Erosion lab

What is the difference between weathering and erosion?



Weathering breaks apart the rocks, pebbles or soil. Erosion is what carries them away!

This week we did an erosion lab. What a difference a little plant does when there is rainfall! Check out this photo of some plain garden soil and a house plant after we simulated rain on both. The garden soil was washed away by erosion, and the soil under the plant was protected by the leaves and roots!

Weathering lab!

This week was our first trip down to a real science lab! We had such a great time learning about lab safety and conducting an experiment in groups following the scientific method.

Measuring air pressure

It was a cloudy day at Brownsville Middle School...

This week we learned how to measure different aspects of weather such as temperature (with a thermometer), wind speed (with an anemometer), rain fall (with a rain gauge) and air pressure (with a barometer).

For our lab we built our own barometers to understand how air pressure works. The great thing about this lab was how we used materials anyone can buy from Publix!


The students did SUCH a great job building their barometers and simulating higher air pressure!

Melting cryosphere computer lab

This week we learned about the different spheres of the Earth, namely the biosphere, geosphere, hydrosphere and cryosphere. Remember- the cryosphere is an easy name to remember for ice because when Ms Henderson drops her ICE cream she CRIES!

We then did a special lab using real data from Dr. Walt Meier, a sea ice scientist from Boulder, Colorado who works for the National Snow and Ice Data Center. He gave us his sea ice extent (or area) measurements from 1978 to 2005 in Hudson Bay, in the Arctic region. He also gave us the temperature data to match those years. Our class made graphs using Microsoft Excel and pasted them into a Word document along with their conclusion and discussions:

Here is the result!





Our class concluded:

"In the North Pole, the ice expands and retracts. Through the years, temperature increased, which caused the ice to melt. This is important because the sea level will rise and our ecosystem will be affected. The temperature is rising because of CFCs (and other greenhouse gases), causing the greenhouse effect."



Here is an animation of the sea ice every November from 1978-2005:




We also watched animations of the sea ice expanding and retreating through seasons:

Our first lab!

This week we conducted our first lab with periods 1,3 and 5! We were so impressed with everyone- you all behaved like perfect scientists.

We used the scientific method to write our problem statements, hypotheses, methods, observations and conclusions in our lab books.

Using a bowl, an espresso cup (mini mug), water, plastic wrap, a rubber band and ice, we demonstrated the water cycle!



As we discovered, the set up was a model (representation) of the real water cycle. The water represented the ocean (other other bodies of water), the cup represented the land, the plastic wrap represented the top of the troposphere.



As was so eloquently described by Tatianna, the water evaporated (EVAPORATION) inside the bowl, the water vapor then rose up, and when it hit the plastic wrap that had been cooled by the ice it condensed to form fog (CONDENSATION). Given enough time and condensation, the fog got heavy with water droplets and water began dripping into the cup (PRECIPITATION).

Thank you all for showing your SWAG and completing this lab in your notebooks!

I can't wait for the next lab!

Please feel free to comment below. What did you think of our water cycle lab? Did it help you understand the water cycle?

Water cycle lab

This week we reviewed the water cycle in class. We talked about evaporation (liquid water to water vapor or gas), condensation (when gas turn into liquid droplets) and precipitation (water falling as liquid rain or solid snow or hail).

Welcome!

Welcome to Ms Henderson and Ms Koch's blog!

Here we will post materials used in our labs to serve as help when they are studying a topic, and to help them remember the great times we have in science class!

We encourage students to submit posts of their own for the blog! Do you have a comment to make on a recent lab? Or something you'd like to share with the other about science class? Send us a message here by clicking "post a comment" at the bottom of a post and we will put it up for you!