Monday, February 25, 2013

What do I know?

What do I know?

1. The geologic time scale: I know the mnemonic device come over some day maybe play poker two jacks cover two queens, but I can not remember any of the periods they stand for besides Cambrian Mississippian and Pennsylvanian
---When I looked it up - Cambrian, Ordovician, Silurian, Devonian, Mississippian, Pennsylvanian, Permian, Triassic, Jurassic, Cretaceous, Tertiary, Quaternary.  This is the order from oldest to present.

2. About fossils: I really don't know much about fossils at all. I know bones are considered fossils, that there can be imprints of old living things, and amber holds a lot, but that's about it.
---When I looked it up - Fossils are preserved remains or traces of animals, plants, and other organisms from the remote past. Amber is tree sap that is fossilized. Trace fossils are things that indicate life was there such as footprints and burrows. Petrified wood is wood that has been replaced by minerals. Other fossil types include, mold and cast, carbonized leaf fossils, and the whole animal caught itself.



(http://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&docid=EoiVb503YFJ7gM&tbnid=gLMEeNWwuc3ptM:&ved=0CAUQjRw&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdefendingjehovahswitnesses.blogspot.com%2F2011%2F12%2Ffossils-links-to-information.html&ei=Go4rUd-XN-TB2wX1zYHgCQ&bvm=bv.42768644,d.b2I&psig=AFQjCNE-5WCp1bEgdwkpX0eUdYt1jUY6GA&ust=1361895311068258)






On Monday in class we did an experiment with making fossils. My group decided to have 3 different mixtures. One cup was a 50/50 ratio: 40mL of sand and 40mL of plaster. Another was 60mL of sand and 20mL of plaster. The last cup started out with 60mL of plaster and 20mL of sand, but we had to add 5 more mL of sand to cover the whole shell, making it 25mL of sand. Today, Wednesday, we broke apart these cast and molds. We found out our 50/50 mixture was the easiest to break and was the only one that came out whole. However, this was a flat shell compared to our other two swirly shells, so this could have had an impact. The one that had 60mL of plaster was extremely hard to break and the fossil came out in bits and pieces, but the pieces did have good imprints on them.

Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Geologic time scale

Time is the passage of events, present-future. In class we have started to learn about the geologic time scale. I really don't know much about this. I learned that geologic time is the 4.6 Billion years history of Earth, from its origin to the present.The last class period we had we were given the names of all these time periods and were told we would have to memorize them. Then today over the snow day we were sent a list of videos to watch, all of which were fun quirky songs about each period of the geologic time scale. I thought the most creative one was the video that was three girls doing what seemed to be a middle/high school class project. They were having fun with it, and that is exactly what you want your students to do - have fun while learning!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lcw7DQVSJ4Y

Monday, February 4, 2013

If I had 100 dollars

If the universe was represented as money, 100 dollars being the full amount, it would be divided as follows:

Sun: $50. Answer: $99.85
Mercury: $5. Answer: .00002 cents
Venus: $5. Answer: .0003 cents
Earth: $5. Answer: .0003 cents
Mars: $5. Answer: .00004 cents
Jupiter: $8. Answer: 10.6 cents
Saturn: $7. Answer: 3.2 cents
Uranus: $5. Answer: .006 cents
Neptune: $5. Answer: .005 cents
Satellites: $2. Answer: negligible
Minor Elements (comets, asteroids, TNO's, etc.): $3. Answer: negligible