Thank you to all the students and parents who sent lunar eclipse photos last night!  I was able to incorporate them all into today’s slides for class and it was a fantastic way for students to see the full extent of the eclipse…well, at least the first half of it before clouds moved in around 9:15 and prevented us from seeing the rest.   

In setting up our work in the geology unit over the coming weeks, we examined the formation and layers of the Earth in class today.  We also then discussed the three primary sources of heat for the Earth:

1. The Sun:  causes weather, heats the surface, etc…
2. Radioactivity:  Radioactive elements inside the earth contribute small quantities of heat.
3. Heat from Formation:  Heat that is left over from the formation of the earth - heat that resulted from the friction between colliding particles - is still trapped deep in the Earth and is slowly leaking out. 

We closed class by watching a 5.5-minute video clip about “Earth Systems”:  ocean currents, weather, geologic phenomena, etc… and wrote a response to it.  This video acted as a preview for the upcoming geology unit.

Homework:  None.