Ms. Meade's Science Lab

Some questions you could answer about your tectonics project.

2010-11-18T18:53:00.000-08:00

A few starter questions for your research on your tectonic feature.

1.    On which continent is your Tectonic Feature (TF) located?
2.    In which country is your TF located?
3.    How far is it from Iowa?
4.    What is the latitude and longitude of your TF?
5.    What cities are close by?
6.    Is it part of a national park?
7.    What is the elevation above sea level?
8.    Do many people live near this place? What language do they speak?
9.    What is the history of eruptions? (if a volcano)
10.    What plants grow nearby?
11.    What animals live nearby?
12.    What is the climate in this region, i.e. precipitation, average winter and average summer temperatures?
13.    Go to timeanddate.com to find: What time is it now where you live in UTC? What time is it now in the place you are researching? What is the difference in hours?
14.    Are you likely to get pneumonoultramicoscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis if you get close to your TF?

2010-11-16T10:08:00.000-08:00

Tectonics Project for Science

The tectonics project has three parts:

1.   Model- a visual presentation about your project. This needs to be a three-dimensional model that shows what your particular location looks like.   Choose topic 11/15. Model due 12/13.

2.   Research Paper
7th grade minimums   600 words +photos   4 sources
8th grade minimums   900 words +photos   5 sources
Sources due 11/24
Rough Draft due 12/6
Final copy due 12/15

3.   Oral Presentation- at least 3 minutes about your project, practice ahead of time, do not just read your report. Due 12/13.

Google Earth: Learn

2010-11-16T07:19:00.000-08:00

This Google tutorial will help you learn about the many applications of Google Earth. Work your way through each of the sections.

Google Earth: Learn

Link to Skills Iowa

2010-11-10T07:29:00.000-08:00

http://www.ia-sb.org/skillsiowa/

Another Big Question

2010-09-25T15:37:00.000-07:00

What is underneath Winneshiek County?

Beneath our feet here in Winneshiek County we have layers of soil created by thousands
of years worth of decomposing plants and weathered rocks.

Beneath the soil there are layers of sedimentary rocks. The limestone, shale, and
sandstone were deposited during the Ordovician time period, which was about 470
million years ago. At that time, Iowa was covered by a shallow ocean.

The limestone is made of the shells of the animals that died in the ocean. The shale is
made from mud and silt. The sandstone does not have many fossils in it, but sometimes
you can find red lumps. These lumps are iron nodules. They are red because they have
been exposed to oxygen in a process called oxidation. The limestone has a lot of
fractures in it. Those fractures and layers allow caves to be formed by moving water.
Sometimes the water leaves behind minerals that makes a shiny surface that looks likes
frosting. That is called calcite. Areas like ours that have caves and fractured limestone
and sinkholes have what is called karst topography.

The deeper you go under Winneshiek County, the older the rocks are. Sometimes you
can find fossils of the simple creatures that lived back then. There were no fish or any
other kind of invertebrates in the ocean during the Ordovician time period, and there were
no flowering plants on the land back then.

You cannot find fossils of dinosaurs in Winneshiek County because the layers of rock
that would have had dinosaur bones were eroded away by rain and wind and glaciers.
Sometimes you can find a rock that seems out of place because it is not limestone, shale,
or sandstone. It might be a glacial erratic. It was carried here from far away by the
glaciers and got left behind when the glaciers melted. The west half of Winneshiek
County is flat because all the low places were filled in by glacial deposits when the last
glacier was here 10,000 years ago. The east half of Winneshiek County is hilly because
the last glacier missed it.

Underneath all the layers of sedimentary rock there are really really old rocks that go
back to the Pre-cambrian time period when there was no life on Earth. As you go deeper
into our planet the temperature gets hotter and the pressure steadily increases. The thick
middle layer of the earth is called the mantle. It is made of hot soft rock that slowly
circulates around. The center of the earth is called the core. It is made mostly of the
metals iron and nickel. It has two parts- a liquid outer core and a very dense and solid
inner core. The outer layer of the earth is the cold and brittle crust or lithosphere.

Some of the common fossils around here are:
• Brachiopods- look like a clam but the ridges are vertical instead of horizontal
• Crinoids- look like little Cheerios, they were stacked up to form the stem of an
animal that looked sort of flowery
• Gastropods- look like snails
• Nautiloid Cephalopods- sort of ice cream cone shaped, they had a squid-like
animal inside
• Branching Bryozoa- can look like bones, but there were no animals with bones
back then
• Prasopora Bryozoa- look like a Chinese hat or a gumdrop
• Horn Coral- the shape is like the name
• Stromatolite- fossilized slime layers
• Receptekulites a.k.a Fisherites- looks like a sunflower but actually it is a kind of
coral
• Trilobite- these are small and hard to find in northern Winneshiek County but
abundant elsewhere

The First BIG Question

2010-08-26T08:32:00.000-07:00

The BIG Question: What is temperature and how do we measure it?

Words to use when explaining this include:

• phases of matter, solid, liquid, and gas
• molecular motion
• Celsius
• Fahrenheit
• freezing point
• boiling point
• liquid thermometer
• phase changes

Optional questions to answer for a higher grade:
1. How is plasma different from solids, liquids, and gases?
2. What are the lowest and highest temperatures ever measured on Earth?
3. What are the freezing and boiling points of substances other than water?
4. How do digital and liquid crystal thermometers work?
5. What is the Kelvin temperature scale and who uses it?

Sample Response

Temperature is a measure of how fast molecules are moving. We measure it using tools called thermometers. One type of thermometer is a liquid thermometer. In a common type of liquid thermometer there is some red colored alcohol in a narrow glass tube. When the alcohol gets warmer it expands and takes up more room so the level of alcohol goes up in the tube. Two of the common scales used for measuring temperature are the Celsius and the Fahrenheit scales. Most of the rest of the world uses just the Celsius scale so that is the one scientists use all the time. That makes it easier and more accurate for us to compare data with other scientists. On the Celsius scale, at sea level, pure water boils at 100 degrees and it freezes at zero degrees. On the Fahrenheit scale, at sea level, pure water boils at 212 degrees and freezes at 32 degrees. An important thing to know about temperature is that it takes a lot of energy to change matter from one phase to another. For example, when water is in the solid state of ice it has only a little molecular motion, but if you add a lot of energy the water molecules move faster and it melts into ice. Then the temperature goes up quickly until you get to the point where the water is boiling. Then the temperature levels off again because all the heat energy is going into the phase change that makes the liquid water turn in to water vapor or a gas.

I was curious if there was any point where the Fahrenheit and the Celsius scales are the same. I looked on a website called “The Straight Dope: Fighting Ignorance since 1973 (it’s taking longer than we thought” and it said that negative forty degrees Celsius is the same as negative forty degrees Fahrenheit. Wow, I hope it doesn’t get that cold this winter.

2010-08-17T14:54:00.000-07:00

During the 2010/2011 school year the 7th and 8th graders will be studying Earth Science. The field trip to a quarry to collect fossils is a perennial favorite. Stay tuned for more information about the curriculum for this year.

Welcome to the Science Lab!

2009-01-10T08:13:00.000-08:00

This is the home of inquiry and curiosity at North Winneshiek. Students here begin with asking questions.