).



SP6: Constructing explanations and designing solutions
The goal of science is the construction of theories that provide explanations about the natural world. A theory becomes accepted when it has multiple independent lines of empirical evidence and greater explanatory power.


Did you explain something through your work?

We were working on some worksheets and when some of the questions asked us to explain how a gyre is formed.


Cause and Effect

Tell us the story of a cause and effect relationship you observe. This can be something that you notice in class or outside of class.

Identify the cause and effect relationship and provide evidence for the relationship.


Cause: wind currents move up and down bouncing off of land masses.

Effect: The ocean currents then start to form a circle or a gyre.

Weekly blog 3/27/16

Summary: This week I learned about ocean currents and how humans and the Earth are alike. Something that ocean currents need to be created is wind because the wind blows the water and makes a currents. Something that the Earth and people have in common is that they are both mostly made out of water. Another thing that they have in common is that they are both alive because the Earth has living orginisms on it and a person is alive. They are also different in some ways like the Earth constantly spins and humans have to eat, drink, and sleep but the Earth doesn't have to to live.


SP7: Engaging in argument from evidence

In science, reasoning and argument are essential for clarifying strengths and weaknesses of a line of evidence and for identifying the best explanation for a natural phenomenon. Scientists must defend their explanations, formulate evidence based on a solid foundation of data, examine their understanding in light of the evidence and comments by others, and collaborate with peers in searching for the best explanation for the phenomena being investigated.

Did you participate in a class discussion providing evidence for your answers, and/or used the ACE strategy in your work?

We did a worksheet with our table groups about ocean currents about what we know, learned, and wanted to know. We also watched a video (bill nye video) about ocean currents and filled out our own documents about it.

XCC

Scale, Proportion, and Quantity

Tell us what have you learned about how things change at different scales. This can be something that you notice in class or outside of class.

Identify a topic affected by scale, proportion or quantity and explain how things changed at different scales.

In class we also learned about the differences and similarities between a person and the Earth and they both are more alike than I thought. They both have more similarities than differences of what I've learned.

Ecodetectives WAC

Dear Editor,

  The cattle ranch should be shut down because they are using phosphates for their cattle and when they are using it they may be causing something to happen in the water such as algal bloom. Algal bloom is when too many water plants such as algae grow in the water and it isn't good for fish either. This can be caused by phosphates that go into the water and the phosphates may be going into James pond. The cattle ranch is near James pond and is near enough that it can contaminate the river with phosphates. Even though there are other places that could've caused the fish dying off the cattle ranch is also a suspect. Maybe even some other places are more suspected than the cattle ranch and are the cause. But what if the cattle ranch is the cause and even though it's not as suspected it still has a chance of being the cause of the fish dying.

  If algae continue to grow it will be an algal bloom that could kill most of the fish. The algal bloom creates algae and when the algae die bacteria takes dissolved oxygen from the water. A bit of algae is okay because it's a water plant and it makes oxygen in the water but too much is bad because then when they all die they get eaten by bacteria. Bacteria is a Decomposer and a decomposer breaks down dead things. The Bacteria eats away at the dead algae but also takes away dissolved oxygen as it's eating the dead algae. If this continues then the fish won't have any oxygen and with surly die sooner than later. The cycle is, 1 the Phosphates get into the pond, 2 an algal bloom starts, 3 the algae die, 4 the bacteria eat the dead plants and takes away dissolved oxygen as it eats. Then the cycle starts all over again. But the algal bloom isn't the only cause, 7 years ago the cattle in the ranch doubled in amount so my guess is that they started to use Phosphates 2 years ago to feed their cattle. Then the algal bloom took effect 5 years ago at the exact same time the fish started to die. Then the algal bloom spread to some other rivers near the area and then the fish in those rivers died too.

  The algal bloom could've started to form 5 years ago and has been taking oxygen away for 5 years causing less and less oxygen to be in James pond. Phosphates are found in manure and I don't think it's very good for fish either. The dissection results came back and they said that 21 fish died of not enough oxygen. Coincidentally most of the fish died of not enough oxygen and algal bloom takes away oxygen. I don't think that this is just a minor coincidence and if the cattle ranch is using phosphates then it's causing an algal bloom which is taking away oxygen. We did tests before the dissection results came back and the tests we did were a water life test. We tested on what kind of water life was in James pond and the what water life animals that were in James pond indicate that there isn't enough oxygen. All the tests that came back all result to one thing, there isn't enough oxygen in James pond. Who knows maybe the algae spread across the rivers and effected the other rivers as well.  This then might have resulted in other places being suspected.

  Most of the fish that died were killed by lack of oxygen 5 years ago and the algal bloom also could've started 5 years ago. Other populations of animals are being disturbed by the fish dying such as the kingfisher bird. We made a graph of birds over the years and 5 years ago the kingfisher population went down drastically. The kingfisher population goes down along with the fish population so if the fish die off so does the kingfisher population. The reason the kingfisher population is going down at the same time as the fish is because the kingfisher eat the fish from James pond and since the fish there are dying the kingfisher is also dying. If the cattle ranch is still open then the fish will die as well as the kingfisher population. There also might be other bird populations who eat fish and they might die off as well.

  In conclusion the cattle ranch should be shut down because not only will the fish die but the kingfisher bird population will go down and soon become extinct. It is also a possibility that the fish will die out as well and fishers won't have any fish to get from the pond. Even though people who need cattle have no where else to get cattle it could be the oil factory or the water slide. If the cattle ranch gets shut down Don Juan Tuno still has the farm to work at and the fish will be safe. If the cattle ranch is shut down the algal bloom will stop, the kingfisher population will be safe and healthy again, and every thing will be fine. But if the cattle ranch stays open these things will not happen everything might eve become worse than it already is.

Weekly blog 3/13/16

Summary: This week something that I learned was that algal bloom is bad for fish because when there is too much algae oxygen gets taken away. If oxygen is taken away then the fish won't have any oxygen to breath because the fish breath in the oxygen from the water but the algae takes that oxygen which kills the fish. If the algae keeps growing and dies it takes a lot of oxygen from the water and the fish won't have any oxygen left to breath. There are also other things that can kill fish like chemicals such as oil and phostphates. These 2 things aren't good for the water because it may contaminate the oxygen in the water and the phosphates can make too much algae and cause an algal bloom in the water.



SP7: Engaging in argument from evidence
In science, reasoning and argument are essential for clarifying strengths and weaknesses of a line of evidence and for identifying the best explanation for a natural phenomenon. Scientists must defend their explanations, formulate evidence based on a solid foundation of data, examine their understanding in light of the evidence and comments by others, and collaborate with peers in searching for the best explanation for the phenomena being investigated.


Did you participate in a class discussion providing evidence for your answers, and/or used the ACE strategy in your work?

In class we all discussed algal bloom and about who or what might have caused it.


Cause and Effect

Identify the cause and effect relationship and provide evidence for the relationship.


Cause: Phosphates from the cattle ranch got into the water and created too many water plants in the river.

Effect: The fish died because the algae (water plant) took all of the oxygen causing the fish to die.

Weekly blog 3/6/16

Summary: This week I learned that sediment can make rivers dirty and fish in the rivers might not be able to see through all of the dirt. Fish also need food and oxygen but fish also need an environment that they could be able to live in. For instance some fish may need the water to be a certain temperature or have a certain amount of light. There are also things that can make rivers dirty such as sediment and block out light for certain fish who can't live in dark places. Since some fish can't see in the dark they won't be able to find food to eat. Sediment can also effect the temperature of the river because if sediment only blocks out a certain place of the river everywhere else would be covered in sun and would get hotter making some fish die.

SP4: Analyzing and interpreting data
Scientific investigations produce data that must be analyzed in order to derive meaning. Because data usually do not speak for themselves, scientists use a range of tools—including tables, graphs, drawings, and statistical analysis—to identify the significant features and patterns in the data.

Did you create a graph, table, drawing, etc. of the data you obtained in an experiment?

We did an experiment in class tells us which lakes, ponds, and rivers were polluted and put that data on sheets of paper.


Cause and effect

WHEN WE "DO" SCIENCE WE TRY TO FIND OUT THE REASONS WHY THINGS HAPPEN.

Tell us the story of a cause and effect relationship you observe. This can be something that you notice in class or outside of class.

Identify the cause and effect relationship and provide evidence for the relationship.

Cause: The sheep trampled on the plants near the river and the plants were keeping the sediment from going in the river. But since the plants were trampled the sediment went into the river.

Effect: The effect is that the sediment is blocking the sun and is making it hotter in certain places. Some fish also can't see in the dark part of the lakes or river and since it's dark the fish can't find their food.