Current Events: Taiwanese Students Use Personal Seismic Sensors to Monitor Earthquakes.

This article was about students in Taiwan who used their own personal seismic sensors to monitor upcoming earthquakes that were about to strike. They are pocket sized MEMS sensors tat are being mounted to the floors of classrooms and homes so it will be convenient to monitor an upcoming earthquake. They were made on March 26, 2012 in Taiwan. This occured because it was very difficult to determine whether an earthquake would hit. These sensors are being expanded to other places like the Philippines next year.
I believe that these sensors could be a life changing product that could save many lives. Since some countries are not rich enough to use expensive equipment to detect earthquakes, this is a good alternative. It can be also very to use. Countries that are prone to having many earthquakes can have emergency evacuations to save children.

Here is the original article: http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2012-03/taiwanese-students-use-cloud-based-seismic-sensors-monitor-earthquakes

The Atom Song

Here is our song.

Lab Report: States of Matter

In science class, we did multiple labs to understand the states of matter. In one of the labs we did, we observed what changes would take place when we burned sugar. We had to change the sugar cubes physically to get it inside the test tubes, and then we had to change it chemically when we used a Bunsen burner to burn the sugar cubes. In another lab we had done, we saw the physical and chemical changes when we burnt a marshmallow. It changed because when we burnt the marshmallow, the inside of it had turned into liquid. With these labs, I understand the concept of the states of matter a little bit better. I also learned more about physical and chemical changes. I can relate the things that we had done in class to future situations. Some skills I have learned while taking place in these labs is identifying the difference from a physical change to a chemical change.

Extra Credit

For the extra credit, I chose to respond to the quote: “Education is the key to unlock the golden door of freedom” by George Washington Carver. This quote means many things to me. I agree with this quote for many reasons. It mostly means that education gives us knowledge that we can use throughout our lives. If someone is educated, then they will feel more confident about things by using the education that he or she has been given. If someone is not that educated, the person might be more hesitant to do daily things. Also, without education, you will not be able to pursue the careers or basic things that you would like to do. Education is sort of like freedom. Like the quote says, education is the key to unlock that door of freedom that everyone would like. Another thing that this quote could mean, is that others could judge you by the type of education that you have or had. This quote could also mean something specifically to the person who said it, who was George Washington Carver.

Below are more George Washington Carver quotes:

http://thinkexist.com/quotes/george_washington_carver/

Procedure

Procedure for separating a mixture.

   Procedure:

1.     Take out the toothpicks from the mixture with your fingers, put it aside.

2.     Line the funnel with filter paper, put mixture and the funnel in the beaker.

3.     Pour mixture into funnel to extract or separate water from the rest of the mixture.

4.     Take out the filter paper from the funnel, Use magnet to extract iron fillings from the dirt.

5.     Boil the beaker with water on it on a hot plate. Turn on the hot plate, leave it there until water starts to boil and water has evaporated and salt is left.

6.     Clean up.

The seven items in the mixture were: water, salt, dirt, beans, iron fillings, marble rock, and tooth

Frog Dissection

  In science class, we had to dissect a frog to see the internal organs and to understand how the different organs work. We were given a frog, and we had to cut along the mid line of the body. Once we opened the frog, we could see all of the organs the frog had. The frog that we were given was a male, so we didn't have to take out all of the eggs. We had to remove the fat bodies. At first, they were very hard to get them out, but we eventually got all of them. As soon as we got the frog open, we could immediately see organs such as the liver, the heart, and the stomach.
  On the next day, we were able to examine and take out all of the organs in the frog. After we saw all of the organs, we had to know what each of the organ does to help the frog. I think that this was a fun dissection to do and I hope that we are able to do more like these in the future.

Lab Response: As the Stomach Turns

In science class, we did a lab. The purpose of this lab was to see what conditions are needed for the digestion of proteins in the stomach. We needed a lot of supplies for this lab, including a test-tube rack, test-tubes, pepsin, water, cubes of boiled egg whites, and many more. On the first day, we labeled 4 test tubes A, B, C, and D, and put 3 pieces of egg white in each of them. In test-tube A we put pepsin. In test-tube B, we put pepsin and water. On C, we put hydrochloric acid. Finally, we put pepsin and the acid in D. Test-tubes A and B had immediate reactions, while C and D didn't. The litmus colors were purple for A, blue for B, and pink for C and D.
On day two, we saw that nothing happened to A, B had dissolved to the bottom of the test-tube, and nothing much happened to C and D. The litmus colors were all the same. The only difference was that B's color was purple rather than blue.