7th – Alisha's Blog

The Covid-19 outbreak has changed our lives in many ways. Many people are in quarantine and feel highly, stressed. The USA currently has had the most Covid-19 cases of any country, 284,000. Already 803,000 victims of that 284,000, have recovered, but sadly, 199,000  victims have passed. Doctors are working 13 hour shifts, and some are contracting the virus. Most people are already stressed and we might have to stay in quarantine through 2021. But as long as we follow the rules, and don’t go out, we will be safe.

The pollution in the world is not helping anyone fight Covid-19. Scientist have found that if you’re breathing in polluted air you are more likely to get Covid-19. Since there are less cars being driven and less flights being taken, the air is 30% cleaner. As the Covid-19 pandemic decreases more people are going out. This is not a smart thing, as more people go out there is a higher chance of a relapse. Even though there are bad aspects to this virus there are also good things. For example, animals are going back to their old habitats, because less cars are being driven!

questions

1. will we be in quarantine through 2021?
2. Is Covid-19 healing the earth?
3. Will there be a relapse?

    Rosalind    Franklin 

By: Alisha McMillan

Rosalind Franklin was born in London, England on July 25 1920. She had four siblings,Jenifer, Colin, Roland, and David Franklin. Since the age of 15 Franklin wanted to become a scientist.

 She went to Cambridge for college in 1983 and studied chemistry. In 1941 Franklin was awarded second class honors in her finals. Which was accepted as a bachelor’s degree in the qualification of employment.   After she went to work at British coal utilisation research association. In 1945 ( Also when world war II ended)  

In the fall of 1946 Franklin went to a Lab in Paris where she worked with crystallographer Jacques Mering. He taught her X-ray diffraction, which will play an important role in her research of the structure of DNA.  In 1952 Franklin took photo 51. Photo 51 was an X-ray diffraction image that gave James Watson and Francis Crick some crucial pieces of information. Only after that Watson and Crick realized that DNA must have a double helical structure. If Rosalind Franklin didn’t take that photo we might not have ever found out about these “building blocks” of life.  Sadly in 1958 Franklin died because of Ovarian cancer because of the exposure to X-rays. 

I amire Rosalind Franklin because she had to experience sexism in science, and even though she was accepted into Cambridge University she was still not recognized as a full member. Yet she still achieved amazing things.  

If I could have Rosalind Franklin over for Dinner and I could ask her three questions I’d ask her

1. If you had known that exposure to  X-rays would kill you would you still take that risk?
2. If you had to be anything but a scientist what would you be?
3. Why didn’t you ever get married?

In science my Wanted poster was about Shakespeare. Shakespeare was born in April 1564 and died April 23, 1616.The cause of his death is unknown. He was a very famous British writer. His most famous soliloquy was to be or not to be from Hamlet. In that soliloquy Hamlet is deciding if he should commit suicide or not. Some of his most famous plays are Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, and Macbeth.

Question time!

1. Who began the Renaissance?
2. Why is Multi age only two weeks?
3. Why wasn’t the Renaissance time period longer?

This week we have a project on biomes. My project is on the Tundra biome. The Tundra biome is the youngest biome.Tundra biomes are places like the Arctic. Did you know that the Tundra biome is the most fragile biome? This is because of climate change and humans. The polar bears are being most effected by this. Their habitat is literally melting under their feet.

Polar bears are the largest carnivore on land, they are about 7-8 feet long.  They can only live up to 30 years, but that’s rare most of them live up to 25. They are also the only the only type of bear that is classified as a marine animal. Did you know that a baby polar bear only weighs 16-24 oz?  There are only 22,000 to 31,000 polar bears left in the world! 600 are hunted and killed each year. The polar bear species status is vulnerable, and very soon they can go existent! We need to help them as much as we can.

1. What did the word Tundra come from?
2. How can we help the Polar bears?
3. If the Tundra biome is the youngest biome then how old is it?

This week 6th grade preformed a comedy skit for 4th grade. At the end of the play the 4th graders got to choose if Freddie was innocent or not. The play was about Freddie fungus, who was on trial for the murder of Jeremiah, who was a Sycamore tree. Freddie was accused with murder because  Freddie started growing on Jeremiah when Jeremiah got very ill and died. Freddie never killed Jeremiah because fungus only grow on plants that are dying. Which means Jeremiah was already dying before Freddie came.

This is a Sycamore tree.

As the skit went on you could see how other animals\plants benefited from Freddie. For example Vera Violet. The soil was rich after Jeremiah’s death which made her prettier.

We also learned this week about the Carbon cycle. The Carbon cycle shows how a life-sustaining resource is moved around for every living thing to benefit it. Carbon is a greenhouse gas. Which heats up the earth. Without Carbon the world would be a round piece of snow and ice. Now we are putting in too much Carbon in the earth’s atmosphere which is heating up the earth, which is the cause of global warming.

This week we had a guest speaker from Uganda. He was very kind, and he talked about the bike frames he made. His bikes aren’t completely made out of metal though. Instead he used bamboo. He talked about how it is the fastest growing grass in the world. As is can grow up to one feet in twenty-four hours. That would be seven feet a week!

He is also helping people back in Uganda by this. In the hospitals in Uganda there is a shortage of staff members. Resulting to a female member of the family to take care of the person who is in the hospital.These people are not trained or experienced on how to take care of that person, and may not know how to treat the person’s needs. Now every morning people will ride on the bamboo bikes, and take medication, and food to the hospital. They will also give classes on how to treat the person in the hospital!

questions

1. Why do the females need to take care of the people?
2. How many bikes go to the hospital in a day?
3. Which type of bamboo do they use for the bikes?

In the early 1950s there was an outbreak of malaria in Borneo. Because Malaria is a deadly disease cause by mosquitoes  they sprayed DDT everywhere to kill them. BUT in results of spraying the DDT everywhere the parasitic wasps! By killing the parasitic wasps the thatch-eating caterpillars went out of control! Because DDT didn’t effect them. The thatch-eating caterpillars were so much thatch roofs that they fell down on the people! To make matters worse the geckoes that ate the caterpillars were now infected by the poison too! Even though it didn’t harm the geckoes it did harm the cats who eat the geckoes! Now that cats population was decreasing the rat population was increasing! Because the rat population increased the people of Borneo was threaten by a new disease, plague and Typhus disease. Now that all this chaos happened the world health organisation ( WHO ) decided to parachute cats into Borneo to kill the rats.

Dear Miss Cuttatree,

   I am a Megascops asio if you don’t understand that then I’m an Eastern screech owl.

You can call me Screechy. Here’s a photo of me.

Beautiful isn’t it?

If you can’t tell I have two yellow eyes, and I have brown feathers. Other owls in my group can be gray too.

If you don’t remember  you wanted to cut down one hundred acres of trees! 

 Did you know that my nesting place is in this forest. If you cut down it you will also cover up, or chop down the holes dug by squirrels and woodpeckers. It’s very dry there, and it’s very hard to find them, but that’s where I live. If you destroy my habitat there’s a good chance that you will wipe out most of my population. That would be VERY rude..                                                                                             FACTS. 

Also my sweet delicious meat lives here. Like Earthworms, Insects, Flycatchers, Woodpeckers, and more! And did you ever think about about our babies?!?! We have kids too! Our clutch size is 2-6 eggs! They’re 3.4-3.6 Cm too!  I’m only 15 Cm tall! But we can be up to 25 Cm. I’m one of the short ones.

If you haven’t changed your mind yet I’ll just say this… We won’t go down without a fight! Did you know that our wingspan is 53.34 cm, and we weigh around 155 grams. 

Which is equivalent to ½ a can of soda. Even though we don’t weigh a lot we will use our wings to fight.  Did you know I make a trill sound and that’s why I’m called a screech owl. I hope this letter changes your mind. 

From a not so happy

-Screechy

Links

https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Eastern_Screech-Owl/lifehistory

lhttps://www.warnernaturecenter.org/animals/screechowl

This week in Science we dissected owl pellets! Each group of two got two pellets. My group found two rodent’s skulls in our two pellets. On the first couple of days I was very disgusted by the pellets, but on the last two days I wasn’t bothered. We found detached jaws, and a big variety of bones. When we finished dissecting the owl pellets we used the bones to make bone pictures. In my group we used two big sharp teeth as horns! It ended up as a stick figure though.

The other thing we did this week was start to write letters to Mrs. Cuttatree. Mrs Cuttatree  wanted to cut down a hundred acres of trees, but this was a home for a variety of animals including owls.We would be assigned to an owl, and learn about it.Then we would write a letter to Mrs. Cuttatree with enough reasons why not to cut down these trees.This letter is basically the owl’s life. If Mrs. Cuttatree cuts down the trees the owls are dead. Mine is The Eastern Screech owl. What I’ve learned so far is that their Clutch size is 2-6 eggs, and their scientific name is Megascops asio.

1. What is the best place to find the Eastern screech owl?
2. What do the Eastern screech owl normally eat?
3. Where do people find owl pellets!?!?!?!