Leawood Middle School blogs

Educational blogs from Leawood Middle School

Leawood Middle School blogs

What is deadly, dirty and creeps on the ground?

Posted by  on Wednesday, February 1st 2012     

Floods are one of the most common natural disasters.  Floods are caused by melting deep snow cover, wet or saturated soil and overflowing reservoirs/dams.  Most floods are caused by heavy rains and influenced by climate and the place.

Right now across the world floods are happening whether you know it or not.  Places like the Philippines, Thailand, Brazil and Australia have all recently encountered floods.  These floods don’t just happen for no reason…and you can find the causes listed above. Heavy monsoon rains come every year and threaten many places.   On December 20, 2011 an estimated 1,000 people living on the southern island of Mindanao (in the Philippines) died from severe flooding from Tropical Storm Washi.  In Thailand more flooding in January, 2012 caused more people to lose their homes and lives.  In Brazil, the Amazon River flooded to three times its size, effecting that country’s iron ore producing city.  About 10, 300 people were evacuated and 3,000 homes destroyed.  The Indus River Basin is threatened every year with heavy rains causes people in India and Pakistan to flee from the rising waters.

Floods can be destructive, demolishing houses and buildings. They can cost up to billions of dollars to repair.  Though all floods seem to destroy things, they also have benefits.  Floods bring great farming soil to the land that helps grow crops. We  have learned that many great rivers of the world bring silt down from the mountains.   Silt is a good natural fertilizer that makes plants grow better…you can see this in the Nile, the Tigris and Euphrates and the Yellow River to name a few.

It’s a balance of the bad parts and the good parts.  People just have to become aware of where they are building their homes and cities.

So what’s deadly, dirty and creeps on the ground?  A flood.

 

This article was written as part of our class’ experiment with Google Jockey.  It was written by many people including, Maryn, Elly, Lexie, Bethany, Natalie,  Cam, Clara, Max, Erin,  Claire, Tripp,  Jill

category: Maps, Science
tags: ,

Waiter, Waiter!!! There’s Salt in my Water

Posted by  on Tuesday, January 31st 2012     

Would you like some saltwater with that?  You would probably answer, “No, thank you”!   But some people don’t have the option.  That’s where desalination becomes important.

Desalination is the process of removing salt from water so it can be used for irrigation, agriculture, and drinking.  In fact, 97% of earth’s water is saltwater.  One method of desalination is called Saltwater Reverse Osmosis (SWRO).  In this method, there is saltwater on one side of a tank, and freshwater on the other side.  The liquids are separated by a type of membrane.  Pressure is put on the saltwater side, and the water passes through the membrane to the freshwater side, leaving the salt.

Countries all over the world don’t have enough money for desalination plants.  Because of this, women have to walk miles every day to get water even though they live near the ocean.  The water that they get isn’t even clean.  Desalination will really help.

Desalination plants cost a lot of money to build.  The costs range from $3.2 million to $400 million, depending on the size of the plant.  Some countries like Saudia Arabia have enough money for a plant because they own the world’s largest reserves of oil.  Other places like Africa don’t have enough money.   Even though desalination is helpful, it can be harmful to the environment.

Sometimes things in the environment, like small fish eggs and plankton, near the plant can be harmed.  The discharge could also harm ecosystems surrounding the plant, and the owners can’t put the salt back into the water.  The concentration would get to be too much.  It’s harmful to marine life.

A new and better way of desalinating water has to be found.  It could be invented soon.  Who knows, maybe you’ll be the one to invent it.

Image was found on http://hbfreshwater.com/desalination-101/desalination-worldwide

Written by students in 1st, 2nd, 7th and 8th hour classes.  Sarah, Emily, Connor, Jake, Emma, Emma, Bella, Isaac, Caroline, Paige, Graham, Abbey, and Will.  We used Google Docs to research our topic and saved everything so people could all have access.  Then we wrote our paper, one paragraph each hour.

category: Science
tags: ,

Natural Diasters; No Biggie if You’re the Corps of Engineers.

Posted by  on Saturday, January 28th 2012     

Hello. I am Ethan reporting for FOX 4 News from Missouri. The Army Corps is a group of engineers ranging from archeologists to carpenters to accountants to lawyers. They are active in the military. There are 38,000 employees, and they work on building dams, levees, canals, storm walls, and other things to protect cities from flooding and other water problems. They also make maps for the US Army.

Over to you Laura for more info about the Corps.  The Corps is made up of civilians and soldiers who deliver engineering services to more than 90 countries.  They work to strengthen our nation’s security…but maybe not in ways you’d think.  To achieve this goal, they build and take care of America’s infrastructure.  Honestly no one really knew what that was when we started.  But now we know the Corps researches and develops all these structures that let us use our rivers.  They also provide military factilities where they work and live.   They work with dams and canals…things most of the 6th graders I know never think about.  And they assist with things like floods and streams.

That’s about all….so back to you Ethan.

Thanks.  The CoE was called into action when the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers flooded in 2011. The flooding happened because people were releasing water from dams so the dams wouldn’t overflow, but that led to the rivers overflowing. The Corps was forced to build the Morganza floodway and continue monitoring levees. This was only the second time this had happened in history. While all but two of the CoE’s levees survived, no others made it through. The rivers continued to flood for four months.

The Corps is a very important organization that helps keep water problems under control while serving the country. They are very smart and creative people that usually find the best solution to difficult environmental problems. If it weren’t for the Corps, some parts of Missouri could be under water right now. I am Ethan, and now back to you in LA.

 

 

Natural disasters to them are no biggie because they are prepared and smart.

 

 

 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/locosteve/5993863561/  and  http://www.flickr.com/photos/usdagov/5870531732/ and http://www.flickr.com/photos/omahausace/5798485048/   are all pictures that were used in this post and are CC Attribution License.

 

 

category: assignments

Ways to save more than 1 Billion People…yes, Billion!!!

Posted by  on Tuesday, January 24th 2012     

You wake up on a normal day.

  • Brush your teeth and use 1 liter of water.
  • Washing your hands and use 2 liters of water.
  • Take a shower, 200 liters

We use lots of water every day in America.  We just turn on the faucet.  We even take water for granted.  People in Africa live differently.  Young girls walk 2-4 hours a day, just to get water for their family.  Even the, the water may not be clean.  The weight of water burdens women in Africa as they carry and be equal to maximum baggage weight allow by airlines.  That’s a whopping 44 pounds.  The countries with the least access to water are Afghanistan, Somalia and Papua New Guinea.  Millions of people are sick, especially women and children, from water related diseases.

After an emergency such as a flood, hurricane or earthquake, drinking water may not be safe or even available.  As a result, residents have to find new sources of drinking water and figure out how to make it cleaner.  This problem exists for almost one billion people.

 

In America, we clean our water with seven steps.

  1. Filtration which removes fish, leaves and trash.
  2. Coagulation which gets rid of mud, bacteria and other particles.
  3. The water stands still so bad stuff settles at the bottom.
  4. Water goes through sand or gravel to remove algae an chemicals.
  5. Chlorine is added to kill remaining bacteria.
  6. Air forced through water to reduce gross smells and tastes.
  7. Sodium and/or lime is added.

Only half the world’s population gets tap water in their homes.  This is a major improvement since 1990 when 1.6 billion people didn’t have drinking water.  The problem exists because many people live in poverty where there is no clean water.  Sometimes the overpopulated areas don’t have enough fresh water for everyone.  Humans can survive without food for many days, but without water, they won’t last even 2 days.  Did you know that the human body is 2/3s water?  Sadly every day 10,000 children under 5 years old, dies from a water-related illness.

A potential solution would be building more wells, desalination plants, melting icebergs for more freshwater (but scientists think this will be almost impossible to do) and pipes to take water/sewage in and out of homes.  One simple thing that a kid can do is to save water by turning off the faucet.

This article was written using a collaborative researching and writing process.  2 or 3 students from 4 different classes gathered information on this one topic and then work together to pick the most important information and write this final report.  Thanks to Shelley Wright for sending our teacher the idea of Google Jockey.
Photo licensed under CC Attribution:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/bsush/6612157415/
category: Science
tags: ,

Models of Weather We Built

Posted by  on Sunday, December 11th 2011     

Over the past week, we’ve been busy trying to make different models of how weather works.  The first challenge was to show how air moves in relationship to being heated or cooled.  It’s the beginning of wind.  The second challenge was to show how dew and frost happens in the early mornings.  This is part of the water cycle.  The third challenge was to show how clouds form and is part of the water cycle.

Finding new places to measure the dew point

Chasing clouds in a jar

For two days we worked without any directions.  Mrs. R just gave us a bunch of stuff she said would be needed to use in making these work but we didn’t know how.  No directions.  It was both fun and hard because we ddin’t know what we were doing.  We tried a bunch of stuff and most things didn’t work but we figured out what to do.  On the third day, Mrs. R gave us more directions and we had figured out most of it.

So then we worked on collecting the data and doing more than one trial.  That way we can make good conclusions based on the data.  We’ll do analysis to create the evidence from the data.  That’s a big thing we’ve been working on.

Verifying dew points outside

category: Science, Scientific method
tags: ,

Go Temp! Spends the Night all Over LMS

Posted by  on Wednesday, December 7th 2011     

 Dear  Quad Blogging friends and readers,
 We are in Mrs. Ratzel’s 1st hour science class  and our names are Noah and Natalie.  

We recently completed an experiment called  GoTemp! Spends the Night.  To do this experiment, we had to use a temperature probe that plugged into the computer.  It graphed and charted the data as the probe read the temperature of the surrounding air or wherever we placed it.  

We took the GoTemp! to a place in the school to leave it overnight.  Noah put his in the library.  It stayed there for 24 hours.  We did this experiment  to try to figure out what time the HVAC turned off at night and what time it turned on again in the morning.  

 

After looking at his graph and analyzing his data, Noah and

his group concluded that the HVAC turned off at 3:00pm because that’s when the data on his graph started to drop, and it turned

 

 back on again at 3:00am because that’s when the data on the graph started to rise.  The group emailed the guy who turns the HVAC on and off each day (Mr. Fink)  and he told them that it really turned off at 4:30pm and it turned on at 5:00am.   

This is how we completed the GoTemp! Spends the night lab.

category: assignments, Science, Scientific method
tags: 

Applying heat transfer to designing a thermos

Posted by  on Tuesday, December 6th 2011     

For our science lab, we had to make our own thermos. These are slides from our lab presentation.  We were studying how heat moves from hot to colder places and from cold to hotter places.

Everyone’s family brought in a bit of extra “stuff” that could be used for insulation.  Insulation is where you try and keep the heat you have a constant temperature….if it’s cold you want it to stay cold and if it’s hot you want it to stay hot.  Mrs. R challenged us to make a thermos out of these recylced materials.  We put a cup in the middle to put hold the water to test our experiment. Then, we put cotton around it and wrapped it in a styrofoam wrap, and used a rubber band to hold it all together, and to trap the heat inside!

We tested it out and it worked very well. The temperature didn’t drop too much.We test it with both warm and cold water and the tempature dropped very little. Our thermos was a success!

Jill and Nancy

category: Science
tags: ,

Let’s travel to Arizona this week.

Posted by  on Tuesday, November 15th 2011     

We are about to start our second week of Quadblogging and everyone seems to be having a blast.  Last week everyone came to our page and left us comments…boy we were busy answering everyone.

This week we’re off to meet the class from Arizona.  Mrs. Martinez’s Class Blog .  They are starting us off with a wonderful train experience….when was the last time you saw a train go from this close?  It was a special occasion and this was a steam locomotive helping to celebrate Arizona’s centinennal.  Does that raise lots of questions in your mind?

Why don’t trains run on steam now?  What’s a centennial?  Why is this train so big? Are just a few of the questions you can ask Mrs. Martinez’s class to help you learn about.

Use your very best commenting skills. Here are the guidelines for a high quality comment if you’ve forgotten.

  1. Be sure to address your comment to someone if at all possible…sort of like in a letter
  2. Have your first sentences respond to something that was said on their post.  Pay them a compliment if possible about what you liked on their blog.  It helps to establish and maintain a positive tone to communications.
  3. Ask a question or give your opinion about something….always assuming the best of intentions.
  4. Be sure to leave your name (ONLY your first name) and our class hour so they can respond back to you.  If they don’t know who left the post for them it’s tough for anyone to answer your question.
  5. Keep checking back to see if someone has replied and keep the conversation going.

category: Blogging, quadblogging
tags: 

Knowing the difference between data and evidence

Posted by  on Friday, November 11th 2011     

This is something that’s hard but we’re working on it.

We just finished our Cold Stuff lab and Mrs. Ratzel is making us review what we learned so we can get better.  In our lab, we collected lots of data.  The problem comes because you have to decide what’s evidence.  Evidence is the data that helps prove or disprove the hypothesis.

 

This is how we brainstormed how to best use the data from the Cold Stuff lab.  You can tell we had lots and lots and lots of information. In the class discussion, we realized that we didn’t really know enough from just looking at the data. 

We had to analyze it which makes sense now because it’s another one of the scientific method steps.  We created a data table from every group and we were able to see how our group compared to other groups.

we had to have a big discussion about what happened in the #5 trial because something must have gone wrong.  Maybe the group recorded the starting temperature wrong or they touched the thermometer too much.  We don’t know but don’t think it’s accurate. 

But only 2 things really made us able to infer a conclusion.

  • the difference in temperature from the start to the finish
  • the shape of the graph

Even though we talked about it in class, it is hard to write a good sentence.  Mrs. Ratzel put a sentence starter on the SmartBoard for us and that helped us see how to do this.

You can see where she puts the “hints” that tell us what to write.  She says that before the end of the school year we’ll be able to do this without the hints or the sentence starter.

Right now we think it’s a tie between cotton and steel wool being the best insulator and we have the evidence to prove it.

 

category: Science, Scientific method
tags: ,

What keeps things cold? Cold Stuff Lab

Posted by  on Wednesday, November 9th 2011     

We’ve been collecting data on insulators.  We tested air, cotton and steel wool to compare how well each one kept the heat inside the container.

Yesterday we did the plan phase of the scientific method and figured out how to do the lab.  Today we’re doing the conduct the lab and collect the data part.  Tonight we’ll analyze our data…we have to make a graph showing all three materials and use a key.

Then on Friday, we’ll talk about our results with the whole class and draw a conclusion based on our graphs and the data collection table.

This was a fun lab because we had ice water baths for our cups.  We had to keep them under water for 5 minutes and take measurements every 30 seconds using a big stopwatch Mrs. Ratzel had on the SmartBoard.  Lots of the desk got wet and lots of people had cold hands.

category: assignments
tags: 
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