National News: Obama's Inauguration

Just yesterday, history was made. Our 44th president was inaugurated. A weeks worth of inaugural activities included the swearing in ceremony, the Inaugural Parade, Inaugural Address, inaugural concerts, and many balls and galas honoring our new president. A record breaking number of people attended the inauguration, an estimated 1.8 million! This amazing events theme was "Renewing America's Promise". Another one for the record books is the cost, an estimated 75 million dollars, more than any other Presidential Inauguration. Overall, I believe that this Inauguration was the grandest and most anticipated, but I'm not the only one.

"What's happening today is not about me. It is about the American people." Said President Obama. The First article I read on President Obama's Inauguration was about peoples opinion on the Inauguration. I think that President Obama's Inauguration effects everyone, so I am glad that the article that I have chosen has different types of people's opinions. 9 year old Laura Bruggerman said, "I want to see Obama. I think that would be really cool I could tell all of my friends that I got to see him." Oprah Winfrey also was interviewed for this article, she says "Its behind the dream. We're just here feeling it with the throngs of people. It's amazing grace personified." Not only was this famous person at the inauguration, Dustin Hoffman, Denzel Washington, Steven Spielberg, and Samuel L. Jackson were also there. L.J Caldwell, a spectator, said these powerful words, "When you think back, Malcolm X fought, then we came a little further. Rosa Parks sat, then come up a little further, and then Martin Luther King Jr. spoke. Now today, President Obama ran and WE won". Obama's Inauguration had many people talking, and they'll keep talking about it for years to come.

The second article that I read, compared President Obama to President Lincoln. In the article, it says that "Lincoln waged war to preserve the union and end slavery" I think that this is a great fact to compare Obama to because Lincoln stopped slavery in America and Obama crossed a line in America that should have been crossed a long long time ago. Also both presidents are from Illinois and they were both successful in politics at a young age. Obama, along with having the coincidental likeness with Lincoln, had on purpose followed Lincolns itinerary, by stopping in Philadelphia, Wilmington, and Baltimore. The last similarity was Obama's decision, and most widely known, is Obama's decision to use the bible that Lincoln used for his swearing in. I think that Obama's choice to connect himself to President Lincoln was smart because Lincoln is many people's favorite President. YES WE CAN!!!!! YES WE DID!!!!!! :)

for more information go to http://www.cnn.com/ or http://www.usnews.com/ :)

Camouflaged Butterflies

Another AMAZINGLY (if thats a word) fun time in science class! In class just a few days ago we did a little activity on camouflage, in which our teacher gave us a coloring sheet of a butterfly for us to color to camouflage something in the room. I did mine royal blue to go on the recycling bin. After we colored these butterflies we stuck them where ever they were camouflaged to go and another teacher came into our classroom and portrayed a predator looking for the butterflies to eat. He grabbed a whole bunch of them but mine wasn't one of them...for the first round. Shortly after that we had to hide the butterflies again but in a different spot, and the whole thing was repeated again. This took place about 3 times. I learned that butterflies have camouflage to protect themselves from predators, warn predators and also to scare them away. I think that this protection is REALLY cool and it really makes me think about how there is a survival purpose to everything. For example the eyespots on the butterflies make them look like they're a bigger and more dangerous animal. Also, some butterflies like the Indian leaf butterfly look like dead leaves that have fallen on the wood floor. One other interesting fact is that some butterflies can camouflage themselves so well that its impossible with the human eye alone to see them. I just think that this is SO cool I mean humans have none of these cool characteristics we simply scare other animals away because they no that we will kill them and eat them for supper.

for more info on this matter go to www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/butterfly/allabout/Defense.shtml

The Smart Board

In science class we have recently aquirred a SMART Board. It is perhaps the COOLEST thing in the whole entire school! You can hook it up to a desktop or a laptop and its almost like a projector but its interactive. You can write on your documents by using the interactive expo like markers or you can type on your desktop or laptop and it will show up on the screen! Also, you can hook up a videogame console to it and you can play. For instance, we played BoomBlox on the wii with the SMART Board. I never thought that any piece of school equipment could give me that much enjoyment. The first SMART Board was created in 1991. Its the world's leading interactive whiteboard. Not to mention the coolest and easiest to use excpecially to me and thats saying something because I'm not technologically gifted if you catch my drift.

For more info on this subject go to http://www2.smarttech.com/st/en-US/Products/SMART+Boards/

Climate Changing 'Faster, Stronger, Sooner"

Climate change is happening a lot faster than what was previously predicted, according to the WWF (world wildlife fund). They say the "most important aspect of data" is that in some places the arctic ocean is losing ice 30 years ahead of current ICPP predictions. Also, summer sea ice is now predicted to completely disappear sometime between 2013 and 2040 which hasn't happened in over a million years!
I personally think that it is most definitely is both natural occurrences and human behavioral issues. For example the ice age was a natural occurrence that took millions of years, but with the help of pollution the next serious change in climate is coming soon. Geoscientist Tina Tin said " Arctic sea ice is melting much faster than everybody had been expecting. Why? Well, maybe it's because the positive feedback mechanisms have kicked in much quicker than we have been able to quantify."(Tina Tin). Here's one thing that's triggering the ice to melt and quickly too. White ice sheets reflect heat from the sun. into space. This causes more dark sea water that also absorbs hear which therefore warms the Earth more. This encourages even MORE melting.
Not only does this cause melting of ice, it causes the Earths overall warming. For instance, the Mediterranean is likely to suffer an increased frequency of droughts. More data on this matter are due to be published next year by the Scientific Committee on Arctic Research next year.

For more information on this matter go to www.cnn.com then click on the science section then go to Climate Changing 'Faster, Stronger, Sooner.

Recycling Carbon Dioxide: Saving Us or Digging us an Early Grave?

You know the Earth only has so much oil and we're using it like its water in a glass cup. At least with water you can replenish the glass after you empty it, with the Earth's oil what we get is it, no more. Well, if there is a way to recycle fuel wouldn't you do it? I know I would, and with help of companies like Carbon Sciences we can. Carbon Sciences is rethinking recycling completely. For them recycling isn't limited to paper and plastic, they are coming up with ways to recycle Carbon Dioxide. They do this using a biocatalytic process, which basically means that they take to CO2 and separate it into three parts; methane, ethane, and propane. These divisions of CO2 are used to create finer, higher grade fuels, for example jet fuel. "We are very excited by what we've seen in the lab. We've had some promising results," (Derek McLeish president and CEO of Carbon Sciences) There is an excact science to the way that the carbon dioxide separation is recycled. Okay bear with me here. After the seperation, the CO2 is moved to a Biocatalytic Reactor Matrix. This breaks down the CO2 into hydrocarbons (andy organic compound containing only hydrogen and carbon). These are then filtered and the gasses are extracted through condensers. Next, they are ready for conversion to higher grade fuel. Other scientists, such as Michael North, are turning CO2 into cyclic carvonates for industrial use. "The grand vision here is to take waste, build it into a portavke fuel and make it useful." (Derek McLeish) McLeish recently presented these scientific discoveries at a climate conference at Cambridge University, these ideas were excepted with open arms. This project will start in 2009 if all goes well. "Although some climate crisis might scoff at the idea of recycling CO2 arguing that we should be emitting less rather than recycling a pollutant, reusing it may well prove effective in kick starting a new carbon market, as well as helping clean up our increasingly polluted planet." (Matthew Knight, the author of Turning Carbon Dioxide into Fuel) I agree that we need to recycle the CO2 so we can keep driving and using fuel powered transpertation without drilling and drilling, for oil that we could already have if we were recycling CO2.



For more information go http://www.blogger.com/www.cnn.com to and click on the science section. (Title: Turning Carbon Dioxide into Fuel)

MORE MATH STUFF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Math is...

To me math is everything. It is everywhere. There are many examples of math, even in everyday life. Math is shopping with my mom at JcPenny's when we get coupons in the mail. Math is making brownies with my mom and brother. Math is adding up my allowance to save up for some cool new stuff. Math is my little friend calculator that helps me with my math homework sometimes. Math is when my mom laughs at me for pulling out my little friend when we go shopping. Math is all around us. Even though you may not know it, math is everywhere and it will be forever and ever.

The Search for Oil

Well, here's another post about science class. Well what can I say, science class is pretty cool! Anyway, this time our teacher had invited a guest to come and teach us about locating oil. This teacher had come before this so it wasn't like it was awkward to watch or to listen to. Well she studies as a geologist and she has worked with an oil company before, locating oil. She taught us that oil needed three things to form they are the trap, the source, and the reservoir. The reservoir is the holding place for the oil. The trap is like the lid of the reservoir without it the source would come out of the reservoir. The source is the dead animals and plants that rot and become oil. Then, she gave us three maps with grids one for the reservoir, one for the trap, and one for the source. With this we made one map with all of these things to form oil. After this, she showed us to our lab tables where there were aluminum pans with aluminum foil over the top and a grid. What we had to do is find the oil reservoirs in the aluminum pan with our maps that we made! It was soooooooooo much fun, my group did a pretty good job, we got more than a half of our guesses correct. I think that the way that people get oil is REALLY cool. They do it with oil rigs. Here are three types of oil rigs, jack up rigs, platforms, and semisubmersable rigs. Jack up rigs are moble, they do not float over to their drilling spots. It has long structures that serve as legs and lower the rig into the seabed. Platform rigs can be built of steel or concrete. They rest on the sea floor and when oil is located a platform can be built to drill farther down to the site. Semisubmersable rigs are floating drilling rigs, they are moved by wave actions and a lot of them are under water.
We also learned that it costs A LOT of money to drill so the art of oil locating is very excact, and if you are in the buisness you have to be exact or you get fired. To me, oil is a big part of my everyday life, and learning about it just makes me think all that work was put into getting me to school everyday. I think its really cool.

For more information check out http://www.rigjobs.co.uk/oil/oilrigs.html and/or http://www.rigjobs.co.uk/oil/oilrigs.html.

Also check out this awesome video! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvPTcTDlpgQ&feature=related

P.S this is color coded regular sentences are purple, source info is green, navy blue is my notes, and my opinions are grey.