Iva's Reflection Post

Over the last two years I have definitely improved in blogging. I am not saying that I think I am a great blooger, but I have gotten better. I feel that my posts are more organized, and neater. They are clearer, and easier to understand. I have also discovered some of the 'secrets' to blogging, and it has made blogging for me easier!
In my opinion, blogging can be used to do many different things, like sharing things you write, or maybe sharing recipes, or making a public blog to ask people questions about various topics. Blogging could also be used to summarize books read in classes in school, and to discuss the book, for example. But I also feel that blogs contribute to learning in a class. They can help students when they are sick and when they need help they can just look at the class blog, and everything we covered during class is there! A blog also can contribute to learning for a class because people sometimes post helpfull and interesting videos, and maybe those help others more. And of course, if your mind wonders off during class, you can look at the scribe post, and figure out what you missed! :D
Overall, blogging has helped my writing because I can write in a way that is more understandable and less confusing, and I can now write about class, and include scientific vocabulary well, with less problems! But not only has blogging helped me improve n my writing but also in my commenting to others. I can now comment to others in a nicer manner, and I have learned to be more critical(in a good way) and I have learned to comment more on the Science in the blog post, rather than the way it looks.
All in all, blogging has helped me realize that Blogger actually isn't such a bad thing in the end (even though it still gives me problems), but that it is actually helpful and I have learned that you should never copy a large amount of text into Blogger, because that causes unwanted problems. =D

Tuesday, May 3- Haumea and Makemake

Haumea and its two moons

Hi Everyone,

During class on Tuesday, I presented on Haumea and Makemake. Those are two different dwarf planets located far, far away from our planet, even further away than Pluto! They both have some things in common, like being dwarf planets is one example, but on the other hand, there are many other things that make them different.

Haumea is a dwarf planet discovered in 2004 by Michael E. Brown’s team. In 2005, J.L. Orbitz’ team also discovered it. Since it was discovered around Christmas time, the scientists decided to name it “Santa”. When it got its real name, Haumea, it was named after the Hawaiian goddess of childbirth and fertility.

Haumea is known to be made up completely of rock.

Haumea’s symbol is a simplification of Hawaiian petroglyphs of “woman” and “childbirth”. It looks like this:

Haumea’s diameter is 1960 km at the equator, and 2500 km at the poles. You might think that this is weird. This is because Haumea’s shape is like an American football. Scientists believe that this is because Haumea has a very fast rotation (3:55) which stretched out the planet. The mass of Haumea is 10²¹kg, and the density is 2,600-3-300 kg/m³

Haumea is a very cold planet – it is approximately -241 degrees Celcius! The land is also hard, cold, and rocky.

Haumea has two moons, Namaka and Hi’iaka. Just like the planet itself, these moons have “Santa names” – Rudolf and Blixten, two of Santa’s reindeer. The diameter of the moons is….? As you can see, Hi’iaka is larger than Namaka. Haumea is a dwarf planet and can, because of that, not have rings.

Haumea is located in the Kuiper belt and actually passes Pluto’s orbit. It also passes Neptune’s orbit, since it is a TNO (Trans-Neptunian Object).

All the Trans-Neptunian Objects to Scale

Haumea is the third brightest object in the Kuiper belt after Pluto and MakeMake, and was officially categorized as a dwarf planet in 2008.

<--Makemake
Name and Discovery

• Before Makemake was given an official name, it was called Easterbunny, because it was discovered close to Easter time. Makemake got its name from the fertility god in the mythology of Rapanui (Easter Island). Makemake was discovered by Micheal E. Brown, C.A Trujio, and D. L. Robinowitz on March 31, 2005.

  Size

  Makemake’s diameter is between 1300 and 1900 km approximate mass is about 4x10^21. Its density is approx. 2,000 km/m^3.

  Symbol

  The symbol of Makemake looks like the letter M on Roman petro glyphs and the face of the god Makemake. (to the left is the symbol)

  
  

  Revolution and Rotation

  Rotation- 22.48 Earth hours

  Revolution- 305.34 Earth years

  Climate

  Makemake’s temperature is approximately -240°C.

  Land/Atmosphere

  Sometimes Makemake has an atmosphere and it sometimes doesn’t. Makemake has an atmosphere when it is closer to the Sun and it doesn’t when it is farther away from the Sun due to its orbit that enters Pluto’s orbit and exit Pluto’s orbit.

  Location in Solar System

  Makemake is a Kuiper Belt Object. The Kuiper Belt is an area beyond Neptune which is extremely cold and icy. Makemake enters only Pluto’s orbit during its revolution.

  Moon

  Makemake has no moons and no natural satellites.

  Rings

  And also has no rings.

  Surface:

  Makemake is covered with frozen methane, and iron oxide which gives it a red color as you can see in the picture on the side. It is the second brightest object from the dwarf planets.

  Other interesting facts

  Makemake is the fourth dwarf planet recognized in our solar system. It is about 2/3 the size of Pluto, and only slightly further away from the sun compared to Pluto.

  It is the only dwarf planet in the region without satellites.

  Makemake is known as a “plutoid” which is a name for all the dwarf planets further away than Neptune, and Haumea is as well.

  It was one of the first planets to get a non-Greek/Latin name.
  

  Last plutoid to be discovered

  _________ :D ____________
  

  Here are some links that will inform you more about the Red Spot on Haumea and more about dwarf planets in general, and a link to Moodle. There you can also find the notes for Haumea and Makemake.
  

  
  
  
  
  

Iva's Reflection Post

I feel that by now I can write a blog post much easier. I do not have as many problems with technology because I learned that I have to write in everything right away, without copying from a Word document. It is not frustrating me as much. I need to improve in putting in more pictures and writing everything we covered in class and be more thorough.

The benefits of having a class blog is that you can always check it if you are sick, and the non-benefits are that Blogger can give some problems, and that comments get deleted very easily. My comments got deleted quite a few times and that was very irritating.

Friday, March 18th

During class on Friday, we first went over our homework.
Our homework was to find out:
How many divisions of NASA there are, what they are, and where they are located. Then, we also had to find what ESA stands for, where it is located, and which countries are involved in it.
The answers to our homework were:
There are 15 divisions on NASA (including NASA headquarters). They are:
(Division- Location)
NASA headquarters- Washington DC
Marshall- AL
Ames- CA
Goddard- MD
Johnson- TX
Kennedy- FL
JPL- CA
Langley- VA
Glenn- OH
Dryden- CA
White Sands- NM
Stennis- MS
Wallaps- VA
IV & V Facility- WV
Plum Brook- OH

Second, we went over our homework for the next three weeks.
1. We had a APOD due Tuesday at 8:00. (We can send Ms. D a rough draft on Monday)
2. For Thursday, we have a Ted Talk due, on anybody presenting astronomy related topics.
3. And due Friday, we have our last blog comment due.
For the other two weeks, you can click here and you will be able to see what our homework is.

After that, we talked more about the "super moon" (below),

and then we watched a video about how the MESSENGER entered Mercury's orbit, and how scientists are making it get into Mercury's orbit.
If you click here you will be able to see a few photos, and captions of the MESSENGER around Mercury.


We also watched a video about the moon, were it spoke about apogees and perigees.
An apogee is when the moon is farther away from the Earth, and a perigee is when the moon is closer to the Earth.

We drew a diagram which explained all that. Since I cannot draw the diagram, here is a picture that explains what they are in a simple way.

And that is all that we covered in class on Friday.

The next scribe is Sophie. :D

Iva's Reflection Post

This quarter I think my blog post went well! Even though the computer and my font did not get along, and my font was confusing, I am satisfied with my scribe post! What I didn't do well on my scribe post was that I wasn't able to make my font all the same, I also could have added the link to Moodle too, so that anyone who was sick could follow the link and open up all the documents! Yes, I did put in two pictures, but I agree that I could have put in more pictures! I think that the youtube video of the Element Song added humor to my scribe post as well. In my opinion, my scribe post was colorful, but not overly colorful. All our notes taken that day were put on my post, and that is a plus and I did explain everything we covered in class during that day! In the next quarter, I will be sure to add the link to Moodle and put in three or more pictures! I will try to make my font all the same so it does not confuse readers, and I will watch out on my verb tenses! Blogger is a good way to make sure that you are not missing out on class and I am getting to like it more and more, all thought at times it can be frustrating! Concerning the blog that is the only thing i dislike about it, that when you paste something from a word document it sort of goes crazy!!

Science Class on Friday November 5th, 2010

During today’s class, we took notes. Before we begun taking notes, Ms. D checked if we did our homework, which was filling out and completing the chart on carbohydrates, lipids, proteins, and water, and to finish reading pages 25-30 if we didn’t finish in class. Then, we all took out our notebooks and we began discussing what we read and what we wrote in our charts. We reviewed the periodic table of elements, we reviewed elements, and we took notes on what organic and inorganic meant, and the chart we completed, and we discussed and learned what a compound is. The notes were the following:

Elements = the basic substance of everything - can be made smaller

- 118 on the periodic table of elements

- 117 definite ones

- Block 117 doesn’t exist

If the letters in a block are written in:

Red = gas

Blue = liquid

Black = solid

White with black outline = human made solid

Organic- alive, living; carbon(C) based

Inorganic- not living; not carbon (C) based

Compound = molecules; two or more elements combined chemically; in order to separate I must add NRG.

Enzymes = speed up chemical rxn in body

We also added another compound to the chart which was nucleic acids, but we didn’t get to it during class. The chart had this information (I wasn't able to add a chart. So I wrote it out. Sorry):

Compounds:

Carbohydrates (Sugar and starch)- (4cal/g)

Lipids (Fat)- (9cal/g)

Proteins- (4cal/g)

Water (H2O)

Elements:

Carbohydrates= Carbon, Hydrogen, Oxygen

Lipids= Carbon, Hydrogen, Oxygen

Proteins= Carbon, Hydrogen, Oxygen, Nitrogen and sometimes Sulfur

Water= Oxygen, Hydrogen

Functions:

Carbohydrates= Provider of NRG

Lipids= Stores, produces NRG; similar to carbohydrates but contains even more NRG so it is harder to break down

Proteins= Also known as enzymes; make up organelles, help digest, form cell membranes/cell parts

Water= Makes up 2/3 of a humans body; helps cells keep their shape and size; keep cells from changing temp. too quickly; help chemical rxn

That is what we did in class on Friday. At the end of class we got homework to bring 4 nutrition labels (including carbohydrates, lipids, and proteins). We also have to read pgs. 30-37 in our textbooks, and we have to watch the link, on youtube, that Ms. D posted on Moodle!

Also, don't forget to water your pansy plants and water them!!!

If anyone wants to check out an amusing song about elements also known as the element song…. Click on this link below to watch it!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGM-wSKFBpo

The next scribe is Noam!:)