Friday, November 21, 2008

MOOMBA






























































MOOMBA stands for My Only Obstacle Must Be Attitude. We gave out our first bunch of MOOMBA awards today for the 2008-2009 school year. These little bits deserve a HUGE, huge round of applause. Congrats!!!!!!!!!!!

Saturday, November 15, 2008

Vice Grip















This is what happens when you put a quarter through the vice grip...

Friday, November 14, 2008

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Happy Veteran's Day


















































It was another beautiful Fall day out there, kiddies.  I spent my afternoon riding around.  

Crayon Lab Final Analysis



Awesome.  These kids rock.

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

The Rock Cycle Simulation: Crayon Lab Parts II and III

Picture one shows a sample of what our "sedimentary" and "metamorphic" rocks look like.  









Notice the sedimentary rocks, formed by W.E.D.C.C. (weathering, erosion, deposition, compaction, and cementation) have the following characteristics:
  1. Thick Layers
  2. Loosely Compacted
  3. Distinct Particles
  4. Dull Surface
Whereas the metamorphic rocks (formed by heat and pressure) have these characteristics:
  1. Thin Layers
  2. Tightly Compacted
  3. Blurred Particles
  4. Shiny Surface
  • Parts II and III of our rock cycle lab simulated the processes by which metamorphic and igneous rocks are formed.  
The second picture here shows part II (the process by which metamorphic rocks are formed), during which we used our hot plate to subject our "rocks" to heat.  We used a vice grip then to add pressure (simulating the process by which rocks undergo pressure inside Earth's surface).  











Part III of our lab simulated the process by which igneous rocks are formed (melting and cooling).  
  • First of all, we heated water to use as our "cooling" device.  









We had four beakers, marked with the following tags:
  1. Very quickly cooling=ice cubes
  2. Quickly cooling=ice water
  3. Slowly cooling=warm water
  4. Very slowly cooling=hot water







  • Intrusive igneous rocks (formed deep within the surface of the Earth) were simulated by the "molten material" that was cooled over warm and hot water.  
  • Extrusive igneous rocks (formed on or near Earth's surface) were simulated by the "molten material" that was cooled over ice water and ice cubes.  

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

In which she dreams in fault lines....


I had a dream the other night that referenced the Carizzo Plain.  Really?  

Today....


Is a good day...Obama 2008

Monday, November 3, 2008

The Crayon Lab

































This is a great rock cycle simulation we do every year. 

1.  The first picture (the crayons with wrappers) represent a rock in nature. 

2.  The second picture represents the weathering process in nature (or, when rocks are broken down into small pieces). 

3.  The third picture represents the erosion and deposition process in nature (or when rock fragments are moved from one place to another and dropped in a new location). 

4.  The fourth picture represents the compaction and cementation process that rocks undergo as they become sedimentary rocks.

Parts 2 and 3 of this lab will take place on Wednesday, when we subject our sedimentary rocks to heat and pressure (metamorphic formation), and finally melt and cool our rocks (igneous formation). We will post further pics then!