My Science Homework

Yesterday’s lab was designed mainly to get students accustomed to working with the stream tables and simply observing the flow of water over the Earth’s surface.  Today’s lab involved more detailed concepts, including observing closely where erosion and deposition will occur in a meandering river, where the best places would be to construct buildings as […]

After gaining a solid understanding of the terminology used to describe watersheds, students worked in pairs to complete the first part of a two-day lab on riverbed erosion.
Today’s lab focused on simply observing a river channel, blocking the river channel with a dam or levee, and observing how such structures break down with time.  Tomorrow […]

As a means of getting ready for tomorrow’s stream table lab on the development and evolution of streams and rivers, students worked individually to read section 15.2 from the Earth Science text on watersheds.  The secdtion review (#1-7, 9) was completed in class and is due at the start of tomorrow’s class period.
Homework:  Complete the […]

What evidence exists that the continents of the Earth have drifted around on the globe over the past several million years? Today, we examined three main pieces of evidence: the fossil record, rock & climate records, and glaciers.
All three of these objects leave significant evidence that the continents were once connected and have since drifted […]

Today’s objective: To learn how geologists determine the epicenter of an earthquake. The process is remarkably easy and after viewing some of the specifics in a brief, 7-minute video clip, students then worked in cooperative pairs to complete a lab utilizing data from various cities seismograph records to determine the epicenter of an […]

As we aim to complete our work on the geology unit over the coming week, students worked in cooperative pairs of their choosing to complete the “The Fossil Record” guide with help from the text.  We also discussed the importance and differences between several types of fossil specimens that were passed around the room.
Next week […]

We began today’s class by reviewing the absolute aging concepts covered in yesterday’s class period. We did this by going through the solutions for each of the four assigned problems that were part of last night’s homework. Students were allowed to keep the practice problem set and were encouraged to reference it for […]

After wrapping up work on determining the relative age of rock layers using the principle of superposition and recreating cross sections of rock layers, students were introduced today to the concept of absolute aging: determining the quantitative age of a rock layer or fossil.
These methods incorporate the principles of radiometric dating: the use […]

The reaction essay to the National Geographic Tsunami video was due at the start of today’s class. We briefly discussed their reaction to the video before moving on to today’s topic: relative aging puzzles.
We began by finishing up the guided notes on relative aging that we had started back on Thursday of last […]

Today was a break from the lecture and notes format that we’ve followed much of this week as students watched the National Geographic special presentation:  Tsunami:  Killer Wave.  This special covers all angles of the tsunami of 2004:  the causes, how the event played out, and how the event impacted the lives of millions of […]