Cow Eye Dissection

DNA Fingerprinting

Label Test

Always With The Questions!

One question that I have about the Douc Langur is, What does it actually look like close up? And how does it act when its active in the zoo? This is my question because while I was at the zoo, the Doucs weren't active, and all they did was rest. Also, I wasn't able to see them close up, because they were hiding far away from my view, and the lighting was dark around that area. I would really like to see it close up, and during its active feeding time next time.

If I could find out more things about them regardless of time, money and effort, I would really like to be able to get close to them and observe them clearly, how they grow and how they act with real field work observation. 

Zoo Highlights

What was a highlight of the zoo trip observation? (please DO NOT respond with “LUNCH”, this isn’t about going to eat...) 

I think that the highlight of my zoo trip observation was looking at my partner's primate. I didn't really get to see my primate as it only comes out during it's feeding time, and so it was much more enjoyable observing my partner's primate as it was very active. It was also much more interesting because my partner told me new things about about a new primate that I don't know much about, and its fun to see what another primate can do that I haven't researched on or knew much about.

What did you learn about your animal by watching it in the zoo? 

I learned its behaviors through a real life observation instead of just searching it up on the internet. It was much better when observing my primate when it's right in front of me, instead of just reading about it online. Watching it in the zoo really connects to the researches I found in reliable websites, and I can predict what the primate's behaviors would be like.

Did you notice any surprising behaviors? 

No, I didn't, as my primate was hiding most of time and was too far from my view to observe carefully on. It did though surprise me on how correctly websites can tell us about something that we have never known about.

How is this different from how it behaves in the wild?

I think that in the wild, they would be more active than in the zoo. Their space in the zoo was much smaller and cramped, and I think that they would have been more active when humans aren't watching them, because when I was observing them, they were far back in their area away from our view, up on a treehouse that we can barely see as if they were hiding.

Dairy Farm

How do you feel after doing field work? What did you learn about yourself? What did you find out about the Dairy Farm rainforest that you found interesting? What are some noteworthy differences and similarities between our forest and the dairy farm forest?

After doing the field work, I realized it was easier for me to actually do it, because we practiced and learned how a realistic field work is done at the SAS campus rainforest. I learned that I am actually quite interested in the animals and plants that I saw during the field trip to Dairy Farm. I am interested in how there are a variety of animals that lives in the Dairy Farm and how there are still some species that have not yet been discovered. The rainforest in SAS was smaller and tighter, and it was a little bit more moist than the one in dairy farm. Dairy farm's rainforest was bigger, wider and wilder, with more plants and insects, and other animals. Another thing I noticed was that dairy farm was much dryer than the SAS rainforest.

Here are some animals we saw in Dairy Farm:

Rainforests Post

This is another reason why the rainforests are important. This tree with the fruits are food for animals. If we destroy the rainforest, the animals will have no food and no home left to stay in.

Rainforests are important because they are part of the human world and they bring a big impact to the earth. Rainforests also affect the rain and weather patterns in the world. They are one of the biggest homes for plants, trees, and other animals. They contain over 30 million kinds of species. Most importantly, they are where the trees mostly lives in all parts of the world, and trees are what gives us humans oxygen to breathe and live. Also, there may be some plants that have not been discovered in some rainforests, and they might be useful to us in ways like medicine. Animals that are endangered and almost extinct may live in these rainforests. The rainforests is important to all kinds of nature in the world, and we should save it before all of them gets destroyed.

 "The global coverage by rain forests is dimished each year by human activities in order to support things such as agriculture, mineral resource exploitation, the hardwood lumber industry and urbanization."
This quote really stood out for me because it really told me that what was destroying the rainforests were humans ourselves. While we are here trying to figure out ways to help save rainforests, some of us are cutting them down even more. It really just says that what we're really doing is destroying the rainforests and doing nothing about saving it. What we're really doing is just making plans and thinking. We don't need to actually save the rainforests. As long as we let it be and keep it, it'll stay there. I think that what we really need to do is to persuade the people who are destroying other rainforests around the world to stop before all the rainforests are gone. 

Fruit Market Madness and Genius

-What intrigued you about the fruits and veggies you saw? Describe three different fruits.In the wet market, I saw all kinds of different fruits and vegetables. Some fruits and vegetables I saw were dragon fruits, star fruits, longans, and Bitter Gourd. The dragon fruits has a very pink color, with a little bit of green. It has peeling skins on the outside. The dragon fruit has no smell, very heavy, and quite hard. The star fruits had a weird shape, it was wide and star-shaped. The skin is smooth and quite shiny, and it has a yellowish greenish color. Star fruits are quite squishy, but not that heavy. The Duku fruit was very small, round and tiny. It has a light brownish color, squishy and very light.  

-Discuss the ingenious ways that each fruit has to spread its seeds. The three fruits that I have just described probably have been eaten and digested by an animal. The fruits could have either fallen of a tree that animals can take from, or the animals can pick it from the tree right away. 

-Who do you think is most likely to spread the seeds given the size, shape and nature of the fruit? Birds? Bats? Squirrels? Monkeys?The Dragon fruit was probably spread by a bigger sized animal, because it has a big size and is very heavy for its size. I think that maybe monkeys are able to eat dragon fruits. Star fruits were probably spread by also bigger animals, and were probably eaten by monkeys too. The Duku fruit on the other hand, could be eaten by varies of animals, since it has a small size and is easy to eat. THe Duku are probably eaten by smaller animals like birds, bats and squirrels.

Earthquake Proof Building Challenge

My group's building performed as I mostly expected it would. The building survived the first test, which I thought it would, since our building was stable. The second test didn't go quite well because our building didn't have walls to keep the materials from falling out. The third test went well and our group survived through it, because we added walls to help our building at our spare time. Our group didn't succeed through all three tests, but I thought that we created a well stabled building.
The building performed as how I predicted it would. I predicted that our building would succeed the first test, and it did, because I thought that our building was stable since my group tested the building by shaking it and nothing fell out or was damaged. The second test didn't go quite well as I predicted. I thought that our building's third floor was slanted and we didn't have time to fix it, which then caused the materials to fall down first from the third floor. On our last test, I predicted that our building would be capable of holding in all the materials, because our group had time to fix minor problems on the building, and we added stable walls to keep the materials from falling out, which we didn't have at first.
If I had to rebuild the building from scratch, the one thing I would keep would be the cross bracing our group had on the current building. Some things I would change would be the base. Our group stuck popsicles sticks through the boards as cross bracing. We were going to place rubber stoppers at the bottom of the building, but we didn't have enough money and so we just left the popsicles go through the base. The popsicles did make the building quite unstable, but there wasn't any problems with it when the building was tested. I didn't really have much problems with the building, I would just need more time to build it so we can do it properly and slowly.
The materials and supplies weren't a problem. Our group just had two big problems. The first one was the budget. We had a great plan for our building, until we realized on the way that we were buying materials which had the biggest amount of money needed to spend. The building needed those materials, and so we reduced the amount we needed to buy and went to the limited amount needed. The second problem was time. Time was the biggest problem the group struggled with. We were too slow on planning, and we took two days with only planning instead of building, which then caused us to start and finish everything in one day. Our group worried that we wouldn't finish in time, but we did everything efficiently and quickly till the last minute, thought we learned our lesson to plan faster and arrange the timing.
These limiting factors are significant to countries including Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, Philippines, and Nicaragua. These countries have quite a lot of earthquakes occurring in them. I think that the only reason why these countries have barely any earthquake proof buildings are because they don't have the money. Its quite easy to create an earthquake proof building, and a lot of people probably suggested some, but they just don't have enough budget to buy the resources. If my group's building was expensive and it was not really a success, then to make an extremely successful building must need a HUGE amount of money. The only way to solve this problem is for people to create a building that's cheap but earthquake proof and stable.

What We Learned About Continental Drift

I am teaching my parents about continental drift and convection using the learning log that I made. I want them to be able to explain back to me what I have just explained and taught them.


Our daughter taught and explained to us what continental drift is, and how it might have happened. She also taught us what might have caused the drift. We learned that a billion years ago, the continents that we have now, might have been once together, and somehow they are now separated. She explained to us what the evidences found are, and she also explained that convection might have caused this movement. 

We thought that Valerie's explanation was very clear, and is supported by strong evidences. We knew about the continental drift before she showed us her learning log, but we learned from her that convection might have been the reason for the drift. We think that Valerie needs to study more about what's inside the earth, and how the lava can support all the weight on top of earth without collapsing.

My Learning Log:

Learning Log: Continental Drift and Convection

What is the connection between continental drift and convection?

-What did we do?
-What did you observe?
-What did you learn?

The connection between continental drift and convection is when the mantle is heated by the outer core of the earth which causes the mantle to move because of convection. The lava then moves around which then causes the plate tectonics floating above the mantle to move.

In class, our teacher demonstrated how convection works by demonstrating to us with a model of a tank heated with a candle at the bottom and she placed a red dye inside the tank above the candle.

I observed in the demonstration that when one side of the tank is heated by a heat source, the red dye moves upwards and then goes in circles, but it doesn't keep on moving towards the top of the tank because the temperature drops and it gets more dense after a while since the heat source is at the bottom, and so it moves in a cycle.

I learned that when a fluid is heated from a heat source, it tends to move around the area, and it can also move an object floating above it. The outer core is the heat source heating the mantle which causes the plate tectonics floating on it to move.

Diagram:

EARTH

An open letter to geological community......

Hypothesis: the tectonic plates on the earth crust that creates the earthquakes proves us that these plates are able to move, since what is underneath these tectonic plates are not solid, which makes the continents able to move.


I believe that the drifter theory is a more compelling argument. There are many evidences that strongly supports this theory. For example, one of the strongest evidence, scientists have found fossils of the same exact species that were extinct hundreds and millions of years ago, in the African continent, and in the South American continent, although these continents are now separated by the ocean. There is no way that these species could've traveled across the ocean for such a large and long distance in the past. It can't be such a coincidence that the shape the African continent can fit to South America, and that the shape of Antarctica could match together with Australia.

DCA

1. Respect and Protect Yourself
2. Respect and Protect Others
3. Respect and Protect Intellectual Property
4. Respect and Protect Property
5. Why is DCA important? Why do schools have these agreements?

The DCA is important because it helps to prevent cyber-bullying. It also helps to stop the illegal spread of copyrighted material.

Schools have these agreements because they want to provide good and safe learning environments for all the students at their school.

Other Than Smart....

1. Creativity

Creativity is an important aspect for scientists because it gives them the ability to create new and unique ideas. Scientists wouldn't be able to invent new technology if they weren't creative. For example, without creativity, scientists would be a very similar meaning to a computer. The computer is smart, it knows everything, just like how a scientist should be. But, computers can't have ideas, which is what i think a great scientist should have. And lastly, the whole point of science, is to create and make new ideas.

2. Perseverance

Perseverance, is also another great aspect to what a scientist should have. This is because perseverance gives scientists the motivation to never give up on their creations and ideas. For example, the famous inventor Thomas Edison persevered through thousands of different filaments to find the right one for the lightbulb. Perseverance also lets scientists to ignore others' criticism.

3. Knowing right and wrong

Scientists have to know what is right and wrong. Not only do they have to know, they need to know. If scientists do not know the difference between right and wrong, they could create dangerous technology. For example, scientists could create inventions that could steal or harm humans or the world.

Creating Class Labels