Ocean Resources

Students in Oceanography class, which is taken by high school juniors and seniors, were assigned a research topic with presentation for their final assignment. Presentations, given by the students during their final exam period, were a wonderful wrap-up to oceanography and segue to marine biology next semester. Their presentations also provided a means for covering a lot of ocean resource topics in a short time period, as each student was assigned a different resource, but all with the same essential question:

The assignment

Big Idea: The ocean and humans are inextricably interconnected. The oceans are a connected system of water in motion that transports matter and energy around Earth’s surface.

Assignment:  In the role of a marine scientist, you will research a marine resource and present an argument for a position related to use of that resource, supporting your position with scientifically valid evidence.

Product:  On the day of the final exam you will (1) turn in a 3- to 5- page paper, and (2) give a five- to ten-minute oral presentation, with video support, of your research results.

Commercial Fisshing slide by Jesse

Marine Resource Topics:

To make sure that each student had a separate research topic, I printed the following list in large font and spread them out on the table for students to choose from. Sometimes I assign by putting the topics in a “hat” and students choose blindly, but this is typically followed by a lot of negotiations for swapping; the way I did it this time still had negotiations, but between only those that were quickest with the grab rather than everyone. No perfect way to do this because everyone wants coral reefs.

• Petroleum and natural gas
• Marine sand and gravel
• Magnesium and magnesium compounds
• Salt
• Manganese Nodules
• Phosphorite Deposits
• Metallic Sulfides
• Fresh Water from the Ocean
• Methane hydrates
• Offshore wind energy
• Energy from waves and currents
• Energy from ocean vertical thermal gradient
• Coastline protection
• Coral Reefs
• Medicine and drugs
• Crustaceans and molluscs
• Commercial fishing practices
• Aquaculture
• Whaling
• Managing biological resources

Students were encouraged to narrow down their topics to make them more manageable. For example, “Aquaculture” could be narrowed down to shrimp farming.

To make the assignment clear to the students, I broke the description into two pages: the paper and the presentation.

slide by Jessie

slide by Jenni

slide by Sam

Research Guidelines:

Wave Energy by Jacob

1.Required Length: 1000 words (approximately three pages of text), not including references and not including quoted material.

2.  Required references: a minimum of five relevant scientific articles and/or internet sites related to the topic. This is the minimum amount of reference material — you may need more to do an adequate job of researching your topic.

3.  Things to focus on in your research:

• define the problem – what part of the world’s ocean does it affect?
• how did the problem come about? How is the problem being made worse by humans/is it being made worse by humans? What are the various causes of the problem?
• what are some possible solutions to the problem? Are any of the feasible?  How will we implement some of these solutions?
• what is the importance or significance of the topic?
• what methods have scientists used to investigate the topic?
• what kinds of information and data have scientists found?
• what major results and conclusions have scientists made, based on the above?

4.  Format of the paper:

• Lead off with a separate title page, containing: title, your name, course name, school name, date
• Body of at least three pages of text (~1,000 words):
• Begin the body with an introduction: a section (one or two paragraphs) that clearly states the purpose of the paper and reviews the main points that the paper will cover
• Break up the paper into logic sections using subheadings to identify the subject of the different sections
• End the paper with a conclusion (one or two paragraphs) that wraps up and summarizes in specific ways the main points of the paper
• Spell-check and grammar-check! (sloppy spelling errors and poor grammar will result in a poor grade)
• A page (or more) of references per MLA guidelines

5.  Submitting your paper: Submit your paper in electronic format, preferably in Microsoft Word or Google doc.

6.  Plagiarism: Don’t. Just don’t. You know better.

Background and Reflective Thoughts

Our school only teaches MLA formatting. With my 18-year background of  writing engineering documents, I find it frustrating to constantly be getting english-style essays rather than scientific documents. Starting next year, I plan on teaching my students APA formatting, and directing students to understand the difference between technical writing and english-essay writing.

The word length is only 1000 words because I wanted the students focussed on finding good resources and highlighting the issues, rather than being focussed on “getting the right number of words”. In meeting the research requirements most students were concerned that they had gone too far over the minimum.

Our librarian has stacks of research record templates in different colors for students to use to document their research, with teachers assigning a different color for the type of resources, e.g., blue for a book, green for technical article, etc.. Our librarian has, for her entire career here, been proactive in helping students to learn the difference between “good” and “bad” resources, to understand what paraphrasing is and isn’t, and to use databases beyond the internet. She teaches all freshmen how to research a topic and has written a research guide for students.

Drugs and medicine by Emma

• A coral reef is the rainforest of the ocean with all its diversity.” – Sam

Presentation Guidelines:

You may use the board, posters, handouts, or a PowerPoint presentation to help provide visual aids. Following your presentation, there will be time for a few questions. You should know your topic well enough to answer all reasonable questions on the topic. Grades will be based on both what you present and how well you know the information.

If you just read a few paragraphs directly from a sheet of paper or from your slides and cannot answer basic questions on your topic without your notes, you should not expect a passing grade on the presentation.

You have studied many physical aspects of the ocean. Include a detailed discussion of at least one of these in your paper and presentation. They include:

• Understand and describe some important properties of water: Before we can understand the numerous and amazing ways the oceans impact our lives on land, we need to understand some special qualities of water. Properties such as surface tension, capillary action and solvency make water one of the most unique substances on Earth.
• Explain how waves form and shape the coastline. Understanding conditions on the shore will help us understand some ocean habitats.
• Describe the differences between wave and current formation and qualities.
• Explain how ocean currents influence climate on land.
• Describe and identify ocean floor features Understanding the shape of the ocean floor will help us understand ocean habitats.
• Analyze different ocean zones of life and categorize organisms that live in each.

Background and Reflective Thoughts

I enjoyed the student presentations and really wish I had thought to video tape them.  To make sure that students were paying attention to other presentations, they were given a sheet of paper to record thoughts and impressions, and this paper was collected:

I was inspired by many of the presentations and it gave me the idea that, in my mixed CP/Honors Marine Biology class next semester, the honors students (who will have work in addition to the rest of the class) should give presentations to the CP students.

A couple of closing thoughts from the students:

• “Fishing to extinction of species is evolution going in the wrong direction.” – Josh

• “You never think about not having earth’s resources until you do not have them anymore, but by then it is too late. Everyone must be mindful of Earth’s natural resources because so we do not find out one day that they’re all gone. ” – Kelsey

Amen to that.

Tides and Currents Resources: Webquest

Your assignment today is to discover and explore some of the many resources available to navigators and meteorologists and scientists.  When you complete this exploration, you will blog a comprehensive discussion online. In your blog post, you must use headings (to separate ideas), insert links (they are your references), and add pictures (for visual interest – cite them!).  Publish your post and post your url in the schoolloop assignment discussion.

Tides Online:

What data is provided on the “State Maps”?  How is it organized?  What is the usefulness of the various pieces of information presented on the state maps?  Are there any special notices or alerts?

Sea Level Trends

Explore the features of this page. Explain the sea level trends depicted. Select a datum point on the east coast as an example.  Show the linear trends graph for your example.

Mean Sea Level Trends for Northwest Atlantic Ocean & Seas Stations

How does the data presentation differ from the previous mapping? In what way does this presentation help understanding?

Coastal Cleanup Data Indicates Cigarette Butts and Plastic Pieces are the Most Common Items

“This year, more than 7,000 volunteers removed nearly 10,500 pounds of debris from coastal areas, capturing it before it could pollute the ocean. More alarming than the unusual items, says cleanup organizers, is that volunteers removed nearly 207,800 pieces of trash including more than 75,000 cigarette butts, 23,500 plastic pieces and 17,500 bits of plastic foam (the top three items removed).” – excerpt from press release by Surfrider Foundation’s San Diego County Chapter.

Toxicity of cigarette butts, and their chemical components, to marine and freshwater fish

Read the background of this article.  Select some quotes from this article to copy and paste into your post.  Reference this quote and link to the article.  Write a comment to this information.

Massachusetts Bays Program

What is the status of clamming for human consumption in mass?  How does this relate to tides and currents?

State of the Beach/State Reports/MA/Water Quality

Scroll through this site, making notes of the information contained therein. What information is available to the community on this Beachapedia? What rules apply to beaches and coastlines?  What does this have to do with tides and currents?

 

New England Aquarium Field Trip

On the field trip you were given a New England Aquarium scavenger hunt booklet to complete. You were also encouraged to take photographs. Now it is time to share your learning with others, through your blog post.  Your post must answer all the components of your booklet, as illustrated and outlined below.

• Extended observation of one organism

• Report on six exhibits

(You may have substituted the jelly exhibit for one of these.)

• Describe the mission of the New England Aquarium and how it is conveyed throughout the exhibits

• Share experiences from the touch tank and the giant ocean tank

Normal criteria for a blog post apply:

• 150 words
• pictures (if they are not yours, provide a citation!)
• links to additional information (at a minimum, provide a link to the New England Aquarium, but other links could take readers to additional information on particular animals, such as penguins)
• provide appropriate keywords on your post
• publish and share the link

 

Naming Chemicals in Our Life

Below you will see labels for several products commonly used in daily life. Using only a periodic table, locate fifteen compounds in the given products of which you can determine the chemical formula. Write what product(s) it is found in (if found in multiple products list all), and the chemical name in the ingredients list on the package. Determine the chemical formula and whether it is an ionic or covalent compound. Some compounds will be written in an improper chemical way, please correct the name if needed. You must find at least one acid and one covalent compound. You may search for additional, similar product labels.

Scoring: 1 point for every correct formula and classification; +1 for every corrected name

	Product	Chemical Name on Package	Chemical Formula	Ionic or Covalent	Correct chemical name (if not proper)
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15

 

Short Answer Questions

1. What was the most prevalent element in all the compounds you found today?
2. What type of compound was most prevalent, ionic or covalent? __________________ Suggest a practical reason why this might be?
3. Which type of chemical compound was easier to formulate from the name, ionic or covalent? _____________ Explain why?
4. Name one compound that contained a polyatomic ion. _______________. What is the charge of the polyatomic ion? What is the formula for the polyatomic ion?

Reflection:

1. Were any of the products you investigated a product you currently use in your home? What one(s)?
2. Did you experience a “Wow, I didn’t know that!” moment during your investigation. Did you learn something you want go home and tell your parents about?
3. How does this activity make you think about chemistry in the physical world?

Bottom of the Sea Webquest

Plate Tectonics and the Seafloor

The people who first mapped the seafloor were aboard military vessels during World War II, using echo sounders  to search for submarines. The results produced a map of seafloor depths. Depth sounding continued after the war. Scientists used this information to produce bathymetric maps of the seafloor. During WWII and in the decade or so later, echo sounders had only one beam, so they just returned a line showing the depth beneath the ship. Later echo sounders sent out multiple beams and could create a bathymetric map of the seafloor below. Using the resources provided, answer the following questions, in complete sentences, on your blog. You may copy and paste these questions and resources, to get you started.

• What is a bathymetric map? Provide a picture of a bathymetric map. What are three ways that these maps are produced?  http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Bathymetry
• What does “sonar” mean? After watching this two-minute video, describe what NOAA scientists use sonar for: http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/sonar.html
• What is “seafloor spreading”?  http://www.geolsoc.org.uk/Plate-Tectonics/Chap1-Pioneers-of-Plate-Tectonics/Harry-Hess
• Describe the following image and how it occurs. Identify a location in the ocean where this may be found. http://www.geolsoc.org.uk/Plate-Tectonics/Chap1-Pioneers-of-Plate-Tectonics/Vine-and-Matthews

Magnetic Stripes

• Name the seven major and eight minor tectonic plates, and describe why they are broke into two categories.  http://www.geolsoc.org.uk/Plate-Tectonics/Chap2-What-is-a-Plate
• Explain each of the following major features of ocean basins, and how they form, providing an image for each one:
  • Mid-ocean ridge:  http://www.whoi.edu/main/topic/seamounts or  http://www.eoearth.org/view/article/164696/
  • Seamount:  http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/seamounts.html and Listen
  • Continental margin, continental shelf:  http://education.nationalgeographic.com/encyclopedia/continental-shelf/
  • Abyssal plain:  http://www.education.noaa.gov/Ocean_and_Coasts/Ocean_Floor_Features.html
  • Rift zones:  http://hvo.wr.usgs.gov/gallery/kilauea/erz/erz_overview.html
  • Deep sea trenches:  http://www.livescience.com/23387-mariana-trench.html
• The Phoenix Islands Protected Area (PIPA) is the largest Marine Protected Area in the world.One dozen seamounts are within PIPA boundaries, from sea level to 5000 meters depth. Where are these islands and what is a Marine Protected Area?  http://www.whoi.edu/main/topic/marine-protected-areas

How We Blog

A blog isn’t about being a blog, rather it is a means for communicating ideas, much as a magazine does. A blog “post”, or article, may be:

• Responding to and commenting on curriculum topics as we study them
• Creating written projects/ media projects and commenting on each other’s work
• Reflecting on coursework and individual learning
• Reviewing and sharing study strategies before tests and quizzes
• Practicing taking varied points of view on a topic
• Discussing current events
• Making classroom suggestions
• Creating FAQ pages on curriculum topics

That being said, here are some practical suggestions:

Headings are useful. Things like:

• Objective
• Introduction
• Experimental Results 
• Conclusion and Analysis

1. Don’t number things that don’t need to be numbered. Write the procedure as a paragraph. List materials with bullets. Answer questions as stand-alone text.

Use pictures. Cite them. Remember that they must be uploaded – do not copy and paste.

Don’t tire me out.

Use white space. One long paragraph in Times New Roman can tire the eyes. Make logical breaks.

Mollusk Analysis

Molluscs, Mollusks, Mollusca

Make your learning a conversation with others!  You have watched the video on mollusks. You have taken notes from the lecture. And you have dissected both a clam and a squid.  Now you must take the information and your studies of the mollusks and write an analysis, a conversation of what you learned. This analysis must be posted on your marine biology blog.

Write your analysis as a discussion or a story. Please do NOT write your analysis as a list of answered questions, even though you have been given a list of questions. The questions below are meant as a GUIDE for your discussion. Insert the answers into a story of your investigation into the world of mollusks.

You will be assessed on 1) knowledge of the subject material; 2) describing the material in your own words and in an interesting manner; and 3) personal contribution to the topic. And please provide illustrations, with citations.

Adaptation and Variation in Mollusks

• What is the morphological feature of molluscs after which the phylum is named?
• What are the biological troubles that molluscs face due to their soft body?
• Into which classes are mollusc divided? What are some representing beings of each class?
• Is there any body symmetry in the animals you dissected? Describe it.
• Describe your notes about any textures, shapes and other observable qualities in the animals you dissected.
• What is the function of the clam’s mantle?
• How does the locomotion of the squid and clam compare?
• Why do you think the squid and the octopus have camouflage, whereas the bivalves and gastropods do not?
• Compare the feeding methods of bivalves and gastropods. Of bivalves and cephalopods.
• What organs are present in both human and mollusc bodies?
• Describe the special adaptation that mussels have for surviving strong wave action along the shore.
• Why is the octopus considered to be so intelligent?
• What are examples of the ecological and economic importance of molluscs?

Be thorough and complete.

Gas Law Analysis

The purpose of the labs was to determine how pressure, temperature, and volume were related in a gas.

Make your learning a conversation with others!  You have watched demonstrations, read txt, practiced gas law equations, and done some labs. Now you must take all this learning and write an analysis, a conversation of what you learned. This analysis must be posted on your chemistry blog.

Write your analysis as a discussion or a story. Please do NOT write your analysis as a list of answered questions, even though you have been given a list of questions.  You will be assessed on 1) knowledge of the subject material; 2) describing the material in your own words and in an interesting manner; and 3) personal contribution to the topic.

Labs you have done related to the gas laws are:

Hot Balloon:  An Erlenmyer flask with approximately 50 mL of water in it and a balloon secured on top is heated, and the circumference of the balloon is measured before and after heating the water.

Cartesian Diver: A 2-liter soda bottle is filled with water and a medicine dropper placed inside. After being capped, the bottle is squeezed.

Soda Can Crush:  A soda can with a small amount of water in the bottom was heated on a hot plate, and then flipped with tongs into ice water.

Pressurized Balloon:  A 2-liter soda bottle that has a balloon inside was pressurized.

Pressure and a Bag:  Two large jars with plastic bags taped over the mouths, one inside and the other outside.

Demonstrations you have seen related to the gas laws include the Bell jar vacuum. Individually, the following were exposed to a vacuum under the bell jar:  glass of water, balloon, marshmallow, shaving cream, empty water bottle.  You also saw the press of air against an evacuated metal sphere with handles.

Need help with definitions?  WyzAnt has a decent tutorial here.

Stoichiometry Help

Interactive Practice with stoichiometry problems:

• Stoichiometry Review
• Interactive Mole-Mole and Mass-Mass Stoichiometry Tutorial
• Using Balanced Chemical Equations
• Stoichiometry Online Help
• Stoichiometry and Equations
• Stoichiometry Tutorials: Reaction Stoichiometry
• Tutorials and Problem Sets
• Review Game List

“That which you persist in doing becomes easy to do – not that the nature of the thing has changed, but your power and ability to do has increased.” — H.J. Grant

Demonstrate Understanding of Chemical Reactions

Goal: Be able to use the law of conservation of mass to write balanced chemical equations, identify the basic types of chemical reactions, and predict the possible products from a given set of reactants.

You must demonstrate your achievement of this goal.  In a blog post, (1) explain how to balance an equation and why it is important, and (2) describe different labs you did, what type of reaction it was, and provide a balanced reaction for each.  You have done synthesis, decomposition, single-replacement, and double-displacement labs.

You must also (3) describe how to predict the possible products that will occur from a given set of reactants, and (4) demonstrate your ability to predict reaction products.

As of the first week of March, chemistry students have conducted the below list of chemistry labs. Use this list to support your evidence of attainment of the above goal.

1. Baking Soda to Salt Lab
2. Limiting Reactants Lab
3. Chemical Reactions Webquest
4. Three Types of Chemical Reactions
5. Reactivity of Metals
6. Hydrate Lab
7. Molecules of Candle Burned
8. Molecules of Chalk In Your Name
9. Covalent or Ionic Bonding Lab
10. Halides Lab
11. Periodic Trends
12. Ionic vs Covalent
13. Half life of Candium
14. Isotopes of Vegium Lab
15. Rutherford Lab
16. Law of Conservation of Mass
17. The quality of Laboratory Measurements
18. Measuring Stuff: Tools and Skills
19. Density Problems
20. Lab Skills Lab
21. Observations Lab

Snow Days

How Should We Make Up Lost Time On Learning?

The headline reads: Boston in midst of snowiest 30 days on record!

Schools in eastern Massachusetts have experienced an inordinate number of snow days– ten in my school by mid-February– and students have been losing valuable learning time. Students not only lose time but they lose the momentum of learning; interruptions in schedule means that the instructor must review and repeat before continuing with the lesson.
If schools take the traditional route of tacking days onto the end of the school year, children will be in school until the last day of June. For some this may not be a problem, but there are many reasons for not taking this standard approach.

• High school seniors have a graduation date that allows them to get out earlier and do not make up missed days, thus they lose those education hours. Ten snow days results in a 27% loss of learning time for seniors taking a semester course.
• Other high-schoolers “check out” and lose focus during June and after the seniors graduate. One student phrases this as “At my school, we stop learning new material for the most part around midway through May”, and while I disagree about his statement it has been my experience that the students lose focus at the end of May.
• Many families have pre-set plans for their summer and will take their children out of school to keep their schedule.
• There are many scheduled exams that students must take and lost snow day hours are added AFTER the exam date will not help them at all. AP exams are the first two weeks in May.  The ELA MCAS exam is March 25th and 26th, the math MCAS is May 12th and 13th, and the science MCAS exam is June 2nd, all of which a student must pass to obtain a high school diploma.
• Teachers must take summer courses to maintain their certifications and many courses begin at the end of June.
• Many teachers work a summer job to help support the family.

21st Century education moves beyond standard practices and asks students to be creative, innovative, collaborative, and think outside the box. We should too. Instead of tacking school days onto the end of the year, which will not help students with their state and national exams, or asking students to make up the days on Saturdays or April vacation, which would result in a very low attendance particularly at the high school level, schools should incorporate creative and flexible methods for retrieving the learning time for students. Here are some off-the-top-of-the-head ideas and I’m sure there are many others:

• ELearning! Children are already consuming information through their smartphones, iPads, and laptops, let’s take advantage of that. Online supplemental work could be either independent and on the student’s schedule or it could be scheduled with the teacher present on the other end. Seat time is recorded by the log-in and actions of the student. The examples are endless.  Delphi school in Indiana requires students to log on during snow days. Farmington district in Minnesota uses their “Schoolology” digital platform, and Pentucket Regional School District could use their “Schoolloop” digital platform.
• Relevant work packets sent home with students that they can do on their own schedule and will count as a given set of hours when turned in. Other states, like New Hampshire, Minnesota, and Ohio have “blizzard bags”, which Burlington and Wayland schools have taken up.  This link goes to Contoocook Valley regional schools as an example of one way a blizzard bag could work.
• Extend the school day one day per week by two hours, adding time to all subjects.
• Move teacher professional development out of the student’s education time to Saturdays or the end of the year.

Teachers, administrators, and unions need to work cooperatively together to make this school year meaningful and authentic. To get to the job of educating children, let’st stop making excuses for why something CAN’T be done and look at how it CAN be done.

What Does It Take To Make?

Objective: Create a web diagram that illustrates environmental, social, and economic impacts associated with an everyday item.

Recent class discussion has considered the concept of our “ecological footprints” and the impacts of a given lifestyle on people and societies. Today, with a partner, you are to develop ideas to reduce the ecological footprint and associated impacts related to an everyday item.

Starting point for discussion of hamburger; incomplete.

Steps to get you going:

1. Brainstorm and diagram all the resources, processes, and impacts associated with one everyday object, such as an item of clothing, a favorite meal, or a piece of sports equipment. For example, if you decide to diagram the impacts of a cell phone, you would write and/or draw the resources and processes required to produce each part of the phone and all the impacts you can think of that might be related to both producing it and using it.  The Good Stuff? – A Consumption Manifesto: The Top Ten Principles of Good Consumption may give you some ideas of what to watch out for. You have five minutes for this brainstorming step.
2. Once you have decided on one item to be the focus of your impact diagram, diagram your impacts on  Prezi. Remember to consider impacts related to transportation of a product, marketing, health issues, and waste disposal. You might also want to organize your thoughts on a chart such as the one below, to help you and your partner keep track. Additional resources for research are given below. This step should take about 20 minutes.
   

   Organize Your Thoughts

3. Brainstorm and list ways to reduce the ecological footprint and other impacts associated with creating or using the product. This will take 5 – 10 minutes.
4. Publish your work! You will need to publish both your Prezi and a description and link to it on your blog.
5. Tomorrow, you and your partner will present your diagrams and proposed ideas for reducing the item’s negative impacts on people and the planet.

Analysis

After presentations have been made you will consider and write about the following:

1. How is the ecological footprint of a person’s lifestyle connected to social and economic impacts?
2. Would production, use, and disposal of these everyday items be sustainable if only a small number of people purchased the items?
3. How would the impacts associated with an item change if everyone in the world purchased or used it?
4. Does lessening our impacts necessarily mean reducing our quality of life? Why or why not?
5. How might businesses be encouraged to produce these items in ways that have more positive impact on the environment and on people?
6. Often negative impacts associated with an item are not paid directly by the people who purchase and use the items. Who might end up payiong for those impacts? Why do you think these impacts are not included in an item’s purchase price?

Resources

The Life Cycle Of A Cell Phone
The Life Cycle of a CD or DVD
The Hidden Life of Paper and Its Impact on the Environment
The hidden cost of your hardwood floor
 Global Exchange Website: Fair Trade Coffee

This lesson for environmental science students is a modification of “Buy, Use, Toss” from Facing The Future.

How Can Each Snowflake Be Unique?

This past month chemistry students have been learning how to convert between grams, molecules, and moles, so each day the bell-ringer/do-now/QOD assignment was a calculation of molecules of something familiar: chalk, candle wax burned, nicotine, aluminum foil, etc. I believe that each day’s practice helped solidify their understanding of the concept. So one day I asked how many molecules in a snow flake. Since we had to start with a mass, and I did not have time to determine the mass of a single snowflake, I turned to the internet and found Archimedes Notebook: How much does a snowflake weigh?  Thus, I gave the students the following information

Most snowflakes weigh from 0.001 to 0.003 grams, with a heavy snowflake coming in at 0.02 grams. Choose a mass within that range and calculate the number of molecules of water in the snowflake.

Thus, different students came up with different numbers of molecules, giving us a range of data.  Note:

The largest snowflake ever seen was 8 by 12 inches and was reported to have fallen in Bratsk, Siberia in 1971.

Most students elected to use the average of the lower two numbers, and calculated as follows:

That is a lot of molecules. Adding or subtracting just one molecule of water would result in a unique snowflake. And considering that water is a polar molecule, the hydrogen bonding arrangement possibilities is mind boggling.

Then we have to consider factors that affect how a snowflake develops. NOAA gives this simplified explanation, which still is not the entire story:

A snowflake begins to form when an extremely cold water droplet freezes onto a pollen or dust particle in the sky. This creates an ice crystal. As the ice crystal falls to the ground, water vapor freezes onto the primary crystal, building new crystals – the six arms of the snowflake.

…The intricate shape of a single arm of the snowflake is determined by the atmospheric conditions experienced by entire ice crystal as it falls. A crystal might begin to grow arms in one manner, and then minutes or even seconds later, slight changes in the surrounding temperature or humidity causes the crystal to grow in another way.  ~ NOAA

From snowcrystals.com we get a bit more information:

Snowflake Morphology

We see that thin plates and stars grow around -2 C (28 F), while columns and slender needles appear near -5 C (23 F). Plates and stars again form near -15 C (5 F), and a combination of plates and columns are made around -30 C (-22 F).  Furthermore, we see from the diagram that snow crystals tend to form simpler shapes when the humidity (supersaturation) is low, while more complex shapes at higher humidities. The most extreme shapes — long needles around -5 C and large, thin plates around -15 C — form when the humidity is especially high.

PBS tried to get a definitive answer to this question “So is it really true that no two snowflakes are alike?” from physicists Kenneth Libbrecht, a physics professor at the California Institute of Technology and avid snowflake photographer, and John Hallett, director of the Ice Physics Laboratory at the Desert Research Institute in Reno, Nev., and got the following response:

“It’s like shuffling a deck and getting the exact same shuffle for 52 cards,” Libbrecht said. “You could shuffle every second for the entire life of the universe, and you wouldn’t come close to getting two of the same.”

So, there you have it. While not impossible, it is highly unlikely given that there are a trillion, trillion, trillion (a 1 with 36 zeros!) different types of snowflakes.

How Many Molecules of Chalk?

A Chemistry “Do Now”

How much chalk does it take to write your name?

Figure this out!

Step 1. Mass a piece of chalk.

Step 2. Use this chalk to write your name on the board.

Step 3. Remass the chalk.

Step 4. Convert grams to moles, using the grams of chalk used.

Hint: Chalk is calcium carbonate, CaCO3

Step 5. Convert moles to molecules.

Step 6. Write and communicate everything you did and discovered in a visual.

Click on the image!

 

Current Event, Editorial, or Editorial Cartoon

Find an article (or editorial, or editorial cartoon) that relates to this week’s topic. The topics are:

• Environmental Science: Ecosystem Protection
• Oceanography: Beach Erosion

Share the article on your blog by:

1. Title as “Current Events in [topic]” (replace the bracketed word with the week’s topic).
2. Post the headline and link that headline to the article.
3. Summarize the article in a couple of sentences.
4. List the key concepts as “labels” (under “Post Settings” on the right side of the new post page).

After all students have posted, you will be visiting another student’s post and commenting on the article that person posted. Your comment must be an insight, opinion, idea or feedback that is relevant to the subject of discussion.  Be a model of good Web citizenship and keep your comments respectful and on-topic. Personal attacks, vulgar language, playing the Hitler card (follow Godwin’s Law), and comments that stray from the topic are not appropriate.

Thus, someone will comment on the article you chose. You will then be providing a response to the comment you received. Your response is to follow the same rules noted above.

Irish Pebbles 3

Just when we are looking at sand, Jessica posts these beautiful pebble pictures.

Radioactivity and Radioactive Decay

Strontium is chemically similar to calcium (note where it appears on the periodic table). If you lived in a city where there had been a nuclear accident, you and your family might be exposed to strontium-90, which is the principal health hazard in radioactive fallout because it can easily get into the water supply or milk and then be ingested by people.Strontium-90, which is a pure β-emitter, has a half-life of 28 years. This in turn gives rise to yttrium-90, which has a half-life of 64 hours and is a β-emitter in its own right, and the process finally leads to the stable zirconium-90.

Write about how the strontium-90 might accumulate in your body (teeth and bones) and how it might affect you. Include your ideas about how its half-life of 28.8 years would be important. Suggest ways that government agencies, such as your state’s department of health, might test for strontium-90. Where in your environment might scientists look for large concentrations of strontium?

Fall Leaves 1

Beautiful. Students are creating their herbariums – I hope they do the beauty of natures leaves justice.

How are models used to understand atomic theory?

The Rutherford Lab illustrated how models are used to understand atomic theory and the difficulties Rutherford faced. Use your inductive and deductive reasoning to interpret atomic theory information relayed through the textbook, lectures, and labs, and draw conclusions about how to understand atomic theory based on your best analysis. Synthesize and make connections between “information” and the use of models. This post must be 200 words in length and include an illustration.

Biodiversity Hotspots

Conservation International (CI) has asked for student assistance to develop site-specific conservation plans for biodiversity hotspots worldwide. You will select an identified hotspot, researching key species present, learn about the region and culture, and identify threats to and stakeholder roles in the region. You will then develop plans to conserve the biodiversity of the region.

Unit Essential Questions

• How do species become threatened or endangered?
• How does the disappearance of one species affect the larger system?
• What are some actions that humans might take to slow the current rate of extinction?

Unit Enduring Understandings

• Species can become threatened or endangered due to habitat loss or changes resulting from human actions or natural forces.
• The extinction of one species has consequences for the entire system due to essential species’ interactions called symbioses.
• There are a number of conservation measures that can be taken to slow or prevent the decline of a species.

Procedure

1. Select a hotspot from the list held by the teacher. Write your name on the list; only one person per hotspot. Read the overview of hotspots at http://www.conservation.org/How/Pages/Hotspots.aspx.
2. Research key species living within that ecosystem (e.g., kingdom, phylum, habitat, food needs, and so on), using http://www.cepf.net/resources/hotspots/Pages/default.aspx and other teacher-approved sites. Consider ALL organisms, not just Animalia. Count the number of relationships each species has with other species and record it on an organizer for that species.  Answer the following questions in your science journal:

• Which species are most important to your ecosystem and why (e.g., food, habitat, reproduction factor)?
• Are the important species animals? plants? fungi?
• Which species in your ecosystem has the most relationships with other species? Which have the fewest?
• What role do abiotic elements play in your ecosystem?

3. Determine and describe a conservation action that can be taken to ensure the future of the hotspot you researched. Consider the needs of the hotspot you are researching and identify one action that could be taken to better conserve the biodiversity of the area.  There are many different conservation approaches that could be taken for avoiding the extinction of a threatened species or protecting areas of key biological activity. Some of these ideas are shown in Table 1 below, but you may have ideas of your own.   Describe your action plan fully, identifying resources needed and timeline for implementation.
4. Create an online presentation of your research project. Potential online resources include google docs, prezi, glogster, weebly. You may know of others.
5. Present your research to the class in a formal and professional manner. Include documentation of recorded species and your proposed idea.

Vocabulary

Endemic:           A plant or animal native to or restricted to a certain locality, region, or area.

Biodiversity:    Biological diversity – or biodiversity – is the term given to the variety of life on Earth. It is the variety within and between all species of plants, animals and micro-organisms and the ecosystems within which they live and interact. Biodiversity is explored at three levels: genetic diversity; species diversity; and ecosystem diversity.

Biodiversity hotspots:  To qualify as a hotspot, a region must meet two strict criteria: it must contain at least 1,500 species of vascular plants (> 0.5 percent of the world’s total) as endemics, and it has to have lost at least 70 percent of its original habitat.

Table 1.  Potential Actions

Create incentives and legislation to reduce hunting pressure.
Control of invasive species.
Captive breeding programs, propagation, and re-introduction of threatened species.
More effective management of protected areas.
Adding new parks and reserves in the highest priority portions of unprotected intact habitat.
Restoring degraded habitats to provide increased connectivity (to decrease fragmentation).
Establishment, expansion and management of protected areas
Implementation of innovative economic alternatives such as ecotourism and conservation concessions.
Influence the behavior of people at the local level, through education, and at the national level, through policy work and awareness campaigns
Working with international corporations to ensure that their business practices do not contribute to further biodiversity loss.
Collaborating with a single expert to protect a threatened species to avoid its extinction
Working with the government of the country to facilitate national conservation initiatives.
Leveraging other organizations to protect biodiversity in the hotspot.