Nicolas Reed Science Blog

Summary:        What we had to do for this project is find and research a certain charity that you are passionate about (we chose the AFSP, or the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. Then, as a group, create a website/video for that charity and an ignite presentation (as shown above). On top of this, we also created products (we created Luminary Lanterns) that we sold to raise money, while also creating an instructable for it, a cost and profit document, and carbon footprint map. Lastly, we created a Trifold displaying most of what we completed during the span of the entire project. One thing I learned through creating this project was how collaging certain colors can create an attractive product and how to do just that. I also learned how to create an attractive website through using both powerful words, while also using powerful images and graphics. In addition, I learned that this same idea applies with ignites. That in order to have a high-class ig...

Applet position vs time graph  by  MikeRun Summary:        Velocity has both a direction and a magnitude (therefore making it a vector quantity) whereas speed only has a magnitude (therefore making it a scalar quantity). For example, when driving a car on a freeway your speed could be 50 m/hr (or mph). Although, your velocity could be something like 50 m/hr north. In order to find the magnitude for speed you must follow a simple formula, distance covered divided by time taken. In order to find the magnitude when trying to find the velocity of an object, you must follow the formula of distance from origin (or reference point) divided by time taken. One way to find speed and velocity is to look at a position vs time graph. What a position vs time graph really tells us is where an object is. We can look at the slope of the lines on a position vs time graph to help us to find the speed and velocity of an object by telling us both the position of an object...

Cube  by  DynaBlast Summary:        Motion can be described in two different types of quantities, scalar and vector quantities. Scalar quantities are quantities that only have a magnitude or size. Vector quantities are quantities that have both a magnitude and an associate direction (also known as a magnitude direction). One example of the difference between scalar and vector quantities are distance and displacement. Distance, a scalar quantity describes the amount an object has traveled. Displacement however, is a vector quantity and it expresses the distance between the origin and destination of an object in the shortest interval or distance possible. Displacement also describes the direction of a straight line from the origin to the destination. An example of distance is that the person ran half a lap around circular track that is 400 meters, meaning that they ran 200 meters. An example of displacement would be that the distance from one end of the...

The Carbon Footprint of Our Charity Fair Product, Luminary Lanterns Summary:        Carbon footprint is the amount of carbon dioxide and other carbon compounds emitted due to the consumption of fossil fuels by a particular material. For example, a product that I created, a Luminary Lantern has a carbon footprint of 10411.625g of CO2/kg. I know this due to how I researched and tracked the amount of miles each of the individual materials (that are used to create a Luminary Lantern) traveled. I then multiplied the amount of miles by a certain number regarding the type of transportation each material took. If a product traveled by train, I multiplied the amount of miles it traveled by 0.1g of CO2/kg. If a product traveled by airplane, I multiplied the amount of miles it traveled by 0.8g of CO2/kg. If a product traveled by truck, I multiplied the amount of miles it traveled by 0.17g of CO2/kg. Lastly, if a product traveled by car, I multiplied the amount o...

Evolution and Antibiotic Resistance Project Brochure Summary:        This week in science we finished our evolution project (mine was about evolution and antibiotic resistance) where we first had to research about how evolution affects antibiotic resistance and antibiotic resistance in general. Then communicate our findings through creating a brochure. What I learned from this project was what antibiotic resistance is, how evolution plays a part in antibiotic resistance, how natural selection influences antibiotic resistance, how national and international agencies combat antibiotic resistance, how the public can help combat increased antibiotic resistance, and animals play a part in this whole situation. What one national agency, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) does to combat antibiotic resistance is making diagnostics stronger by substantiating lab tests, educate research and development to evolve drugs like antibiotics and antifungals, evol...

Summary:        Antibiotic resistance is when a consumer consumes the antibiotic drugs more than prescripted. This allows bacteria to grow resistant to the antibiotic drug faster than at a regular pace. When the bacteria gains resistant to the antibiotic the only resort is to use a stronger (and more expensive) antibiotic biotic. Bacteria’s resistance towards antibiotics are absurd. Being able to go through versions of antibiotics multiplied, once, ten times, one hundred times, and even one thousand times in less than 11 days. The bacteria evolves and gains resistance of the antibiotics so fast it becomes terrifying. This means that humans can be in severe danger as bacteria are becoming incredibly resistant to antibiotics which is what most humans rely on to fight bacteria, viruses, and diseases. Natural selection influences the effectiveness of antibiotics and the virulence of infectious agents through the most fit bacteria (diseases, and/or viruses) that is res...

Summary:        Cladograms are the type of diagram that scientists use to show how species are related. What the word "species" means in Latin is "kind." We name species through using organisms' binomial name. The two terms used for an organisms' binomial name are their species and genus. Cladograms can tell us certain traits of an organism and they can tell us which organisms are more closely related, and how those organisms are related. Cladograms can tell us about many different traits of certain organisms such as if they contain traits like if they are alive, eukaryotes, symmetrical, have backbones, are tetrapods, vertebrates, lay amniotic egg, hair, and are diapsids. Tetrapods are animals with four limbs and amniotic egg is an egg that can be laid on land due to the presence of a fluid-filled amniotic sac that cushions and protects the developing embryo. Diapsids are animals with two additional openings (besides the eyes and nostrils) on the side of ...

The question that I got wrong was: My original answer was, "domain, kingdom, phylum, class, family, order, genus, species," the correct answer however is "domain, kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species." This is a better answer due to how it would make sense for "order" to go before "family." This is due to how "order" is a more broad term for describing animals and has a longer list of animals that could be in a certain "order." Whereas "family" is more specific and "families" are in certain "orders" and not the other way around. This is why the correct answer, is a better answer than my answer.

Ditomopyge scitula pygidium by  Dwergenpaartje Summary:        Part of understanding evolution is understanding the fact that all living things share a common ancestor and are related. One line of evidence of evolution is fossil records. Fossil records are observations seen of organisms that existed in the past. Four parts of fossil record are past lives, geologic time, paleoecology, and biodiversity. One example of past lives is growth rings in trees or shells. Growth rings tell us the number of years an individual lived. One example of geologic time is layers in rocks. Layers in rocks tell us which rocks and fossils are the oldest based on their relative positions. An example of paleontology is shapes of leafs edges, which tell us how the climate changes over time and the climate of certain time periods and places. Lastly, features that are shared by more than one species is an example of biodiversity. This tells us that species are related and can help...

Peppered moths  by  Khaydock Summary:        Natural selection is defined as the process by which favorable traits tend to increase in frequency over time. This is just one way animals can change however, animals can also adapt to their environment so that they are better suited for the current state of their habitat. One example of natural selection is with the peppered moth. The peppered moth has two common forms, the dark moth, and the light moth. The two different forms of moths became either less or more common based on the more frequent type of tree (dark tree or light tree) in that generation. So before the 19th century, when the trees were light colored, the most common type of moth was the light colored moth due to how light colored moths were passing down their favorable trait (this favorable trait was being light colored, it was favorable due to how it made them better camouflaged). Whereas during the 19th century, when the trees were dark...

Evolucija skeleta konja  by Llez Summary:        Evolution is any change in the heritable traits within a population across generations. Evolution in simpler terms is the slow descent (or increase) with modification. It is changes in the genetic pool over time. Their are five mechanisms/driving forces of evolution. Those mechanisms, driving forces are genetic drift, mating with specific traits, mutations, gene flow, and natural selection.  Natural selection is a change in DNA (these changes are random) that is passed on into the next generation's gene pool. Genetic drift is the slow change of specific genes in a population. Two things that cause by the founder effect and bottlenecking. The founder effect is when a small sample from a population with a specific trait (or set of traits) moves to a different location (separate from the rest of the population) and only procreates within itself. Gene flow is the movement of genes from one population to an...

Nicolas Reed Ms. Garcia 8th Grade Science 10/5/18 We Are Not in A Sixth Mass Extinction        “ In a 2015 study , biologist Paul Ehrlich and his team argued Earth is in an era of mass extinction rivaling the one that killed the dinosaurs.” according to the Newsy article titled “Scientists Can't Agree If We're Really In A Mass Extinction” written by Sarah Schlieder. We are not in a 6th mass extinction. Rates are too slow for us to be in the middle of one and if we were in a mass extinction, then most species on Earth would already be extinct. Others that believe that we are in a sixth mass extinction are not looking at the complete story and not using valuable information to back up their opinion. Humans have simply not done enough to allow for such an event to happen, and if it were coming close to occurring, we would do everything in our power to make sure that it wouldn't. Furthermore, many professionals (scientists) have said that although it is possib...

Summary:        This week in science we finished our Geologic Time Project where each student researched a certain era on the Geologic Time Scale and created an interactive poster about that era. The era that I chose to create a poster about was the Cenozoic Era. This project was very research intensive as almost half the project was spent on research. The types of things that we researched about our era's were the climate in the era, the geologic events of that era, the position of continents during that era, and much more. The climate in the Tertiary period of the Cenozoic Era was mainly warm. In the Quaternary period however, there was a change in the environment as the climate of the Earth began to cool. In result of this, there was a series of ice ages during the Quaternary Period. Although eventually the climate began to warm up and become what it is today. The main geologic events that occurred throughout this era are the formation of the Himalaya Moun...

Homo Sapiens: 15,000 Years Ago by Neil R Summary:        "The geologic time scale uses events, or huge things that have happened, instead of years to refer to different sections of Earth's history." as said in the article titled "Tic-Toc-Time" by Rocketlit. Geologic time is split into three types of measures of time, those measures being eons, eras, and periods. One era in the geologic time scale is the Cenozoic Era. One important thing to note about the Cenozoic Era is that it is the current era that we (humans) are living in. This era is split into two different periods, the Tertiary period and the Quaternary period. The Tertiary period lasted from 66 million years ago to 1.8 million years ago. The Quaternary period has lasted from 1.8 million years ago to present time. The major events that occured in the Cenozoic Era is the rise of the homo sapiens (humans) which occurred and is still occuring in the Quaternary Period. Other major events are the afte...

Rockcycle by Woudloper/Woodwalker Summary:        The rock cycle is the process in which rocks are broken down and transformed into other rocks. These rocks are igneous rocks, sedimentary rocks, and metamorphic rocks. Igneous rocks form when molten material from beneath the Earth's surface cools and hardens.  Sedimentary rock is made of sediments that have been deposited and then pressed together to form solid rock. Lastly, metamorphic rock forms when an existing rock is changed by heat, pressure, or chemical reactions.  One interesting fact about the rock cycle is that one of the stages of the rock cycle, magma is around 1000 degrees celsius. Magma is the result of when rock melts deep underground. Also, the type of rock that is formed from underground crystallization of magma is an intrusive igneous rock. At the same time, extrusive igneous rock forms when magma crystallizes above ground. Lastly, sedimentary rocks are formed form when sediment goe...

Form:

           This year I decided to return to AdVENTURE and spend my last year of middle school here. In my past 3 years here I have had a great time and have learned a lot. AdVENTURE has given me many things, one of those being friendships. AdVENTURE has also taught me many things in engaging ways which made learning those things much more enjoyable. But I did not just come back to AdVENTURE because of the education, I also came back due to the after school programs such as sports, and doing these sports is very fun. So when taking these things into account, I had very little reason to not attend AdVENTURE, which is why I decided to come back.        Some of my best friends have come from AdVENTURE, and without AdVENTURE I would probably not even know most of my friends today. These friendships played a vital role in me coming back. But it was not just my friends that made me want to come back, it was also the fact that AdVENTURE has t...

Link to Ozone Hole Image Summary:        This week in science we finished our scientist wanted project. For this project we had to choose a famous scientists (I chose Mario Molina) and then create a wanted poster on them. This project allowed me to learn many things about Mario Molina which then allowed me to develop a my thoughts about him. Based on what I learned I think that Mario Molina cares about helping the environment. This is due his many quotes he has about the environment (such as climate change) and the fact that he discovered the ozone hole. I also think that Mario cares about spreading the science field to Latinos and Hispanics. I think that he cares greatly about science and that he believes that their should be more Latinos and Hispanics in the field. I also think this this due to the following quote by him, " Many Latino kids should become scientists because we need scientists all over the world from all different backgrounds. We have many toug...