The Man Who Fed The World - Norman Borlaug

In AP biology we have been doing a book study to add to our view of where we fit into the ever-expanding food production chain.  In class we have learned a great deal about the "chemistry of life" and what that means to the growth of plants and animals.  This is all well and good, but without deeper meaning, I feel at times this information would be fruitless.  My hope is that in this book study we can follow the life of Norma Borlaug, and find inspiration in his humble beginnings, and find direction with his life story. 

Its hard to know just what you want " to do with your life" as it is often asked.  "Ali, what do you want to do with your life?", " Adam, What do you want to be when you grow up?"  I am often the one asking these questions of my students.  I can see this as the pot calling the kettle black, because I do not know yet what I want to do "when I grow up".  I believe we are all on a path and that we are not finished with our grooming for a very long time, if ever.

Do we have a vision for our future?  Can we envision a future for the world, made better by our being here? That is what we are trying to uncover on this adventure! :)

Being Content Providers

As we have adventured through the the scientific process, my students have been sharing articles that captured their attention and imaginations.  Next week they will start rolling out their research papers.  These research papers will be the preface of their independent laboratory studies.  I am very proud of their accomplishments and the knowledge they have gained from the use of social media.  They are becoming quite the content providers and will be able to carry these skills far into the future!   If you would like to follow along with their research, some of the students blogs are linked to at the right of this blog.  Also, I encourage you to follow the hashtag #svscience for more of their links and thoughts!  Here's to the new adventure of backyard and basement scientists!

Using the scientific method in real life!!

Yesterday my students watched a NOVA video about the shuttle Columbia's failed re-entry.  If you would like to watch this video, you can go to Nova Shuttle Video.  One of the sobering ideas here, is that the engineers who witnessed the foam hit the wing, were not able to assess and predict what damage may have been done  (and in fact was) to the wing.  The scientific community is a funny thing, sometimes we are all about sharing a findings and getting input from as many people as possible.  Other times, we are so afraid of what others may say, that we don't share information, that could potentially save lives.  What would have happened.. what potential outcomes could have changed, if NASA would have shared that video footage with the scientific community and asked for feedback?  That is why I am so passionate about my students make blogs and sharing information. 

Radical Refrigeration!

Yes..there I go with the alliterations. again! I love them, I can't help it!  I also love that the concepts of refrigeration and efficiency are becoming more and more real to us in physics class!  I am linking to our notes from today's lecture.  The diagrams are sketchy( literally) but hopefully they will help make it a bit more clear for you!

Here are the notes from today: Notes over refrigeration  So why is it important to understand refrigeration?  Why is it important to understand how closed engines work?  What is the conservation of energy have to do with this?  I love thermodynamics!

Also, for those of you who witnessed the vacuum demonstration (video link to follow on Monday), how did that help?  Did you find it amazingly cool that as the pressure decreased the temperature actually did too!  Remember from Chemistry last year "Pv-nrT"?  The You tube song will forever be stuck in your mind!  If you have forgotten it, allow me to remind you! pv-nrT Don't mind the swear words and the pimp/hoe reference!  You touched the glass, you saw the temp.. you KNOW it became cooler!  Now where is that heat going to go from in the fridge?  Rembmer, heat will travel from a hotter to a cooler.  Need that song too?  Here it is Thermodynamics song- with puppets!

Ap Biology and Biology ecosystems.. what are the fish doing?

Recently my biology class has made two-liter pop bottles into self-contained ecosystems.  AP Biology will be doing this today and tomorrow.  What is the point?  We are trying to visualize how the earth is truly a closed system and that nutrients flow in a cyclic matter.  Aside from an unknown students adding packing peanuts to a pair of girl's project.. it has gone very well.   It well until we started to look at the fish and how they interact. 

I had found two sweet little pond fish that couldn't have been bigger then a quarter.  I thought these sweet little fishies should go into the aquarium where they could feel safe.  I had no idea they were killing machines.  These two fish single handedly.. or would it be finedly?!?!.. wiped out our guppy population.  Sweet fish my foot!  Keeping this in mind it will be very interesting to see how these fish behave in a small closed ecosystem


As I was searching articles I found this one that says that aquarium fish are agressive.Aggressive Fish  Apparently my Guppies didn't get the memo! What are your experiences with fish?  Do you find them to be more or aggressive then native species?

Our new adventure

Physics class is starting a blog project.. so here is an example of a blog.

  Today I was reading an article on human interaction with the environment. Human Interactions.