Learning to identify minerals

In this lab, I learned how to identify minerals by testing their properties. Luster,streak, hardness, cleavage are properties of minerals.Luster is about if a mineral is metallic or nonmetallic. To see if it is metallic, we just need to place a magnet beside the mineral. Streak is about if a mineral is color or colorless/white. To see if it has color, we can scratch it on a streak plate. hardness is about if a mineral is hard or soft. We can scratch it on a glass plate. If it is scratches, its hardness is over 5.5. Cleavage is about if a mineral can be cut evenly. If it is cut unevenly, then it is fracture.




Reflection

1.What did you enjoy most about this project and why?

I enjoy testing the properties of minerals with my partner. It was fun and scientific through studying with partner.

2. What was most challenging for you during this project and why ?

I think doing the lab report is most challenging. Because those paragraphs needed to be in our own words.

3. What new skills did you learn from doing this project ?

I learn how to identify minerals with streak plate and glass plate.

4. Is there anything that you could have done to improve any of your work ? Explain.

I could have made our video better. There were some mistakes when we were taking it. For example, we didn't use penny and nail to test minerals.

Shake Shake Shake Our Earth

Layers:

Lithosphere

Activities: Mini Posters, BrainPop Video, Music Videos

Topics: Continental Drift, Faults, Plate Tectonic, Volcanoes, Earthquakes, Earth Structure, Seismic Waves.

Earth has three basic layers: Core, mantle and crust. Crust is the layer that we live on. This is the hard layer under grass, dirt, sand and water. It is thick in the continent and in the ocean basins. Mantle is made up of mixture of element. It is deep and massive, goes down from the bottom of the crust. The upper mantle is soft and plastic which allow the plates move around. The lower mantle is solid and hot. The center of the earth is core, outer core and inner core. Outer core made of molten iron and nickel. It is liquid layer with 2,300 Km thick. Inner core is 5,100 Km below the surface. It spins and along with the convection current in the mantle. Inner core is a hard ball that made of iron.

Asthnosphere

Activities: Foldables & Mini-Quiz,Demonstration Lab

Topics: Continental Drift, Faults

Alfred Wegener thought of the continental drift. He thought that all continents were used to be one supercontinent called Pangaea. It is like a puzzle when you put all continents together. Fossils, rock record and mountain rangers are the evidences of this theory, they can be found all over the world. The surface of land has chance to occur faults. Normal fault is when land moves downward. Reverse/Thrust fault is when land moves upward. Strike-slip fault is when land slide past each other horizontally. 

Mantle

Activities: Photographic evidence, Exploration Labs

Topics: Plate boundaries, Subduction Zone, Fault zone, Hot spot, Tsunami, Earthquake

Earth’s crust is broke up into minor plates. Because of the mantle under the crust, plates move around on top of the mantle. When plates moving, they can slide apart, collide together or horizontally past each other. The boundaries where plates meet may cause volcanoes, mountains, trenches and earthquakes. They are also called faults. Because plates build up pressure in side rocks, rocks broke up and shift to release the pressure. This is earthquake. Earthquake has three types of waves. They are P-wave, S-wave and L-wave. earthquake can bring huge damage to the environment. It is serious disaster. Scientists use seismograph which is a machine to measure how big and how long of the quakes.

2. Critical Thinking Question

 I agree with the theory of plate tectonics. If we put all continents together, they are look like puzzle. Alfred Wegener thought of the continental drift that all continents were used to be one supercontinent called Pangaea. After millions years, Earth’s crust broke up in large pieces called plates. Plates are moving few centimeters away from each other year by year. Scientists found that rocks record and fossils in continents have similarity. That’s why there are seven continents on the earth.

Because of the convection current, the heat in the mantle forces plates are moving on top of the mantle in different direction. This causes the ocean floor spreading from the center. The boundaries of plates create geological activities when they against each other, such as volcanoes, earthquakes, fault, subduction zone and mountain building.

3. Reflection

1. What did you enjoy most about this project and why?

I enjoyed doing the convection current lab and making the photographic evidence video. I can understand better about how the convection current works through doing the lab. And this is the first time that I made video.

2. What was most challenging for you during this project and why?

This project was not really challenging for me. All I need was have enough time to finish them.

3. What new skills did you learn from doing this project?

I learned to make video and use the lab scale that used to weight stuff from doing this project.

4. Is there anything that you could have done to improve any of your work? Explain.

I could have re-do the lab.There was a human error when we were measuring the basalt and garnet rocks.I could have measured another rocks to see if their result are the same.

Shaking Our World

Geography	Cause	Effect
Convergent Boundary	Two plates come together	It creates mountains, trenches, volcanoes and islands.
Divergent Boundary	Two plates move apart	It creates new ocean crust (sea-floor spreading), mid-ocean ridge and rift valley.
transform Boundary	Plates slide past each other in opposite direction	It creates faults, earthquakes and tsunami.
Subduction Zone	A dense plate goes under another less dense plate	It creates volcanoes and trenches. It may also form islands.
Fault Zone	The region where large fractures in the earth's crust	Faults can cause earthquakes and tsunami. It does damages, such as building collapse.
Hot Spot	A really part of the mantle, it forces magma up to the surface	It creates islands.
Earthquake	Occurs mainly at plate boundaries, movement along faults	It destroys the environment, decreases economy and takes people's lives.
Tsunami	Earthquake occur under the ocean cause huge ocean waves	It brings flooding, takes people's lives. And destroys the environment, decreases economy.

The boundary between plates called plate boundary. There are three types of plate boundaries which are convergent, divergent and transform boundary. They have different movement and conformation of surficial geography. Convergent boundary is where two plates come together. When two continental plates come together, it forms mountains. When there are oceanic plate and continental plates, it forms subduction zone cause of the dense oceanic plate goes under the continental plate. Volcanoes and trenches are formed at subduction zone. Divergent boundary is where two plates pull apart. It forms mid-ocean ridge between two plates and trenches, mountains, volcanoes. Transform boundary is where plates slide past each other in opposite direction. It causes faults and earthquake. If earthquake occurs under the ocean, it brings tsunami. 

Massive Movement Project

Eclipse


Vocabulary:


Lunar Revolution 
月球公转
The moon moves around the earth.



Phase of the Moon
月相
Changing shape of the moon.



Umbra
暗影
The dark part of the shadow.



Penumbra
半影
The light part of the shadow.



Total Eclipse
全食
When the entire sun is covered by the moon.



Partial Eclipse
偏食
When only part of the sun is covered by the moon.



Solar Eclipse
日食
When the moon moves between the sun and earth and blocks the light to earth.

Lunar Eclipse
月食
When the moon moves behind the earth into the shadow.

Summary:
Lunar revolution can cause of eclipses. When the moon moves around the earth in different positions, its movement causes phase of the moon. Umbra is the darkest part of the shadow, when the moon moves in umbra, it will become  total eclipse. Penumbra is the light part of the shadow, when the moon moves in penumbra, it will become partial eclipse. Solar eclipse is when the moon moves between the sun and earth and blocks the sunlight to the earth. It happens in daytime. Lunar eclipse is when the moon moves into earth's shadow. It happens in nighttime. Both solar eclipse and lunar eclipse have total/partial eclipse.

Video:



Class M - #3 - 2012 from Kara MacDevitt on Vimeo.



Critical Thinking Question:
How is earth affected by movement(revolution)?


Earth revolution is the earth orbits around the sun. It takes 365 days or 1 year to revolve one time around the sun. It also rotate on its axis for 24 hours in counter-clock wise while it is revolving the sun. Earth is tilted 23.5 degree. Its axis is point to the north star, Polaris. Because the earth rotation so that we have day and night. Earth revolution causes four seasons which are the spring, summer, autumn and winter. And we can see the movement of the stars. Because it is revolve the sun so that the earth receive different sunlight when it is in different position. That is why we have summer/winter solstices and vernal/autumnal equinoxes.


Reflection:


1. What did you enjoy most about this project and why?
    
I enjoyed working with my group members, learning new things and organizing the props. We helped each other. Sometimes we had argue and sometimes we collaborated well. I liked to see everybody was working on their part.  


2. What was most challenging for you during this project and why?


The most challenging for me during this project was when we need to practice and take video. It was hard to keep everything organized while we were taking the video. Even though we already practiced many times, but it still hard to do 


3. What new skills did you learn from doing this project?


I learned how to edit the video. Although I was not video editor, but I learned how to make it fancy and more interesting by watching my group member edited it.


4. Is there anything that you could have done to improve any of your work? Explain.


I could have find more props and retake the video. All the stuff were kind of messy in the video, and some props were not in the right position. I think our video could have be more interesting and detailed.