All About Tornadoes

http://www.omegatornadoes.webs.com/

By:
greendragon
the environmentalist
sk8er789

Lit. Poems

“Liesel”

Caring, courageous, and daring
Who loves her parents, Papa and Mama
Who feels the desire to read
Who needs the encouragement of friends
Who shares her love of words with others
Who fears being alone
Who’d like to see her loved ones again
Who dreams of her dying brother
Who ends up a survivor

By:
Death

“Books and Fire”

Books
Intriguing, educational
Reading, writing, analyzing
Comforting, soothing, distracting, powerful
Burning, smoking, consuming
Bright, destructive
Fire

By:

greendragon

The Adventure Aquarium

My unit just finished learning about phylums in science class. There are about 35 major phylums into which biologists classify members of the animal kingdom. To reinforce what we had learned about phylums, the school planned a trip for us to the Adventure Aquarium in Camden, New Jersey so that we could see some of the animals we had read about. On Friday, May 7, 2010, we went on our field trip to the aquarium. I have visited the aquarium at least a dozen times. But each time I go I am still amazed at the views of the Ocean Realm. The Ocean Realm is this enormous tank. It has a huge collection of sea creatures freely swimming around in it. There are sharks, stingrays, shark rays and loggerhead sea turtles. There is a four hundred pound turtle named Bob that I always look for when I visit the aquarium. One strange thing about Bob is that Bob is a female turtle. Bob, a loggerhead turtle, is in the phylum Chordata. The sharks, stingrays and shark rays that share the Ocean Realm with Bob are also in the phylum Chordata. The Chordata is the animal phylum with which everyone is most familiar with because it includes humans and other vertebrates. You can sit and watch this beautiful collection of marine animals gliding by, giving us a glimpse into their ocean world. I also enjoy walking through the shark tunnel. As you walk through the tunnels, sharks are swimming all around you. They seem so close. Sometimes I think I can reach out and touch them. But if you want to touch a real shark, you have to go to the Touch-A-Shark exhibit. In this exhibit, you can actually touch sharks, not the great white sharks or hammerhead sharks that you see in the shark tunnel, but smaller white-spotted bamboo sharks. All these sharks are in the phylum Chordata. Another fascinating area is the Jules Verne Gallery. As you walk through the gallery you will see several exhibits displaying all different kinds of sea creatures. I especially liked the giant octopus, jellyfish and the giant spider crabs. The giant octopus is in the phylum Mollusca, which are invertebrates with soft, un-segmented bodies that are often protected by a hard outer shell. The jellyfish is in the phylum Cnidaria, which use stinging cells to capture food and defend themselves. The giant spider crab is in the phylum Arthropoda, invertebrates that have an exoskeleton, a segmented body, and jointed appendages. Irazu Falls is also a good place to stop by. There’s a waterfall and you can see some enormous fish from the Amazon swimming in the tank. If you like tropical fish, you should go to the area in the aquarium called the Caribbean Currents. There are hundreds of brightly colored tropical fish. If you look close enough, you’ll see some seahorses too. All these tropical fishes and the seahorses are in the phylum Chordata. Penguin Island is another great area to visit especially during feeding time. The penguins are in the phylum Chordata. These penguins are really smart. They know when it’s feeding time because they all gather at the door where the aquarium workers enter with food. It’s fun to see them swim and fight for food.




I really enjoyed our trip to the Adventure Aquarium. In my opinion, visiting the aquarium helped reinforce what we learned about phylums. Sure you can look at pictures and drawing, but seeing the real thing is much more interesting. I, like most students, learn best by seeing, touching and feeling objects that we have learned about in science class.

Air Pressure Lab

Today, I completed the Air Pressure lab. I placed a plastic bag over the top of a jar and secured it with a rubber band to the top of the jar. I tried pushing the plastic bag into the jar but the air pressure in the bag made it difficult to do this. The air pressure inside the bag was higher than the air pressure on the outside of the bag. As I pushed down the plastic bag I felt the air pressure in the bag pushing back preventing me from pushing the plastic bag into the jar.


In the second part of the experiment, I put the plastic bag into the jar and secured it to the top of the jar with the rubber band. Then I tried to pull the plastic bag out of the jar. When the bag is inside the jar, the air pressure inside the bag is higher. Air pressure was pushing the bag down into the jar and there wasn’t enough air pressure between the bottom of the bag and the jar to allow the bag to be pulled up.

Interactive Temperature Game

I played the Interactive Temperature Game. The purpose of the game was to match the temperatures of certain icons to their actual temperature. I was given the choice of playing the game using the Celsius, Fahrenheit or Kelvin temperature scales. On the Fahrenheit scale, water at sea level freezes at 32 degrees Fahrenheit and boils at 212 degrees Fahrenheit. The Fahrenheit scale is mainly used in the United States. On the Celsius scale, water at sea level freezes at 0 degrees Celsius and boils at 100 degrees Celsius. The Celsius scale is used by most other countries to report temperature. On the Kelvin scale, water freezes at 273.15 Kelvin and boils at 373.15 Kelvin. The Kelvin scale is the international standard for scientific measurement of temperature and is used mainly by scientists. When we measure temperature, we are measuring how fast the molecules or atoms, in a substance, are moving.

Green House Effect

Article Title: 2 More Glaciers Gone From National Park


The melting of glaciers around the world has accelerated in recent years. More than 90 percent of the worldwide glaciers are melting. Scientists believe increasing temperatures brought about by higher atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases are the cause of this melting. Glacier National Park is one of the places experiencing this accelerated melting. There were once 150 glaciers in Glacier National Park. A glacier needs to be 25 acres in order to receive a name. Thirty-seven of the glaciers in the park were large enough to be given names. Glacier National Park has recently lost two more named glaciers, Shepard Glacier and Miche Waburn Glacier, to melting. Of the 37 named glaciers only 25 remain. Geological evidence shows that these glaciers have existed for seven thousand years. Unfortunately, scientists predict that several of the park’s largest glaciers will disappear by 2020.


It’s sad to read that glaciers that have existed for thousand of years are melting away. In my opinion, the glaciers in Glacier National Park as well as the glaciers in the Himalayas, the Alps and all around the world will start to disappear due to global warming and the greenhouse effect. Studies have shown that an increase of greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, in the atmosphere has caused the Earth’s temperature to rise at a faster rate than in the past. This temperature rise is melting the glaciers of the world. I hope this article will make people more aware of the effects of greenhouse gases and its effect on world’s glaciers. It is not too late to save the glaciers. Hopefully, people as well as the world governments will do something to decrease greenhouses gases so that the glaciers will not disappear.

Convection Popcorn Lab

Today, I completed the Convection Popcorn lab. My teacher used a popcorn popper to make popcorn. She placed the kernels in the popper. She turned on the popper. Hot air created by the popper transferred heat to the kernels, making the kernels expand and pop. There are three ways to heat something: conduction, convection and radiation. In this experiment, the popcorn was heated by convection. Convection heating occurs when heat is transferred by the movement of a gas or a liquid. In this lab, the movement of the hot air (a gas) transferred heat to the kernels. When heat was added to the kernels, the water in the kernel’s soft starchy insides turned to steam. The steam expanded so rapidly that it broke the hulls of the corn kernels and the starchy insides of the kernels expanded with air.