Here's a Science Fair Guide you might find useful:

A Public Library Resource on Science Fairs:
http://www.ipl.org/div/kidspace/projectguide/

Remember that scientists use art and writing. They are imaginative. They also pay attention to detail. Some important words for science fair (among other words) are:

control

versus

experimental

replicates

replications

duplicate

triplicate

quadruplicate

repeatability

fact

opinion

statistics

Do you know what these words mean?

Do you know why they are important?



(c)2007 J. S. Shipman

You are What You Eat

Here's a great link (Your taxes paid for it!) to help you understand nutrients found in foods.

http://www.ars.usda.gov/Services/docs.htm?docid=9673

Another link you might find interesting shows how to prevent many birth defects.

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/folicacid.html

Are you an inventor?

If you are an inventor, or want to become one, recordkeeping is important. Check out this website on logbooks for inventors:

http://inventors.about.com/cs/logbook/ht/Log_book.htm

Convection, Conduction, and, Radiation

Today, a student asked me a question about conduction, convection and radiation: "I am always confused between the difference of conduction, convection and radiation. What is being used in pouring hot water from a thermos?"

Students will often ask things that are assigned as homework. This might have been a homework question, or, it might have been genuine curiosity. I am always glad when students are curious.

I've taken the liberty of discussing the topic here because it is a topic on many state standards.

For these types of questions, try to guide a student in finding an answer. In this way, he or she is likely to remember the content learned. Here is a sample set of guiding questions and activities. I have also included some movies. Your students might be able to make movies that are more exciting and helpful to them. Review the "Botany Beat" or Tomato movies for some ideas. Here is one student's movie:




First, have you defined all the words? (You can use the dictionary links at the bottom of the page. Be sure to note down the date and the source you used.)

Conduction is ________________________________________________________
Here is a simulation on conduction:


And, here is an animation about conduction:



Convection is ________________________________________________________

Here is a movie on convection currents:


What do hot and cold have to do with convection?


Here's another convection movie showing some experiments and relating them to every day life.





Radiation is ________________________________________________________

Here is an animation on radiation and convection:


If you have trouble remembering them, try writing the definitions three or four times , or, try drawing a picture or writing a song about each one.

Also, try discussing these ideas with your friends or where you get snacks after school or with a mentor or adult in your family or community. These things can help you to remember them.



Did you brainstorm about them?



Do you have a thermos? If you don't have one, try to borrow one, otherwise, the question will be hard to answer.



If you put hot water in a thermos, can you feel the heat outside the thermos when you hold it?



What about if you put your hand over the thermos, can you feel heat, even when you are not touching anything?



What if you compare putting a plastic spoon into the hot water with putting a silver spoon into the hot water. What happens?



Think of things you know, for example:

The sun rays radiate.

The convection oven has heat rise and fall in circles.

A copper wire conducts electricity.

Now, think again about the question. When you pour hot water from a thermos, do you feel heat without touching it?



Does some heat stay in some matter, yet move?



Does some heat transfer from the hot water to the bowl or sink you are pouring it into?



Now that you have thought about all these things, and tried some of them, I think you can be confident of the answer that you develop. Be sure to back up the answer with why you picked it. You might speak, write and draw your answer, too. Let me know what you find out. Write back if you are still stuck. Dr. J

Related links:
http://home.howstuffworks.com/thermos1.htm

http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/phy99/phy99x81.htm

http://www.sciencebuddies.org/mentoring/project_ideas/Phys_p032.shtml

http://www.comsol.com/showroom/gallery/1448.php

Update... 2009
rockytop.adams12.org/growlercore/documents/Weather_notes.ppt
http://www.accidentalscientist.com/2009/08/conduction-convection-and-radiation-and.html
(c)2007, 2008, 2009 J. S. Shipman

Teeter-totter your way into math...

Algebra can be fun! Click on this link and see. Such math skills help you learn science, too. (Once you read the directions, hit the close button and you will see the teeter-totter in full.)

Draw your science:

Here are winning pictures and an invitation to draw your nature trail.

Did you pick cabbage?

In a previous post, What can you learn from one plant?, you might have picked a plant to study. If you picked cabbage, here are some links of interest.

Here's a line drawing

Here's a link to Cabbage Chemistry

.

Botany/Geography/Research: Highlighting Zaidi!

Mudassir Asrar Zaidi is a botanist in Pakistan. Can you find Pakistan on a map? Click on her name and read about her research.

• Zaidi has written a book entitled, Fresh water algae from Balochistan, and has organized more than 40 seminars/workshops on biodiversity and plant sciences in Quetta.
• Zaidi has received three of the world’s most prestigious research fellowships: Fulbright, Commonwealth and Alexander von Humboldt.
  
• As a Fulbright Post Doctorate, Zaidi worked with Dr. Sidney Crow at Georgia State University in Atlanta, Georgia.
  
• At the University of London, the Commonwealth fellowship enabled Dr. Zaidi to work with Dr. Simon Gibbons in the School of Pharmacy.
  
• In London, Dr. Zaidi was also honored and elected as a fellow of Linnaean Society of London (FLS).
  
• Dr. Zaidi studied indigenous medicinal plants of Pakistan. These plants hold great potential of holding a cure for various diseases.
  

Dr. Zaidi says, "In my research on medicinal plants, I examine the bioactive plant extracts and purify, isolate and identify the biologically active compounds." Botanists like Zaidi help find new medicines to cure diseases. She has published her research results. Do you know how to use Google Scholar to find her papers?

Potatoes get diseases? Sure they do. You've heard...

...of the Irish Potato Famine. The potato famine was caused by a fungal disease of potatoes. David Spooner is a botanist who works, among other things, on potatoes. Click on his name and read more about this botanist.

Do you eat potatoes? Do you think other plants get diseases? Special botanists, called plant pathologists and geneticists, plant breeders, and biotechnologists work on preventing plant diseases and breeding or creating improved crops, or stopping the spread of plant diseases. Botanists, like David Spooner, help to prevent famines.

Snow's coming....

Snow flurries are expected today and Monday. Do you already find yourself thinking of spring? You might enjoy this video. It is about sunflowers.



Can you write a few paragraphs on spring, seed germination or health benefits of sunflower seeds?

Another Garden, in Montreal...

Edit 11-29-07...In response to comments:
http://read-about-it.blogspot.com/2007/11/helsea-physic-garden-home-of-original-u.html

Even more virtual botanical tours

Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden:



Daniel Stowe Botanical Garden:



Vacratot Botanical Garden:


Jasabet's Botanical Garden:


Villa Hanbury Ventimiglia Italy Liguria Botanical Garden:



Jardin Marco Polo:


Jardin des Plantes:

http://www.aviewoncities.com/paris/jardindesplantes.htm
,

More Virtual Tours of Botanic Gardens

Hakgala Botanical Gardens:


Toronto Botanic Garden:


Batumi Botanical Gardens:


Bucaresti Botanical Gardens:

More ideas on plant life cycles...This one Amaryllis

Here's a vido on Amaryllis. How do you like this video compared to the "Botany Beat" video posted earlier? How could you convey the life cycle of a plant visually?

Stocks and Options and Science?

You know, banks would have us believe that stocks and options are dangerous. To some extent they are. Like driving a car, you need to know what you are doing. Stocks and options share with science that they have their own vocabulary. The jargon of the finance world, like that of the science world, is worth learning. The rewards are many.

I am not recommending that you go out and get into stocks and options any more than I would recommend driving a car without knowing what you are doing. Even when you know, you must stay ever vigilant. Yet, if you "safely" keep your money in the bank at 1 or 1.5, or even 3%, the inflation monster will eat you (and your money) alive. And while you are safely at 1.5%, the bank is using stocks and options to make 12-35% with your money and then keeps the difference between that percentage and what they give you. With a portion of your money, you could risk, lose half, and come out ahead of where you'd be if you stay safely at the bank. You need to learn the jargon (http://tradeoptioned.blogspot.com/2007/08/some-new-changes.html), understand math and charts, and, know what you are doing. Do not risk borrowed money, or your house, or college fund, insurance,nor retirement. These are other aspects of your financial house that you need in order.

So, where does science fit in? The analytical skills and chart reading skills are critical in science. Practice reading financial charts and graphs can synergistically improve your interpretation of data in science, strengthening your science abilities. Enjoy the overlap in these seemingly different fields and grow in both.

Dr. J

(c)2007 J S Shipman

Fractals...Math found in Nature

Fractals are exciting and integrate math and science and art. The overlap of areas in the humanities and sciences appears to make fractals very popular. A movie follows which shows a well-known fractal and gives a link to more learning about fractals. Then, there is a portion of a research article showing one application of fractals in forestry. There are many more applications. This post is to give you an idea about fractals and encourage you to pursue the fractals in your own area of interest whether art or science or applied science. Enjoy the movie.



"Biologists have traditionally modelled nature using Euclidean representations of natural objects or series. Examples include the representation of heart rates as sine waves, conifer trees as cones, animal habitats as simple areas, and cell membranes as curves or simple surfaces. However, scientists have come to recognize that many natural constructs are better characterized using fractal geometry. Biological systems and processes are typically characterized by many levels of substructure, with the same general pattern being repeated in an ever-decreasing cascade. Relationships that depend on scale have profound implications in human physiology (West and Goldberger 1987), ecology (Loehle 1983; Wiens 1989), and many other sub-disciplines of biology. The importance of fractal scaling has been recognized at virtually every level of biological organization (Fig. 1; Section 5).

"Fractal geometry may prove to be a unifying theme in biology (Kenkel and Walker 1993), since it permits generalization of the fundamental concepts of dimension and length measurement. Most biological processes and structures are decidedly non-Euclidean, displaying discontinuities, jaggedness, and fragmentation. Classical measurement and scaling methods such as Euclidean geometry, calculus and the Fourier transform assume continuity and smoothness. However, it is important to recognize that while Euclidean geometry is not realized in nature, neither is strict mathematical fractal geometry. Specifically, there is a lower limit to self-similarity in most biological systems, and nature adds an element of randomness to its fractal structures. Nonetheless, fractal geometry is far closer to nature than is Euclidean geometry (Deering and West 1992).

"The relevance of fractal theory to biological problems is dependent on objectives. To the forester interested in estimating stand board-feet, a Euclidean representation of a tree trunk (as a cylinder or elongated cone) may be quite adequate. However, for an ecologist interested in modelling habitat availability on tree trunks (say, for small epiphytes or invertebrates), fractal geometry is more appropriate. Using a fractal approach, the complex surface of tree bark is readily quantified. A forester's diameter tape ignores the surface roughness of the bark, giving but a crude estimate of the circumference of the trunk. For an insect 10 mm in length, the 'distance' that it must travel to circumnavigate the trunk is much greater than the measured diameter value. For an insect of length 1 mm, the distance travelled is greater still. This has consequences on the way that the tree trunk is perceived by organisms of different sizes. If the bark has a fractal dimension of D = 1.4, an insect an order of magnitude smaller than another perceives a length increase of 10D-1 = 100.4 = 2.51, or a habitat surface area increase of 2.512 = 6.31. By contrast, for a smooth Euclidean surface, D = 1 and both insects perceive the same 'amount' of habitat. The higher the fractal dimension D, the greater the perceived rate of increase in length (or surface) with decreasing scale."
Source: http://www.umanitoba.ca/faculties/science/botany/LABS/ECOLOGY/FRACTALS/fractal.html

Watched the Eclipse? Add your comments!

http://sunearth.gsfc.nasa.gov/eclipse/LEmono/TLE2007Aug28/image/TLE2007Aug28-GMT.GIF

Watch the eclipse. Check out the time in your time zone.
http://www.timezoneconverter.com/cgi-bin/tzc.tzc

Example:

10:37:00 p.m. Tuesday August 28, 2007 in GMT converts to
06:37:00 p.m. Tuesday August 28, 2007 in America/New_York

Daylight Saving Time is not in effect on this date/time in GMT
Daylight Saving Time is in effect on this date/time in America/New_York

Learn more:
http://www.mreclipse.com/Special/LEprimer.html

Click comments below and add your comment.

Supercool Science!

Politics...Not as usual

Please read up on signing statements and line item vetoes. Then, try drafting letters on your opinions about them to your elected officials. Thanks.

Slit Science