Your team has a new prediction method that has never been tested before, but you believe it will predict some earthquakes larger than magnitude 5.0 on the Richter scale. One day at work, your instruments tell you that there is a 3% chance of a 7.2 magnitude earthquake in San Fransico within the next 15 minutes.
The essential question:
Would it be worse to send a Warning, but then the quake doens't occur or you don't send a warning and the quake does occur?
Your team has been developing a method to prevent large quakes from occurring. You know five things:
1. A fault in your local area has built up enough strain to cause a 6.0 earthquake
2. There is a 50% chance that it could occur in the next ten years.
3. You may be able to prevent it by causing a series of about 25 smaller quakes in the same location to relase the strain on the rocks.
4. You predic that each of the smaller quakes will be less than 5.0.
5. There is a 10% chance that the small er quakes could actually trigger the major quake instead of preventing it.
Should we take our chances and/or prepare for the one large one or should would we cause the series of 25 smaller ones, hoping to release the strain of the rocks?
Mr. Sherman also taught us how to make a post on our science blog, which is what we are currently doing. I think that scribe posting will be a lot of fun this year and I'm looking foward to hearing everyone's thoughts and ideas about science class.
Oh....one other thing we did today was learn how to make conversions in the metric system. For example, Mr. Sherman taught us that 1 g = 1,000 mg. That's just one example, he taught us several others and he's so COOL!
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Example 1: the ology suffix means "the study of" and the root word is what is being studied.
So the word Hydrology = the study of water (hydro means water)
Example 2: the ist suffix means "a person who studies" and the root word is what they study.
So the word Hydrologist = a person who studies water.
Just in case you were absent today or want some extra practice learning about different types of scientists you should try this activity.
Hope this helps!
Remember that as each of you write your scribe posts. Ask yourself: "Is this good enough for our textbook? Would a graphic or other example(s) help illustrate what we learned?" And remember, you have a global audience, impress them.
Early scribe posts tend to be entirely text based. As the class progresses, successive scribes begin to try to outdo each other and their scribe posts begin to incorporate text, images and colour used in meaningful ways.
How do you go about writing a scribe post? Do you do anything differently in class when it is your turn to scribe? If so, can you describe what you do differently in class when you are scribe?
Read some thoughts from students who already scribe post:
Manny: "When I write my scribe posts, I try to make it so my classmates go, "ohh!" and "yeah that's it right on." That is my first priority because I want everyone in the class to do well, "we're all in it together" (at least that's how I feel anyway). During class, if it's my turn to scribe, I feel pressure that if I don't do well in helping my peers I'll let everyone down. So in class, I open both my eyes and ears wider than normal, and my pencil taking notes on just about everything related to the topic."
Corrie: "I think what makes a scribe post good, is the content. I think that's no. 1. But you also have to look at it differently. You have to be creative with your scribe. I think you should try to be different, do something that no one has done before. You should try to stick out from the group.
Teddie: "When comparing my first scribe and my very recent scribe I can see the quality of the scribes improve greatly mostly because of the competitiveness of the other scribers to make the hall of fame."