8th - Harper's Blog

Our latest science project was on water. I chose to make my presentation on plastic pollution. Unfortunately I missed the zoom class this morning and didn’t see what other people worked on… but I bet it was great! My slideshow mainly focused on plastic water bottles (which are terrible for the environment by the way) and how water pollution affects animals (such as sea turtles, seagulls, pelicans, dolphins, sea lions, manatees, etc.) It ended with me providing links to alternatives for plastic water bottles, bags and straws. Anyway, if you want to look at it (you don’t have to, just so you can) here’s the link!

Questions:

1. Why did people invent plastic water bottles?
2. How many animals die a year from plastic pollution?
3. Are some animals not affected by plastic?

Our latest project in science class was on light pollution. I, for one, had never even heard of light pollution. When you think of pollution you most likely think of trash and smoke, but light pollution is a different kind of pollution. Light pollution has to do with artificial light, like in lightbulbs, street lamps, and buildings. Did you know that 80% of people can’t see the Milky Way? That’s because of light pollution. The light in big cities is so bright that it outshines the Milky Way making it impossible to see. Traverse city itself is a decently sized city, so when you look at a map of light pollution Traverse City is a shade of orange. Meaning that we can see the Milky Way, just not very well. Another problem due to light pollution is animals that depend on light. Baby turtles when first born are genetically programmed to go into the water, however if the light they see is artificial, they don’t know where the water is, leading them toward the dangerous city. Another animal affected is birds. It’s said that a billion birds hit buildings each year and die. The light of the city confuses the bird leading it to its death bed.

Questions:

How many other animals are affected?

Is light pollution a problem in small towns?

Does light pollution damage human health?

As everyone knows the Coronavirus, formally known as the COVID-19 is spreading all over the world. Because of this all schools in the state of Michigan have closed down until what was April 6th and is now April 13th. So last week when we should have been in school, we were at home doing assignments from our teachers. The truth is even with quarantine, most people are most likely to get it just by not washing their hands and going to grocery stores… The good thing is most of the people who get it, will just have the symptoms of a cold. It’s mostly affecting those over the age of fifty who either has a compromised immune system, smokes or has smoked in their life, or is overweight. My family has been taking melatonin before sleeping. We do this because when you graph how much melatonin babies lose as they grow it’s the exact opposite graph of the age of people who get corona. Therefor if we take melatonin we think that we are less likely to get the COVID-19.

Questions

1. When is the estimated time for a vaccine?
2. How old was the youngest person that died of corona?
3. Can any animals carry the virus?

A while ago we had the Science Expo. A science expo is like a Science fair only there isn’t a winner or a prize. This year my class (7th grade) got to choose their experiments. Mine was about cricket flour, which is really just ground crickets that you use to bake things with. I started by making two batches of cookies, one with cricket flour one with all-purpose flour. Next I offered the to everyone around school.  I would tell people how good crickets are for you and how they could be really good for the environment. But my experiment was to see if, even though they know it’s good for them, will people eat crickets. My hypothesis was that people would try to avoid the cricket cookies and just ry to eat the normal cookies, but it turns out that more people wanted to try the cricket cookies than the normal cookies. I thought that that was pretty cool because it shows that if we really had to eat insects, we probably could.

Questions:

1. Why can’t you bake only with cricket flour?

2. If more people knew about cricket flour, would they use it?

3. can cricket flour be made by machines?

So two days ago we started a test. Shane doesn’t give us like, pop quiz’s or anything but we still didn’t like it. The test was on bacteria… we haven’t worked on bacteria in a while because of the renaissance unit, which I’ll talk about in my next blog. But anyway we worked on it on Tuesday and I got about half of it done. We worked on it some more today and I finished it. But that’s what we did today… yup.

Questions

1. How much more difficult are high school tests?
2. Why were tests invented!?
3. When is our next test?

So a few weeks ago in science class, we made yogurt. It wasn’t as difficult as I expected it to be. First, We heat up milk and pick out two jars. Second, We mix two Tbsp’s of already made yogurt, and some of the milk into the jars. Third, We mix the two up in the jars, and put the jars in the refrigerator. Fourth, We take the jars out of the fridge after about 24 hours. Fifth, We take a small cup, fill it with your and honey, and then we eat the yogurt!

Questions

1. Why does the milk have to be warm?
2. What would happen if we left the yogurt in the fridge longer?
3. Why do we need the two Tbsp’s of pre made yogurt?

At the moment we are doing a bacteria unit in science class. Basically, we have to chose a bacteria or virus to research, draw, and make a Google Slide about. I chose Strep Throat. Strep Throat is caused by a bacteria called Streptococcal or Strep Bacteria. You can get rid of strep throat by keeping warm salt water in your mouth, drinking lemon juice in hot water, eating ginger, using mouthwash, etc.             In science class we have been making wanted posters for our virus/bacteria. We draw a picture of the bacteria itself and then we name the bacteria/virus and label it ‘wanted dead.’

Questions

1. Is strep throat a virus and a bacteria?
2. Why does hot salt water and hot lemon juice kill strep?
3. Can strep throat also be helpful?

So today we are having a tech day, Shane wants us to catch up on blogs, so, here I am.  Anyways,  earlier this week we talked about plant reproduction. Shane’s way of explaining “The flowers are like ‘Hey baby, Hey baby'”                              So flowers need pollen basically to reproduce, the flower can get that pollen either from the wind (the hard way) or from bees (the easy way). The flowers lure bees to them using certain bright colors or certain smells. When the bees see/hear these things they come pollinate the flowers.

QUESTIONS

1.  Do other plants get pollinated by bees

2. Can other insects pollinate flowers

3. Why do we need three questions

Last week the eighth graders went “elk bugling”.  That means our science teacher was chaperoning. That means tech day. Tech day is when we get to use out science class as a tech class. We can use Circuits, IPads, Little Bits, basically any technology around the science class.  I chose to do Little bits with my friend Lucy. We made a sound machine. Basically a machine that makes very loud annoying sounds, we tried to sneak up on out friends and scare them with it. We’re not very sneaky.

Questions:

1. Why is there only one battery clip in two packages of Little bits?

2. What else can we use on tech days?

3. Where is dash the robot?

So a few weeks ago my class went to a camp. The name of this camp is L.o.c., Leelanau Outdoor Center. We do it every year in September. It was super fun the first time but we do a lot of the same things each year, so some of it is boring now. But this year since i’m in seventh grade now, My class and I got to do the “High Ropes Course” for the first time. That was by far the highlight of L.o.c. It’s twenty-five feet in the the air in a clear place in the forest. My favorite of all the obstacles was the balance beam they call “Old Rickety” I walked forwards, backwards, forwards and backwards blindfolded, jumped, and ran across it.

Questions:

1. How long does L.o.c. stay open?

2. Why aren’t phones aloud?

3. If food is aloud in the great house, why is it not aloud in cabins?