Social Studies 2

Chromium Commotion

The Natural Resources Defense Council and the Interfaith Community Organization had some pretty serious issues with Pittsburgh. They sued the city for chromium pollution from 25 years ago. Many people with the power to do something about the pollution have ignored it for years. Not many see it as urgent as the people who live and work in the area. The lot of a demolished building is hazardous to many people's health. So finally, the NRDC and ICO decided to sue Pittsburgh on Febuary 3rd, 2009. They aren't looking for anything more than the area to be cleaned up.

What they are trying to get across is that the amount of pollution is more than legal, and something has to be done. Jersey City has been waiting 25 years for it to be cleaned up, and it hasn't. In my opinion, they deserve a clean area to live and work. People who live down the street won't want to walk outside for some fresh air on a warm summer night. Playing outside in the snow won't be pleasing when the smell is sickening. All in all, the fair thing to do in this case is have Pittsburgh clean up the mess they started.

Source: nj

Social Studies Blog One

Inauguration Celebration!

On January twentieth, almost every eye was glued on Barack Obama as he delivered the inaugural oath. "I Barack Hussein Obama...." were the beginning words of what will go down in history. His twenty minute speech was inspirational, as he delivered with such quality and dignity. His inspiration was Abraham Lincoln, and like Honest Abe, Obama will go down in history as the first ever African-American president. 

For  the first article, I looked at the New York Times. They absolutely positively  had great things to say about our 44th president. "He spoke to a sea of people... with just over a million covering the national mall." They didn't even mention the rest who were watching at home, work, or school. For those who don't know, the national mall is 300 acres stretching from the white house to the Washington memorial. Obama addressed himself as "...a man whose father not even sixty years ago might not have been served at a restaurant." Well look at where that father's son got today. After reciting the oath on Lincoln's bible, he had lunch with the continental congress and marched in the parade. The Inauguration was a day to remember.

The Washington Times sure did have a good word. They said than the The American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association encouraged bringing the inauguration into classrooms. They said it was "Not only important the students understand we are watching and making history, but carrying out the wishes of Dr. King..." So this inaugural was in the will of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. I believe that they are right, and that this inaugural stands for something bigger.

In my opinion, this inaugural was history. Personally, I saw it, I witnessed it, I saw history. Actually, We saw it, WE witnessed it, WE saw history. All in all, we should all be proud of our nation for making history come true.

Sources: NY Times- http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/21/us/politics/20web-inaug2.html?scp=1&sq=inauguration%202009&st=cse

Washington Times- http://www.washingtontimes.com/nes/2009/jan/12/teachers-bringing-inaugural-classroom

Science Blog 6

In class activity: stations.

In our science class, we have been learning about the exciting subject of defraction, waves, and reflection. After our quiz on this, we performed this interesting activity, a rotation of stations. In these stations I discovered many new things. I did stations that showed me how colors are defracted, and how light is reflected. For one, these stations showed me the colors in a bubble defracted, and how light can be reflected off of one surface onto another. This one station showed me how water is a box. The water reflects images off of the surface, but you can not see out of the box because the water also reflects inside the box too. Or when I saw the colors defracted from the white light on the bubble, I learned that light seperates colors. I also learned about the persistence of image. An image projected onto a surface is still there in the air. When a rod is waved, it almost looks like a wall. So the image is projected onto the "wall".

All in all, I think that these stations were very prominent in the learning of these subjects.

Science Blog 5

Internet Usage.... In China: And my opinion about what the government does with those users.

China's internet network center has reported that forty-two percent more people are using the internet. But, internet penetration has reached its highest ever global average. By the end of 2008, 298 million people were using the internet (about the same as the population of the USA), but ninety percent of those users use broadband connections. Internet penetration  has reached  twenty-two point six percent by the end of 2008 along with that. 

My opinion about all this is that they need to get out some more. With over 298 million internet users, it shows that many people are not getting the exercise they need. If the body is sitting in front of a computer for too long, the calories are not burned and people gain weight. Also, if staring at a screen for too long, eyesight can get bad. But what surprises me most is what the government does to these users. The Chinese government monitors the users activity and checks out any suspicious activities. They have been known to arrest blog writers for many different reasons. Overall, I personally do not approve of this habit.

Source: http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=212900560&subSection=Browsers

THE CHRISTMAS TRUTH

I hate to break it to all the little people in the world, there is a truth we have to face. If santa's sleigh really weighs 365,000 tons, and he travels at 150 miles per second, the friction is so great that him and his reindeer would burst into flames. Also, jesus was really born in june (says science,) so christmas should be in june.

ECOLOGY: THE TEST

In science class, the past unit we have been working on is ecology. Our teacher taught us everything from food webs, to predator and prey, to symbiosis. We learned about energy flow through an ecosystem and created energy pyramids. With everything that was taught to us, I pondered the thought of what more can I learn? I discovered that when energy flows through an ecosystem, each organism loses 90% of it's energy to heat. Therefore it gives only 10% of it's energy to the organism which consumes or decomposes it. Look at the figure below:

Notice how the sun is losing 90% of it's energy to heat, and is only giving 10% to the producer. This is why the lower in the food pyrimid, the more energy it recieves. Not only did I learn more about the energy flow, but I saw a big food web. In this food web, I was able to notify the who got the least energy.

The Decayed Material has the most energy, whilst the Kookaburra and Manned Geese have the least amount. I infer that since humans are at the top of the food web, they are the organisms with the least energy. On a food pyrimid, there are many different levels. They start with the first trophic level, which includes, autotrophs. There are two kinds of autotrophs in this level. They are photoautotrophs(which includes plants), and also chemoautotrophs, which is bacteria. Then there is the second trophic level. These include herbivores and decomposers. Also know as primary consumers. The third trophic level includes the primary carnivores and secondary consumers. These are the organisms who eat the herbivores. The fourth trophic level includes the secondary carnivores, and the tertiary consumers. These are the organisms who eat other carnivores.

sources:

http://www.usoe.k12.ut.us/curr/Science/sciber00/8th/energy/sciber/ecosys.htm

http://arnica.csustan.edu/boty1050/Ecology/ecosystems.htm

Fungi and Squash: The Parasitic Relationship

As you may infer from my title, this blog post is about Fungi and Squash. You also may see that this is a parasitic relationship. I had to do a report on a symbiotic relationship in science class. I had to take a photograph of a parasitic, commensal, or mutualistic relationship in our area. I also had to write a paragraph about the symbiotic relationship of my choice and how it is important to the ecosystem. I was so interested in this subject that I decided to do some extra research on my own! For instance, I had no idea that that my decorative winter vegetable could be giving back to the earth it came from. That's because the fungi decomposes the squash, which makes the squash give minerals and vitamins back to the earth, making other squash and trees and plants grow to be big some day.

You may wonder why the fungi grows on random surfaces. Well, when, lets say a leaf, contains too much nitrogen, the fungi will grow until it decomposes the leaf. But before we get into the main swing of things, did you realize that there are many processes to decomposition. First, when rain water comes, it will leach the leaf, which will make it easier to decompose. The same thing happens to the squash. Since the area I live in is very wet, it was easier for the fungi to be created. After the leaching, the fungi grows, decomposing the squash. I also discovered that the more oxygen uptake, the longer it takes to decompose. Personally, I always thought that my squash just decided to rot away on it's own, now I know the truth! Who knew decomposition could be such a complex topic?