Beavers

Hi its me again! Today I’ll be talking about beavers! these are very interesting animals. Castor canadensis, or beavers, live mostly in North America but are also native to Europe, South America, and Asia. They are the second largest rodent, behind the capybara. The beaver is a great swimmer. They can stay under for 15 minutes! They also close their ears and nose closed. they have a second pair of transparent eyelids that work as goggles! Second only to humans, beavers change their environment more than anyone else in the animal world! Their dams and lodges help create an entire ecosystem of animals as well as sustaining the beavers. They have an instinct to fix their dams if they hear running water. Their teeth are perfect for chewing, they never stop growing! They are also orange. Their dams are made of wood, mud, and stones. their lodges have underwater entrances so that they can escape from predators, such as wolves. Beavers are very intelligent creatures, they teach their young how to start up their own dams when they move out. But one threat they cannot escape is us. Humans. People drain their native wetlands for farmland. (like there isn’t enough space in the prairie!) this shrinks their habitat. This is bad. But the government is keeping it from getting too bad so don’t worry. Thanks for reading! Here’s a beaver.

My own myth (Myths and legends project

King Midas of Greece married a woman and had a daughter. Her name was Alchema. One day Midas helped a satyr named Silenus. Apparently, Dionysus liked this half goat guy, so he gave Midas his dream, the gold touch. He accidentally touched poor Alchema and when Dionysus took it away, Alchema awoke made of living gold, for Aphrodite took pity on the girl. Although something given and done by the gods cannot be undone, she could give her life. She was able to turn certain things to gold, but her specialty was lead. This is where the word “Alchemy” comes from. She was very beautiful but what people were drawn to most was her wonderful golden hair. It grew long and wavy. She had many men fighting over her.  She ended up having 15 kids! In the end, she filled her kingdom with gold and riches although when she died the gold disappeared. She became an immortal, a minor goddess, the goddess of alchemy. Her most well known descendant was the one and only Nicholas Flamel, who had the ability to do alchemy, aided up above by Alchema herself. That is the long forgotten story of Alchema of Greece.

(Above: Alchema with her golden creations)

Self Directed Science

Hello everyone! This is Noa and I’ll tell you about my science project. My project is about volcanoes. I had to collect information and show it in a way I could present to the class. I collected a whole lot of information and prepared an experiment. here is some of my info:

Volcanic stuff:

• Basalt is a dark heavy rock found on the ocean floor.
• Granite is a lighter rock in both weight and colour like most other igneous rocks which can be found on countertops.
• Pahoehoe is a quite fluid type of lava and it can form a thick crust that you can walk with red hot lava still under it! It cools into ropelike coils
• Aa lava is less fluid than pahoehoe and cools into sharp pointy rock. Ouch!
• Obsidian is volcanic glass that breaks easily and has been used since ancient times.
• Volcanic ash is made up of bad chemicals and other nasty things you can’t breathe in. Many Pompeiians died of suffocation from breathing this in.

Above: Pahoehoe lava

Volcano Hall Of Fame:

• Mt. Vesuvius: Wiped out the Roman cities of Pompeii and the lesser known Herculaneum.
• Ring Of Fire: Actually an area of many volcanoes in the pacific ocean.
• Mt. Erebus: A big active volcano in Antarctica.
• Mauna Kea: Hawaii’s largest volcano.

Above: Ruins of Pompeii with mount Vesuvius in the background

How Volcanoes Are Formed:

1. A crack in the crust allows magma to flow up and it slowly builds up.
2. Underwater volcanoes can get so vast this way they build into islands like Hawaii.

 

How Volcanoes Erupt:

1. Magma in a magma chamber below the surface builds up
2. It gets too much and it opens to a feeder tube
3. The magma gets to the surface where it gets a new name: lava.

 

For this project, I had to make a PLAN! here it is:

I started my project by gathering info and putting it in one place. Next, I made a poster and model of the inside of a volcano. After that, I planned out my final thing. It was a model volcano that was going to blow its top. First, I made the structure. Then, I covered it in paper mache and painting it. Now is my favourite part, my friend and I experimented with how to make the volcano erupt. We figured out that one part baking soda and two parts vinegar works beautifully. It was a blast! Here is my testing:

Now, it was finally time to blow this thing up! I used what I learned to make this erupt.

(me before my experiment)

(my experiment)

All in all, my project went super well. Next time I would just plan things out better. Bye!

Cookie Geology

Hello everyone! You are probably thinking “What do cookies have to do with geology?” That is what I thought too. So we are studying rocks and minerals.

Fact Alert!

Did you know that there are three main types of rock? they are igneous rock, metamorphic rock, and sedimentary rock.

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Now I’ll continue after being so very rudely interrupted. So where did we leave off… oh! So I was studying rocks and minerals so there was this idea my awesome teacher had where we become geologists which are scientists who study rocks. (hence the pun, “Geology Rocks!”) so we were supposed to excavate the cookies and try not to damage them. We excavated the chocolate chips. It was a blast!

Cool Picture

I had to make predictions on how many chocolate chips there would be in your cookie. I got some calculations wrong but it was a hypothesis and I was pretty close.

planning sheet

It was very cool and I enjoyed the cookies. (excavating and eating) Bye!