Water Cycle Science!

AIM: TO LOOK AT THE WATER CYCLE AND HOW CLIMATE CHANGE IS AFFECTING IT.

Definition: Water cycle is a cycle of prosses by water spreading into our oceans, atmosphere, and land. it involves precipitation like rain and snow, which is called condensation. After that, it returns to the atmosphere by evaporation and transpiration. 

Scientific words:

• Evaporation. When water is heated by radiant energy it turns into water vapor.
• Transpiration. Evaporation from plants.
• Condensation. When water vapor cools, molecules join together and form clouds.
• Precipitation. When clouds get heavy the waters falls as rain, sleet, hail, or snow.
• Acidification: the action or process of making or becoming acidic.

We will be conducting an experiment that looks at the different ways that climate change is affecting the water cycle.

THE WATER CYCLE EXPERIMENT

Bag 1: Normal Water cycle

Bag 2: Water cycle with CO2 added: like Oceans in climate change

Bag 3: Water cycle with ice added: like Antarctica in climate change

Material: Bag 1

1.  Plastic Bag/ziplock bags.
2.  Vivid Marker.
3.  1 Cup.
4.  Food Colouring.
5.  Water.

Steps:

1.  Grab your plastic bag/ziplock bags.
2.  Draw out the cycle like clouds, ocean, plants, and the rain. 
3.  Label your drawings like condensation for the clouds, precipitation for the rain, etc. 
4.  Put 1 cup of water inside your ziplock bag. 
5.  Put 2 drops of blue food coloring. 
6.  Place your ziplock bag where it can absorb sunlight, leave it for some days.

Material: Bag 2

1.  Plastic Bag/ziplock bags.
2.  Vivid Marker.
3.  1 Cup.
4.  Food Colouring.
5.  Soda Water
6.  Litmus Paper

Steps:

1.  Grab your plastic bag/ziplock bags.
2.  Draw out the cycle like clouds, ocean, plants, and the rain. 
3.  Label your drawings like condensation for the clouds, precipitation for the rain, etc. 
4.  Put 1 cup of soda inside your ziplock bag. 
5.  Put 2 drops of blue food coloring. 
6.  Place the litmus paper inside the bag to the lock on the bag.
7.  Place your ziplock bag where it can absorb sunlight, leave it for some days.

Two Images:

Findings: To be determined...

Conclusion: 

I learned new words that I have never heard of before eg; Evaporation, Transpiration, Precipitation, and Condensation. I now also know how the water cycle works, at first I didn't know what it meant. But since we did an experiment for it I now do.

Charlesworth Reserve Planting!

Next week on July 3 we are going to a place called Charlesworth Reserve. Charlesworth Reserve can be located at Bromley, it is a park and gardens in Christchurch. It will take us about 24 minutes to get there or more, depending on traffic. The government in New Zealand has set us a goal to plant 1 billion trees by 2028! They want us to plant trees to improve our land productivity, reduce the effects of climate change by absorbing carbon dioxide. It can also improve our water quality, provide important habitats of a range of native species, enhance natural landscapes, etc.



Charlesworth Reserve is named after "Captain William Charlesworth". He was born at 1814 in Yorkshire at England. Although when an accident happened, William Charlesworth ended up being wounded in the foot by an axe. He then died and was buried 5 days later at the Woolston Cemetery.

First week of Science!

Science Badges:

  

'Conservation'  

• Climate Science
• Global Warming
• Recycling
• Renewable Energy
• Fossil Fuels
• Ecology
• Our Planet
• Water
• Plants

1. 15 Points are needed to get a badge
2. A high standard of work.

• All experiments are written up ( Aim, Materials, Steps, Conclusion)
• Two photos of your experiment
• 6 sentences at least for a conclusion

Science will be twice per week.

• Lesson 1: This will be an Experiment that involves blogging. You will be expected to open a new post, copy Mr. Palmer's blog and paste it on your new post.
• Lesson 2: This will be an Investigation that relates to the topic of Lesson 1. It will be own choice and displayed in a way that you prefer. For example - PowerPoint, Doc, etc

BLOGGING.

All the blogs and science lessons will be displayed on Mr. Palmer's blog: 

http://mrpalmersscience.blogspot.com/

Bookmark it!

Expectations:

• 1 blog must be completed per Hurumanu lesson.
• A completed blog must have the four headings ( Aim, Method, Findings, Conclusion), correct writing and punctuation under each heading and be published. No post, no points.
• 2 images of the experiment/investigation on the blog.

Using the Scientific method of investigation:

Aim: What the experiment/investigation is about.

Method: Instructions on how the experiment/investigation is carried out. This includes the equipment.

Findings: What have we learned or found out from our experiment/investigation. This is called Data, Information or Facts. It is displayed in a chart, table or picture.

Conclusion:  

2 Hurumanu Science Goals: 

1. I will try harder to finish the task I'm given on time. I will also try to be more focused on my task.

2. I will post more blog post and make it better, so I can get more points to get my badge. 

WATCH THIS VIDEO AND COMPLETE THE INVESTIGATION.

THE BIG PICTURE

• What animals keep our jackets warm? Polar bears, sheep, and foxes.
• What animal makes our boots waterproof? Ducks.
• Where does the water in our rivers come from? Most of the water flowing in rivers comes from rainfall runoff from the surrounding landscape. Although the water in a river doesn't all come from surface runoff. Rain falling on land also seeps into the Earth to form groundwater.  
• Why do we need healthy rivers? We need healthy rivers because they provide water for humanity. 
• What are some of the good things about mosquitoes? Mosquitoes are very important to aquatic life. Many other insects and small fish feed on them. If they don't get food to eat, their population will decrease. 
• Why are bees dying? CCD (Colony collapse disorder) is the reason why bees are dying. It is when the worker bees leave their colony and disappear. They leave behind a queen, plenty of food and a few nurse bees to care for the immature bees.  
• What do bugs do to our leaves? The bugs/insects, poke tiny holes on the leaves and suck the juices out of them. 
• How much dung would we be in if there were no dung decomposers? If there were no dung decomposers, the ground will be covered with dung up to 7 feet.
• Who runs this planet? It's not only nature who runs this planet but it is the millions of species.

Fossil Fuels

Aim: To look at how fossil fuels are contributing to climate change and how we can prevent this.




 

Scientific Terms for Students

• coal: a dark-brown to a black solid substance formed naturally from the compaction and hardening of fossilized plants and used as a fuel primarily for electricity generation
• natural gas: a mixture of hydrocarbon gases that occurs naturally beneath the earth’s surface and is used as a fuel primarily for cooking and heating homes
• renewable resource: a resource that is never used up (e.g., solar energy)
• non-renewable resource: a resource that is not replaceable after its use (e.g., coal, gas)

Examples of Fossil Fuels:

1.   Coal
2.   Oils
3.   Gas

Activity: 

In groups of 3, you will learn about different fossil fuels and the way they are mined?
Each group will be given a fossil fuel. The recorder will read it to the group. The recorder will write down some of the important points.
Person 1: Recorder: to write down 5 points of interest from the text. 

1. 5 Points:
2. Positives and negatives of your type of mining.

Person 2: Reporter: to read back to the class their 5 points of interest.
Person 3: Collector: Gathers the required stationary from the teacher.

Mining Fossil Fuels

What Fossil Fuels are mined?
How are they mined?

1. Coal is mined by using huge machines used by coal miners. They use these huge machines to remove coal from the ground, there are also two methods of mining coal. Surface and underground mining.
2. Oil is mined by using instruments such as gravimeters and magnetometers, extracting crude oil normally starts with drilling wells into an underground reservoir.
3. Natural gas is mined just like how oil is mined.

Where are they mined?

1. US
2. Russia
3. China
4. India
5. Austraillia 

Activity;

On the sheet provided you need to make two drawings of your cookie. 
1. looking down at it. 
2. side on -  of the imaginary habitat that will live on the top of the cookie. ( trees, buses, flax, sea, etc)

Material:

1.  Toothpicks
2.  Chocolate chip cookie
3.  Plate/bowl

Steps:

1.  Grab your plate and put the cookie on top. 
2.  Get your toothpicks.
3.  Start taking off the chocolate on the cookie.
4.  Try not to destroy the cookie.
5.  You should have a non-chocolate cookie!

Once you have drawn your cookies you must take 2 pictures and upload them to your blog.

Picture 1: Before Mining

Picture 2: After Mining

Findings: What did you find out as a result of your mining? The cookie was a bit different that before, but it still had a bit of chocolate in the middle and the inside of the cookie. There were more cracks and holes than before. 

Conclusion: I have learned that fossil fuels are very dangerous such as mining. I also learned how coal, oil, and natural gas is mined. 

Poetry!

For the past 7 weeks, we have been working on poetry with Mr. Scott. On this subject, we had to find different types of poetry like; Limerick poem, Haiku poem, Free verse poem, etc. After we found some poems we focused on 3 poems that we can make a poem out of. The choices were; Limerick, Haiku and Free verse poems. Each poem has its own rule, except free verse poems. Anyways this is what each poem mean and what rule they have.

Limerick Poem: A limerick poem is sort of a silly poem. They are often funny or nonsensical. They also often start with the line "There was once a..." or "There was a..." 

Haiku Poem: Haiku is a traditional form of Japanese poetry. Haiku poems consist of 3 lines. The first and the last lines of Haiku have 5 syllables and the middle line has 7 syllables. The lines rarely rhyme. 

Free Verse Poem: A free verse poem has no rules, it can be whatever you want it to be.

After that, we had to make our own poem we had to use some inspirations to make our poems. Although we only had to make 2, I chose to make a free verse poem because I was able to do anything, but I also found it cool because there were no rules. I also chose to do Haiku because I found it interesting that you had to have 5 syllables at the first and last line, and 7 at the middle line.

So here are the two poems I did and the inspiration I took:

Inspiration:

Link to inspiration

My poem: Free Verse

Inspiration:

My Poem: Haiku