TWIS #15 Milestone

The chart below displays the measurements for each of our marshmallow challenges. My groups bars, Team Sticks & Tape, shows that we have made progress over the year. 

          This week in science , we did the marshmallow challenge for the 3rd time. This time was different though because we couldn't talk to our parters. We just worked in silence and tried to make a tower that would be stable and stand. The most difficult part was thinking of a design that could be tall , but strong enough to hold and not fall. I also looked at my spider's habitat to check up on it . My spider did die ,but I think it was due to the fact that there was barely any oxygen in the tank. The saram wrap didn't allow any new oxygen in.

          This week in science I learned how to cooperate better with my classmate's. We all helped each other to make sure that the task was complete.  We weren't supposed to talk, and I think we took that challenge on very well. I also learned that its better when you use everyone's idea in your group , because usually that leads to a better outcome. Four heads are better than one.

       
          I think the first time we did the marshmallow challenge, it was hard for everyone because we didn't know anybody, and didn't have no form of communication. Everyone's tower's came out not too tall. The second time around we had better results because we have had some time to get to know each other, and be comfortable in each others presence. The third time was a huge success because our towers came out very organized and tall. I find it interesting how no group was allowed to talk , but the towers we did were bigger than the two previous marshmallow challenge's. I think all this experience has made me better as a student, and also working in groups. I prefer working in groups because we can be open to ideas that we didn't think of.

     


            I think this year in science was very fun. I never had a experience like this before. I did dissection's, survey's, spider habitat's, and marshmallow challenge's. I only hope that next year brings more fun experiences.

This Year In Science 10th Grade Intro

      Hi , my name is Andy , i'm 15 . I like science, and its one of my favorite subjects. This year in science I definitely grew , because i’ve learned a lot of new things , and did hands - on activities that made it fun. The thing i liked the most was dissecting animals , and the spider habitat projects. Everything seemed to flow and I didn’t have no trouble. I want Debra to know that im looking forward to doing projects.


e are some guiding questions:

• Who are you? What are your personal and academic interests?
• How have you grown in science this year?
• What did you enjoy in science this year?
• What did you struggle with in science this year?
• What would you like your teacher to know about you?

This Week In Science # 14

     This week is science was very fun. We are coming closer to the end of the year , so I tried to stay on my A - game. This week , we made sure we caught up on any work that we didn't do.  We also observed our spider habitats. The spiders have grown a lot , and so have the plants that we planted a bout two weeks ago. The habitat's have also gathered a lot of humidity do to the fact that we wrapped them in saran wrap.  David also introduced us to the HIPPO Dilemma .

 


 This week in science we learned some useful information . We learned all about the HIPPO dilemma. Its basically about the things that we can do to keep our environment green. It explained different ways to use, and save energy. This could help us critically because we are runnig out of natural resources. It is said that by 2050 , we will be close to having no resources.

   

this week in science #13

        a) If we were to leave these spider habitat tanks sealed but removed all of the plants, what would happen? And why? Use these terms in your explanation: glucose, photosynthesis, energy, carbon  dioxide, oxygen. 


          - I think if we removed all plants, there would be no oxygen (02) in the tank. This , will cause the spiders and the fruit flies to die because they need oxygen in order to breathe. There would only be carbon dioxide ( C02)  in the tank because of the spider and fruit flies exhaling. So basically , with out the help of the plants in the sealed tank, all living things would die. 

This Week in Science #12

 


     This week in science I did a few interesting things. My class and I played online games that would help us   know how the food chains work. We also made booklets , that we write in everyday. We drew illustrations in the booklets and vocabulary that we learned. We also took a quiz on Friday , that tested our knowledge of the work that week. We also took notes and fixed our spider habitats that now have fruit flys for the spider to eat.

   

 
   

     This week I learned a lot about energy pyramids. I learned a lot about Cellar Spiders. I learned that cellar spiders eat fruit flys , and they have short lifespans. I also learned some vocabulary. Decomposers is a word i didn't know. It's a organism that breaks down other organisms when their dead. Last , i learned about abiotic and biotic factors that could help the spider live long.

this week in science #11

     This week in science I did a lot of hands on activities. The first thing we did , was post sticky notes on chart paper with comments, questions, and pictures about the topic on the chart paper. The next thing we did was go to the park to collect supplies for our ecosystem's. I collected flowers, twigs , and rocks. the last thing i did this week was draw a diagram of the ecosystem.  I used a lot of color and used a key so people could understand the picture.
   

   
     This week in science I learned of a lot of interesting things to. The carbon cycle was the topic people knew least about in class. The water cycle had the most illustration's. I also learned that its a good idea to draw your ecosystem first, than to make it. you should also add color to it and make it top notch so when you do your ecosystem , it comes out excellent. Last , I learned about what Zayra and Corine did this week. They learned about ecosystems in New York and about the spiders we are going to use in our environment's.

This Month in Science #10

     This month is science was very interesting ,and we did a lot of hands on projects. I am looking forward to doing other stuff like this in the future. This month ,we asked random people to fill out a survey, wich helped us find out about energy use in the Lower East Side. We asked questions such as how much garbage did you throw out today? And , How much hours of tv did you watch in the last 24 hours ? We also tested electronics to see how much watt's they use in a hour. Also, a few people from the Human Impact Group came to help us on a T-shirt project. We had to design a slogan , and sketch that brings awareness to our given topic. My group and I's slogan was " Watt's the problem ?" its catchy, and we have the perfect illustration to back it up.

 

     This month is science , I learned a lot. The people from the Human Impact Group taught , and gave us ideas on how to create slogans and sketches that would draw attention. I also learned about the people in the Lower East Side. While doing the survey , to my surprise I learned that people in the Lower East Side recycle a lot. Most people in the Lower East side use cars to. Last, I learned that men watch less T.V than women. I also learned that we use a lot of energy when we dont realize it. If you leave your phone plugged in over night, it uses a lot of energy up. I learned a lot of useful information about the energy that we use , and how much we really use it without realizing. This whole month was about energy, the ways we use it, and I enjoyed it.

Human Impact Ad Campaign

This picture displays a outlet , preventing the device from being plugged in. The outlet doesn't want to plugged in because it uses energy. This shows that the "watts" are the problem.

High-Altitude Wind Machines Could Power New York City

     This article talks about a good idea for new york in the future. The DOE  expects to set up wind machines to collect energy for new york. This could help get more energy for New York and save energy also. They displayed a picture of how the typical generator will look. There are also videos showing how to the generators  move, and work. The Author is arguing that this is way better than using the dangerous fossil fuels that could hurt our environment.

     I think this article is very interesting. This could really help us be more green and environmental. I love this idea and i think they should put it in effect very soon. I agree with this article because this is a good idea that could help New York save money and be more efficient. I'm wondering why they haven't thought of this earlier , because we could really use this.

    The picture below displays a picture of how the generators would look.

This week in science #9

     This week in science I did alot of dissecting. I disected a skate , and a perch. The insides of the animals were very interesting. The perch had a yellowish liver that was easily removed . I also had to help my friend cut their skate's stomach. I liked the skate alot because it was huge !

     This week in science I learned how to dissect. It was petty easy , just use the scalp to cut a small incision then use the scissors to cut the skin easily . I learned that the liver of a perch is yellowish . I also learned how to distinguish a male and female perch. I know how to distinguish a male and female skate too. One more key componet i learned was how to work well with my partners. I learned how to be organized and work together so everything goes smoothly.

   

  Both the perch and skate , had livers . They looked similar but not exactly the same. The liver works the same , to clean out liquids. They both had gills too , but the perchs gills were slight smaller. They use these gills to breathe underwater. They both had brains too. The brain on the perch was very weird because it did not look like I expected it to look. I found this very cool.

This week In Science #8

     This week in science I dissected a Crawfish. These two pictures above show a Crawfish. The first picture shows the head view of the Crawfish. They use their antenna as their second eyes. This feature helps them feel vibrations in their environment. The proximal of the antenna connects at the head. The Distal is the end of the antenna. This adaption allows them to get away from predators and help them survive . The dorsal view of the craw fish displays all the antennas and eyes. The ventral view displays the Crawfish's abdomen , where the body segments are.

     This week in science I learned a lot of interesting things. While dissecting , I learned that the liver of a Crawfish is yellow/orange color . One question that I have is,  how does a Craw fish find food if it doesn't have its antenna ? Also, do Crawfish have good eye sight ? I can also make a connection with my animal , because earlier on the year we did a project where our animals had to adapt to an environment . This is similar because i learned that a Craw fish uses its antenna to feel around it environment , and this is a perfect example of animals adapting to their environment.
   

This Week In Science #7

In this project i had to make my animal adapt to a whole new environment. My group members and I made our animal's fit into a tropical rain forest , previously a alpine biome. I had to draw every members animal after their adaption.  I colored it , and it showed every animal in they're new biome.

I learned a lot about new animals. I never knew that a snow leopard excised. They come from the alpine biome and have thick white - yellowish fur to keep them warm. They also have long furry tails for balance and to keep them warm.

Classification Challenge

this is a Uca pugnax 

Kingdom - Animalia ( means its an animal ). 

Phlyum - Arthropoda ( means its an  invertebrate animal  having an exoskeleton ).

Class - Malacostraca ( the largest of the 6 classes , includes crabs, lobsters , shrimp, etc ). 

Order - Decapoda ( means it has 10 feet ). 

Family - Ocypodidae ( means its in the family of crabs , that includes ghost crabs ).

Genus - Uca ( its a group of over 100 species ).

Species -  ( U. pugnax ) There are man species of Uca , over 100 crabs. 

The other members of my group picked a fish , shrimp and jelly fish. These animals are similar because they all are sea animals , but my animal can be on land. 

My animal is special because one of its claws is bigger than the other giving it a distinct look. There are over 100 species of fiddler crabs. 

Cricket Investigation

   Question : Do crickets prefer light or dark environment's ?
  
  Hypothesis : I think the crickets will like the dark environment ( a cave , toilet roll ) because they seem to like cool weather things. We did a previous experiment on wether they like wet or dry environments , and the crickets liked the wet side better. So i think they will prefer the dark side.

 Background Research : Crickets are omnivorous so they will eat almost anything. They need water , and the need a lot of air so any containers should have holes. Crickets also seem to like wet environments more than dry.

      

                                                                                      
This shows the cricket when we placed it in the tube. The cricket did not seem to like being in the tube , but the cricket was on top of the tube.

       

This picture shows the placement of two crickets. The top pic is the first cricket and the second one is the second cricket. 

My data does not support my hypothesis. I thought that the cricket will like the cool environment , but it always went on top of the tube. So my data shows that the crickets like the light. The cricket crawled out two times when placed inside the tube. So my final conclusion is that the crickets like the light. 

This Week In Science #6

      

  This week in science was very fun. My group and I had to observe crickets , recored data , and we  made a chat about jelly beans. The week started with the crickets. We observe them and their behavior's. Then we recorded it by putting dots on a piece of paper , marking the position of each cricket every 15 minutes. We also tried to group jelly beans using a dichotomous key. We used pictures and descriptions of the jelly beans to group them.

    This week in science i learned many interesting things. I learned how to use a dichotomous key. Its a very good way of grouping animals by species , and then brakes them by using specific features. But in my situation i had to use jelly beans and group the different flavors using the dichotomous key.
      

      
      
  

  

This Week In Science #5

                          



   This week in science , my friends and I shot our paper  rockets. We had three rockets and each of them had there own amount of fins. We wanted to see if the number of fins, affected the flight of the rockets. This week we also observed some crickets. We had to draw 3 pictures of what we saw , and write down some of the crickets behavior. Last we viewed videos all a class on youtube, and we watched how animals  behavior.
    

  
   This week i learned about crickets. I was given a sheet with labeled cricket parts on it. I never knew the names of the cricket body parts , so that was interesting. For example , the body of the cricket is called the abdominal segment , and behind the head is called the thorax.

this Week In Science #4

This week in science i did a document with my group. We all were assigned a part in the document. My part was to record the data of the cups , and put them on a graph. I had to average the growth with the help of a one of my group members, Then i had to to a experimental set up, where i had to explain how my group and I set up the cups .


This week in science i learned how to put data on a chart. David taught me how to set up the chart. Then he taught me how to copy the graph to my group document . The chart showed the growth of my plants over time .

  

This Week In Science #3

                                        Here is a example of the bar graph my group & I did .

This week in science i DID  two experiments . I did a experiment with jaime , where we gave directions & she had to follow . Her goal was to make a perfect peanut butter sandwich . Then we did another experiment .  Every group had a different task . My group and I had to make a graph about the months every student was in .

This week i LEARNED a few things . From the peanut butter jelly experiment i learned that if you give directions they have to be really specific , because then the person wont know how to do it . I also learned that my hypothesis was wrong . I though that the seed in the bottom  of the cup will grow slow but its the fastest & biggest so far .

This week in science #2

                                                          A picture of Brassica rapa

This week in science i learned many interesting things . I learned all about Brassica rapa which is a type of seed . One of the cool things about this seed is that its lifespan is about a month . It reaches full growth , & they are made to grow fast . Then i was given a task to write a few fact about the Brassica rapa by searching it online . I find this seed very interesting & its in the mustard family .

 Now my group & I are going to try a experiment with the brassica rapa . Our question is - Does the depth of the the seed affect the growth ? So we put seeds in 3 different cups at different depths to see if the depth does affect the growth . We also had a little fun with "poppers" which are little plastic toys that use air suction to pop of the table . We used these for a experiment .