Mrs. DuBose’s Class: AdVeNtUrEs iN ScIeNcE

When the gray wolf was eradicated from Yellowstone National Park in the 1920s, more was lost than just the noble and fascinating predator. The park’s entire ecosystem changed. Now, nearly a dozen years since the wolves returned, the recovery of that system to its natural balance is well underway.  In the Valley of the Wolves is a riveting documentary that provides understanding into ecosystems, adapations, food chains, niche, animal interactions and more!! Teachers, I have a created movie questions that go along with the movie for your classroom use. Click here

Hi Super Scientist

This week we enjoyed learning about ecosystems.  We enjoyed watching Finding Nemo and applying what we have learned about ecosystems: abiotic and biotic factors, habitat, symbiosis, and food webs. We created our own cycle of life by creating food chain from National Geographic magazines. 

A food chain includes plants, or producers, plant-eating animals called herbivores, a meat-eating animals called carnivores, animals that eat both plants and other animals (omnivores), and tiny creature, or decomposers, that break down dead plant or animal remains

Symbiosis basically means ‘living together’ . These symbiotic interrelationships can be divided into three main categories; Mutualism, when both species involved benefit from the relationship, Commensalism, when one species benefits and the other isn’t affected, and Parasitism, when one species benefits, and the other is harmed in the process.

Commensalism                              Parasitism                           Mutualism
(credit to Dirk Redecker. University of Basel Botanical Institute)

Commensalism: One partner living on the other with no obvious effect on the second.
Parasitism: One partner living on the other with detrimental effect on the second.
Mutualism (symbiosis in a strict sense): Advantages for both partners.

CAN YOU GUESS IS IT..

MUTUALISM, PARASITISM, OR COMMENSALISM??

What is a habitat?
A habitat is a special place where a plant or animal calls home. Just like you have a home or place to live, so do animals and plants. When we talk about an animal or a plant’s home it is more like a neighborhood than a “house.” An animal needs four things to survive in its habitat—food, water, shelter, and a place to raise its young. Just like you have to go to the store to get food, an animal leaves its “shelter” to get the things they need to live. If the population’s needs aren’t met, it will move to a better habitat.

Working Together
There are many plants and animals that will share the same habitat. The animals and plants that live together in a habitat form a “community.” The community of living things interacts with the non-living world around it to form the ecosystem.

Because resources like water and food may be limited, plant and animal species often compete with each other for food and water. The only way that they can all live together is if they occupy slightly different niches or hold different “jobs” in the community. No two species can occupy exactly the same niche. They all have their own jobs or niche in the community.

A niche is the smallest unit of a habitat that is occupied by a plant or animal. The habitat niche is the physical space occupied by the plant or animal. The ecological niche is the role the plant or animal plays in the community found in the habitat.

In class we went outside and observed the soil profile and had an DIRTY good time.  Your job is to be a SOIL SCIENTIST and investigate the layers of soil at your house. Your job is to create a soil profie (similar to the picture on the left) and label and name the soil horizons or layers.  You are to put the soil you collect into small sandwhich bags and attach them to a poster .  You get to be as creative and artistic as you want.

-Collect a baggie of each type of soil and staple to a sheet of THICK construction board and answer the following questions.  This will be added as 20 points EC on a TEST grade.   Click the more button to see the project details!

(more…)

In class this week we have learned what a minerals is using the mnemonic device: CRINS which stands for Crystal (repeating pattern), Recipe (definite chemical composition), Inorganic (non-living) Naturally formed, and Solid. Next, students learned the 8 ways that geologist can identify minerals: C3DFHLS- Color, Cleavage, Crystal structure, Density, Fracture, Hardness, Luster, and Streak.  Students had quite an enjoyable time applying these properties to figure out the identity of mystery minerals.  Lastly, students learned the 2 ways minerals can form-from evaporating solutions and from the cooling of magma and lava. Students learned that when they drink Kool Aid they are essentially drinking a solution because sugar is dissolved in water.  They also learned that through the process of crystallization crystals are able to grow. Students were quite BEDAZZLED of the large size of crystals from a geode and the size of crystals from obsidian.  I posed the questions as to why do you think the crystals were different sizes and their was always that ONE shining star in each class who correctly guess it had to do something with the temperature of the magma and lava.  The quicker the molten rock cooled, the SMALLER the crystal.  SLOW = BIG CRYSTALS FAST=small crystals

Taking their understanding a step further, I asked them how do you think we could create our own crystals?  Many students quickly grasped that we could create our own solutions and allow the solution to evaporate over several days.  Students had a great learning experience creating their borax solutions and seeing their crystals start to grow.  I used sugar last year and it started to get mold.  This year I used Borax at the recommendation of another science teacher due how quickly crystallization starts.

LEAVE A COMMENT..Share your experience creating your crystal or going on the mineral scavenger hunt

Don’t forget minerals are EVERYWHERE and WE USE THEM EVERYDAY!…To go on a mineral scavenger hunt, click on the picture below

If you are interested in growing your own crystals, try Grow Your Own Crystal Experiment on page 2..  If you want to earn 15 points extra credit to test grade, you must do the LAB REPORT that accompanies it!

This week students are continuing their ride along Earth’s bumper cars. Students will learn that the Earth is under stress just like HUMANS are. Students can really relate because many of them had stress coming up to present during their VOLCANO projects. The Earth’s crust undergoes Tension, Compression, and Shearing. Stress puts pressure of the Earth’s crust which causes faults. Faults are a break in the Earth’s crust. The three types of faults are a normal fault, a reverse fault and a strike-slip fault. Students have already learned that the 3 types of boundaries are convergent, divergent, and transform boundaries so making the connection to boundaries creating faults should be an easy one. By the end of th week students will make the connection that the stress of compression happens at a convergent boundary which causes a reverse fault. The stress of tension happens at a divergent boundary which causes a normal fault. In these instances the earth’s crust will lift or fall. Shearing happens at a transform boundary and causes a strike-slip fault which causes the Earth’s plates to slide past each other.

This weeks adventure took on deep within the Earth as we learned all about those MOUNTAINS OF FIRE..VOLCANOES!  Students are now easily getting that plate movement is the culprit to all of this. Students had an awesome time learning the parts of a volcano (magma chamber, pipe, vent, crater, lava flow, pyroclastic flow, ash cloud).

Students then created a volcano foldable on the 3 types of volcanoes: shield, strato/composite, and cinder cone.  Students used modeling clay to create the 3 different type of volcanoes.  As we watched the Mt. Vesuvius eruption, many students of course were only concerned about its awesomeness and the coolness of it but as we watched the video it was amazing to see the transformation.  We talked about the effects that volcanoes can cause: pyroclastic flows, mudflows, floods and ash fall and the enormous effects this can have on people, weather, forest, and buildings.  Next week, students will start their Volcano Research project where partners will research a famous volcano and create a National Geographic Real Estate News Paper Ad and then individually they are to create a model of the volcano that they researched. Enjoy the volcano videos below about catastrophic eruption of Mt. Vesuvius and a sleeping giant in our mist, our very own Yellowstone National Park

Our next unit will be Earthquakes and Volcanoes.  We will start of the unit label the Earth’s plates, coloring the 3 types of plate boundaries.  We will then plot the earthquakes and volcanoes and observe the pattern of where they occur.  Our major lab this weeks involves a tasty morsel named Snickers. We will use it to model the different motion of earths plates: convergent, divergent, and transform.  We will then review our knowledge this week by completing our Plate Tectonics Adapted Reading and creating a Plate Tectonics vocabulary Foldable.

Divergent               Convergent                      Transform

This week we have wrapped up our the Journey to the Center of the Earth.  We thoroughly enjoyed our Journey to the Center of Earth Jeopardy review game for our upcoming test.  We wrapped up the week by going on a webquest that showed us how Earth’s Plate are A Movin’ and Groovin’.  This unit got students really engaged for how plate movement effects, named EARTHQUAKES and VOLCANOES.