How much does a cloud weigh?

It depends on the amount of moisture is in the cloud and the size of the cloud. Different kinds of clouds carry different amounts of weights.

"Cloud" Experiment #1- What Happened?

We made a cloud using boiling water in a jar, adding a lit match, then by putting a cup of ice on top enclosing the jar. The ice cools the air at the top of the bottle. When the water vapor rising from the hot water on the bottom of the bottle reaches the cooler air at the top, it begins to condense and form drops around the smoke particles, which serve as condensation nuclei, and a cloud is created.

"Cloud" Experiment #2-What Happened?

We made a cloud using a plastic bottle with a small amount of water in it, then lit a match put it in the bottle, & then quickly closed the bottle. When we squeezed the bottle we increased the pressure in the bottle, creating a cloud. (Clouds need three things to form: Moisture, a temp/ pressure change and a condensation nuclei.)

Air pressure effects on a can

The soda can crumpled in on itself. When you heat it up, it causes the air temperature & pressure inside the can to rise.  When the air inside the can was put into the cool ice bucket, the air cooled and caused the pressure inside the can to decrease. As the pressure on the inside walls of the can decreased, the walls of the can collapsed since there wasn't enough air pressure inside the can to offset the air pressure on the outside of the can.

For the Egg Activity you need: a shelled hard-boiled egg, an empty glass frappucino bottle, a peice of paper and a match.

I predict that the egg is going to be sucked into the bottle.

What actually happened: I was right.When we lit a fire in the bottle, the air in the bottle became much warmer. The air expanded as it got warmer and warmer and it was crowded in there for the air. Then the flame burns out. As the air inside the bottle began to cool off, it also shrank in size again. The air pressure inside of the bottle was reduced. So, the air pressure outside of the bottle and on top of the egg was greater than the air pressure inside the bottle. The air pressure from outside the bottle pressed and pushed the egg down the bottle.

When we got egg back out again: When we blew and forced air back into the bottle, we increased the air pressure inside the bottle. So, the air was pushing and shoving the egg to get out of the bottle. We saw just the opposite thing happen with air pressure when we made the egg drop into the bottle. When there is air pressure, the air is shoving and pushing things around and in it.

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Why is pizza like the earth's crust?

A slice of pizza can be used as a model for the earth's crust. The earth consists of a Lithosphere, Asthenosphere, and Mesosphere. On a pizza, the cheese represents the oceanic crust (oceanic lithosphere) and the toppings represents the continental crust (continental lithosphere) that floats on top of the oceanic crust. It is thin and more dense than the sauce which simulates the asthenoshpere. Dough-simulates the mesosphere (the slides).

Tectonic Plates

The tectonic plates are composed of two types of crust- thicker continental and thin oceanic.
Tectonic plate interactions are of three different basic types. The boundaries can be continental/oceanic, continental/continental, or oceanic/oceanic depending on the density of the land itself.


Divergent boundaries-areas where plates move away from each other, forming either mid-oceanic ridges or rift valleys. (example-East African Great Rift Valley)

Convergent boundaries are areas where plates move toward each other and collide. These are also known as compressional or destructive boundaries. (example-The Himalayan Mnts.)
Transform boundaries- occur when two plates grind past each other with only limited convergent or divergent activity. (example-San Andreas Fault)



source: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tectonic_plate_interactions) & by looking at the plate tectonic lab notes.

Where is Water?

Where is water? If all the water on Earth was worth $100, how would it be distributed?

Salt Water( Oceans)- $75
Frozen (Glaciers)- $5
Fresh Water- (Lakes, Rivers, Rain, Groundwater)- $20

Actual:
Oceans- $97.20
Frozen- $2.15
Ground Water- $0.62
Fresh Water Lakes- $0.09
Salt Water Lakes and Seas- $0.08
Variable-$0.07
Soil Moisture-$0.05
Atmosphere- $0.01
Streams- $0.0001

Wow, I was way off! I knew the oceans covered most of the Earth, but not 97%--and super surprised that the fresh water numbers are so low. I guess being surrounded by fresh water my whole life, I tend to think it's a huge amount:)

Video Blog

While watching the video "Restless Landscapes" I learned some interesting things about sand, water and how landscapes are formed. I pretty much knew already that sand came from the erosion of mountains/rocks but it was super interesting to listen to the 4th/5th graders give their explainations of where they believe sand comes from and also when they answered the question about why mountain ranges look different. I guess I really never thought about the different sizes/shapes/ages of mountains. I knew they were formed when two techtonic plates smooshed together, but a large part of the size/shape of mountains are shaped from the sky-from water, wind & weathering. We learned a lot about the contents in this video from the last few chapters we've studied-I found I was able to connect with the material and comprehend it because I have a basic understanding about the different kinds of rock, the layering of rock and the chemical weathering process already. 

A couple things I really liked from the video especially was the comparision of a glacier to a "conveyor belt"-how it picks up sediment, gravel, boulders, etc along the way and then deposits them-and that is in fact what we learned in the video about how Cape Cod was formed. I didn't know Cape Cod was all sand! That's really cool, and now I know why. Kind of crazy that scientists think it will be totally washed away in a few thousand years though. I liked the activity the teacher did with her students in learning about ground water as well. She modeled how to see it in the classroom by giving the students a bunch of rocks in a canister and then had them pour water into it-then you can see that the water is filling up all the spaces between the rocks-and also they used sponges (to model aquifers-rocks that can hold water). I think that is a great activity to do with students!

Lastly, I liked how they compared the earth's atmosphere as the "earths outer most layer" and stated it was kind of like "earth's blanket", protecting it from many things. I guess I never thought of the atmosphere as a layer of the earth, but it makes sense that it is since it plays such a huge role in everything that happens on earth. All in all, very cool video.

Models, Analogues and Simulations

I am still a little confused as to how an analogue and model are different, but I'll take a stab at it. A model is something physical that you make to represent something else-and it is usually made to look like a smaller version of the real thing. An analogue is like a model in that it is representing something, but it uses different components than the real thing (i.e. like an analogy for something.) A simulation is the actual process of imitation. For instance, we simulated making different kinds of rocks in class: sedementary, metamorphic and igneous.
My group made rice krispy treats, which were analogous of sedementary rocks because there you could see the "sediments" (i.e. the puffed  rice) in the final product.The peanut brittle and sea foam I think are both analagous of igneous rocks because in order to get the final "rock" product, we had to melt the candy & then let it cool-just like igneous rocks.Although we didn't make butterfingers in class, we got to bite into one lengthwise and then observe what we saw. I think you were trying to show us how there are many different platey layers that look like they were fused together -analagous of a metamorphic rock formation.

Mixtures and Bonding

A mixture is two or more substances which have been combined such that each substance retains its own chemical identity. An example of this that we did in class is the cornstarch and water mixture. These elements did not change. You can also draw out your original ingredients easily(-ie they will eventually turn back into cornstarch and water.)

A bond is different in that it is two or more substances that when combined create a new substance (with new chemical makeup). We did this experiment when we mixed the water, glue and borax soap solution that made a chemical bond called a polymer. Also you cannot draw out the original ingredients because they have already reacted chemically (unless you chemically pull them apart).

Review Questions Ch. 15 & 16

Ch 15-3,4,6,7,11 and 12

The major change that Copernicus made in the Ptolemaic system was first that he believed Earth is a planet and unlike the other scholors he believed the Earth, along with the other known planets, revolved around the sun-NOT that the planets revolved around the Earth. A few years after his death, another scholar, Tycho Brahe came along and he "designed and built pointers (not exactly telescopes yet), but they were able to measure locations of "heavenly bodies"-mostly Mars. These measurments turned out to be very precise and became his "legacy to astronomy." Brahe also had a theory about the stars and their location in the sky, which is now known as "stellar parallax". Later Galileo, with the aid of a telescope, (something the other scholors did not have), proved many ideas that Capernicus believed as well as disspelled previous beliefs of others. In the Capernican system, Venus orbits the sun, and all of the phases of Venus should be visible from Earth-he proved this to be true with his observations of the phases and the varying sizes of Venus. Then along came Newton. Newton agreed with Galileo that "the natural tendency for a moving object is to continue moving at a uniform speed and in a straight line"-this idea of "inertia" is Newton's first law of motion and the first action in regards to planetary motion. The second action would have to be something that then caused these objects to not go in a straight line out in space. He formulated that there was is a gravitational force that is abound within our solar system. I found the most interesting paragraph to be this idea: "If gravity were somehow eliminated, Earth would move in a straight line out into space and if Earth's forward motion stopped, gravity would pull it directly toward the sun." Wow!

The three materials thought to make up the planets are gases, rocks and ices. The gases are hydrogen and helium and have melthing points near absolute zero. The rocks are mostly silicate minerals and metallic iron and have melting points that exceed 700 degrees C. The ices include ammonia, methane, carbon dioxide and water-they all have different melting points. The terrestrial planets are more dense and contain mostly rocky and metallic substances, with minor amounts of ices.  The Jovian planets contain large amounts of gases, ices  and some rocky and metalitc materials (found mostly in their core). The fact that the Jovian planets are mostly made of gases and ice though, is why they are much less dense than the Earthlike planets.

The events that lead to the creation of the solar system are still debated today, but the most widely accepted view is that of the "Big Bang Theory". In this theory, there was a "very large explosion that sent all matter of the universe flying outward at incredible speeds." The debris cooled and condensed and became what we now know as stars and galaxies-in our galaxy, The Milky Way, is where the Earth was formed. There was some other stuff about "nebular hypothesis" and "solar nebula","planetesimals" and "protoplanets" that confused me. I don't understand if this is a seperate theory than the Big Bang or if it is in conjuction with it?

Ch 16-2,5,10,22, and 25

The most basic method of determining stellar distances is by the "stellar parallax" which is a measurment of the slight back and forth shifting of a nearby star due to the orbital motion of Earth. "The nearest stars have the largest parallax angles, whereas those of distant stars are too slight to measure." You can learn a lot about stars by its color-namely its tempurature. Blue stars are very hot, red stars are much cooler. If a star is yellow, it is hotter than a red star but not nearly as hot as blue stars. This can be seen on the HR diagram as well. A star will spend most of it's life as a main sequence star, which the HR diagram will also show you (since over 90% of the stars lie in this main sequence section.)

There are three general types of galaxies: spiral, elliptical and irregular.Spiral galaxies are obviously spiral, and if you look at one from the side you will see a bright central bulge. Spiral galaxies can have "tightly wound" or "loosely wound" arms. Some have a bright "bar" running thought them also.Our galaxy is an example of a Spiral galaxy.Elliptical galaxies (the most abundant group of galaxies), are usually smaller than spiral galaxies. They are elliptical in shape and they do not have spiral arms. Irregular galaxies do not have a symmetrical shape and the stars that are contained within these galaxies are mostly young (unlike elliptical galaxies that contain older stars and spiral galaxies that have a mix of old and new).

As I was talking about before, the Big Bang theory is the most widely recognized theory of how the earth and solar system were formed. The evidence that suggests this theory is true is the idea of an "expanding universe" (ie. all galaxies (except for the very nearest) are moving away from us.) I think a big misnomer these days is that if you are Christian you can't believe in things like the Big Bang and evolution. As a Christian , I agree with this theory in the same way I believe in evolution. I wholeheartedly agree with what science has proven to be true, but the scientists can only speculate on events that occured before the bang, no one knows that for sure. That is where my belief in God lies.

Budget

If you had a $100.00 and each dollar represented 1 unit of mass, how much would the sun cost?

I think it would cost about $60.00 and $40.00 would be allocated to the other planets as follows:

Mercury-1.00
Venus-6.00
Earth-7.00
Mars-2.00
Jupiter-13.00
Saturn-7.00
Uranus-3.00
Neptune-1.00

I learned I was wrong! The sun actually would be worth $99.85. I was also wrong on my guesses on the sizes of the other planets (except I got knew Jupiter and Saturn were the biggest so all is not lost..:) The actual monetary worth of the planets are as follows:

Mercury-.00002 cents -smallest planet, but closest to sun
Venus-.0003 cents-about same size as earth-also brightest planet
Earth-.0003 cents
Mars-.00004 cents-Highly varied and interesting terrain, "Red Planet"
Jupiter-10.6 cents-largest planet- Gas planet-90% hydrogenSaturn- 3.2 cents-has rings composed of particles

Uranus-.006 cents-Gas planet. Bluish color, also has rings but are harder to see than Saturn.
Neptune-.005 cents-Gas planet, also bluish color and also has rings but are harder to see than Saturn.

Harvard Grad-Science Misconceptions

Why do we have the seasons? The seasons change bacause the earth is rotating around the sun. When we are the furthest from the sun it is winter and as we get closest to the sun it is summer. The seasons differ in different parts of the world because of this as well.

Why do we have phases of the moon? We have different phases of the moon because as the earth is rotating, its shadow projects onto the moon.

I learned that I was among the same group of people who have the wrong ideas about the seasons and the lunar phases. I learned the different seasons are caused by the tilt of the earth's axis in regards to the sun, which it orbits. As the earth orbits the sun tilted at an angle, it is closer to the Sun at different points.

I also learned the we have phases of the moons because they are produced by the alignment of the Moon and the Sun in the sky.

Introduction Questions

1. Name the specific Earth science described by each of the following statements:

a. This science deals with the dynamics of the oceans---Oceanography.
b.This word literally means "Study of the Earth."---Geology.
c.An understanding of the atmosphere is the primary focus of this science.---Meteorology.
d.This science helps us understand Earth's place in the universe.---Astronomy.

4. The oceans cover nearly 71% of Earth's surface and contain about 97% of the planet's total water supply.

5. What are the two sources of energy for the Earth system?---The sun and the Earth's interior.