Math is..

Math is so helpful than I thought it would ever be. It is involved with almost everyday activities. In the beginning of the year, I thought that math was not going to be helpful in life. Now I understand that math will help you succeed in life and help through everyday. Math can help you with shopping, taxes or to find out how much money you have. In math class we learned how to add taxes and tips. We also learned how to deduct discounts and sales. Through out the school year, I have learned that math is helpful and can also be useful. Math is not only just numbers that you add or subtract. Math is involved in your whole life and you don't even know it.

Class Response Blog 2

Recently, in Science class, we created our own kites to help us understand the unit on wind and weather. We had to create a kite into any shape that we thought would fly, create an original name related to weather and decorate the outside of the kite with weather symbols. For this activity, we also had to write a paragraph on why kites fly and make sure our kites were creative and colorful. I believe that kites fly depending on the shape it is and whether or not the kite has holes for air to travel through. Also I thought that kites fly with a certain kind of wind. For instance, if you were flying a kite in a land breeze it would be harder because the wind is not as strong as a sea breeze. After we created our kites, we brought our kites outside to see if they fly. Sadly, my kites did not fly. I believe that my kites was not able to fly because of the size of my kite and the type of wind that was blowing. Not only was this activity educational it was also a lot fun!

Class Response Blog 1

You may not realize it but wind plays an extreme role in our lives. Depending on the direction the wind is blowing will determine what the weather will be like for the day. Wind is occurs when air is heated by the Sun and then rises. Then when the warm air rises cool air moves quickly to where the warm air once was. This is known as a convection current. A type of wind that we are most familiar with are land breezes and sea breezes. Land breezes occur mostly during the night and early morning while the sea breezes occur during the day. Land breezes form when warm air from the sea is released which rises. Then cool air from the land replaces the warm air which causes the land breeze. When sea breezes form the warm air from the land rises which is replaced by cool air from the sea forming a sea breeze.

Interesting facts:
1) The land breeze at night has lower wind speeds because the difference is temperature is smaller between the land and sea at night.
2) Land can absorb heat faster than water.
3) The monsoon known from South-East Asia is really a larger scale of a land breeze and a sea breeze.

For more information:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind
http://www.windpower.org/en/tour/wres/localwin.htm

Social Studies Blog on Technology

Technology has been an important part in society. Several tools, machines, and appliances have been invented over the course of time. In the past thirty years, I believe that the internet access has had the most impact on our society. The internet has enabled us to be able to research topics quicker and easier. Also today, the internet has let us communicate to others. I believe that the internet has made the most impact on society because it has developed since it has been discovered and become more popular over the years. With this, the internet has many uses besides research and communication.

Blog 3

In science class, we learned the importance of Charles Law. Charles Law states that if the pressure increases then the volume increases. If the pressure decreases then the volume decreases. During the time Charles Law was invented, hot air balloons were very popular. Jacques Charles and Joseph-Louis Gay-Lussac, the creators of Charles Law, were interested in hot air balloons also. An example to show Charles Law is a soda bottle. When the soda bottle is cold, there is very little pressure that comes out of the bottle which doesn't make the soda overflow out of the bottle. When a soda bottle is warm, there is more pressure from the heat which causes the soda to squirt out of the top.

Three interesting facts that I learned are:

1) When the pressure decreases then the volume decreases and when the pressure is halved then the volume is halved.

2) When the temperature of a gas in a closed container is raised, the speed of the molecules of the gas increases.

3) The equipment used by Jacques Charles was very similar to the equipment that Robert Boyle had used to invent Boyles Law.

For more information go to:

http://www.tpub.com/content/aerographer/14312/css/14312_41.htm

http://www.chm.davidson.edu/ChemistryApplets/GasLaws/CharlesLaw.html

I believe that without Charles Law we wouldn't understand why the pressure decreases and the volume decreases or why the pressure increases and the volume increases.

Blog 2

Wow! Have you ever seen a pig glow fluorescent green? Well in Beijing, China a Chinese university reported that a pig was cloned whose genes were altered to make it glow. This pig passed down this trait to its offspring. The birth of the glowing piglets shows that transgenic pigs are fertile and able to pass on their offspring. Because of the birth of the pig that glows fluorescent green, this could lead to the future breeding of pigs for human transplant organs.

Interesting Facts:
1) The piglets' mother was born with this trait.
2) The organs from genetically altered pigs would solve some of the conflicts of rejected organs in transplant operations.
3) If the organs from the pigs to humans, then presence of the green protein would allow genetically modified cells to be tracked.

Opinion:
In the future, I believe that using the organs from these pigs will improve the health and lives of the people in generations to come.

For more information:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22563650/