The Life Cycle

Everyday in science we learn something new and interesting. As for right now I am going to focus on the Life Cycle. A life cycle describes the cycle of a person or an animals life. We once did the life cycle of a plant too! Here are a few pictures of the two different life cycles that I will describe.     

This is a Life cycle example of a cat . It starts out as giving birth. Then the growth stage. Then the adults reproduce. Then sadly, the death stage.---->

The Plant life cycle is a little different. First is the birth or germination. Then of course the growth stage. Then the pollination (reproduce). Then sadly, the death.----->

And that's all about the life cycle.

Adapt or Die

Imagine one million years later humans no longer exist. The animals have changed, some have adapted, some have died, but they all have changed, this was our science project. In this project we chose an animal and listed five adaptations structural or behavioral. But then we got to get creative, we cut out pictures of our animal and drew their habitat. Then on the future side, we did the same thing but changed it to what we think will happen in the future.

Producers, Consumers and Decomposers.

There are three different types of organisms on this Earth. Producers, consumers and decomposes. In science class, we learned about them when we were learning about the life cycle. The producers are plants, that produce oxygen and other things we consumers need for life, such as fruit. Consumers are organisms that eat the producers and consume each other. It sounds a little gross, but whenever you eat a salad or a pork, you are following the natural order of things. Decomposers are usually insects and they decompose dead plants and animals, which is why there aren't Piles of dead animals lying around. Each of these organisms, producers, consumers and decomposers, they all play their part in nature.
                           
                                                                               

The Future is Wild

In science we're learning about the future. The class watched a video called The Future is Wild. It showed animals today evolved so that they can cope with the harsh environment. The movie is broken up into three parts. They are 5 million years, 100 million years, and 200 million years in the future. One animal , for example was called the swampus. It evolved from the modern day octopus. It could now breathe on land, though. It could also excrete a deadly venom that protects it from predators. It was like walking with dinosaurs but in the future. This helped us learn about behavioral and structural adaptations.

The Food Web

A Food Web

     The food web is basically a bunch of animals that are connected by where the energy travels. A food web involves lots of different animals eating others and the energy travels from the sun to a producer then to a herbivore then to a carnivore, then once the carnivore is dead, a decomposer may come and eat it. In the example the food web starts with grass, then either a rabbit, a mouse or a cricket eat it. An owl eats the rabbit, the mouse or a snake. Then the frog eats the cricket, and the snake eats the frog. The problem is, when one animal goes extinct, the whole food web will collapse. This food web has 4 different food chains in it!

Adapt or Die Rubric

Rubric

Adapt or Die example

In this project you have to give an animal of your selection its 5 adaptations. After that you have to show your animal
in its future habitat and give it 5 new
adaptations. In this project you will be graded on neatness and creativity,
accurate labels and describe 5 reasonable adaptations that will help
your animal survive in its new habitat. The drawing effects your grade alot, so you have to do a good job!

Food Chain Games

Ever wonder how a food chain works? Well, this blog entry will solve that problem. Say hello to this food chain game, Sunny Meadows! In Sunny Meadows you select an amount of foxes, rabbits, and plants. Then click 'start game' to see the food chain in action! In a 50 year time period see how long your animals last. Another game is a game called the Food Chain Game! In the Food Chain Game, you are given three to six plants and animals, and you have to link them into the food chain in order. If you are correct, you get to see the food chain in action as well! Really hope this helped with learning the food chain just like it helped us when we learned about food chains. Have fun with the games!

Seed Vault Terror

Oh the terror, the worlds about to end. There is a seed vault that will replant all the plants and trees, no worries. Then there will be life on earth again. Every single seed on the planet is in the seed vault. The seed vault is in Norway because, there is barely any storms or people living there. The vault is made to last 10,000 years.The polar bears over populate humans but, the reindeer over populate everything. In the future, who knows maybe there will be a dooms day but, the seed vault will be there to help. At least life will still be in a room way in the ground. We learned all this from the video below. And in class we were learning about life science and that's what helped us to.

Marvelous Metamorphosis

There are two kinds of metamorphosis. Incomplete, and complete. Incomplete metamorphosis is when the life cycle is only 3 stages: Egg, larva and adult. Complete metamorphosis is when the life cycle has 4 stages: Egg, larva, pupa and adult. An example of a Complete metamorphosis is the Butterfly. An example of an incomplete metamorphosis is the Dragon Fly.

Food Chain

Recently in science we have been studying food chains. Food chains are diagrams that show the flow of energy from one organism to another. All food chains start with the Sun, the a producer (a plant) and then consumers.  Then a decomposer eats the dead consumers and the chain starts again! A series of food chains are called a food web!

Photosynthesis!

You know it, you love it, put your hands together for the thing called photosynthesis! It is everywhere, in your backyard, in your house, and it's also in the school! Plants use it all the time! Why? They use it for food! This is how it works, plants have this special chemical inside them called chlorophyll, it's what makes plants green. The leaves are like solar panels full of chlorophyll which take in the sunlight and makes glucose also known as sugar. But you may be asking why do we need plants, well it's a win-win situation; we give them our carbon dioxide and they give us oxygen. That's why we need plants, but what do plants need, photosynthesis.Click on this to go to the Photosynthesis song!

Erosion Path

A few weeks ago some Fifth Grade students, after an enormous rain storm, traveled on their garden path created by previous 5th Graders. What they discovered was surprising. First of all most of the gravel underneath our picnic table had been washed down the path. You may think that they are just footprints, like Christopher, but who listens to him? Anyway that is unlikely because the gravel was carried all along the trail, as shown in the video. The water carried a lot of ribbon and junk through the sewer and out into the forest. Also the tiny creek got a lot deeper and moved some big rocks and soil. Now some plants are starting to grow over the edge because the river got wider.

Stream Floods

In science we did a stream table flood. The stream table wash us all away with the amazing conclusion. For this experiment we needed a flood cup, ruler, tray with a hole at the end, a right angled wood or a fat book, collecting cup and sand. Lay the sand so it is 20'' flat and make an incline. Then put the ruler so that it can hold the flood cup. After that put water in the flood cup, so that the tray would flood. Put water in the flood cup and wait for it to make a delta or to get weathered. Let the water collect in the cup. My conclusion is when we made a bigger hole the "flood" water went faster from the flood cup and if you had didn't have a right angled wood, then the water would go no where.

The Rain Lab

The rain lab cutting through the sand

Here is a new way to show how an erosion works. An erosion works by some rain falling down on an area and the longer it falls and the more it falls through the years then it can cut through the rock. That's what happened to the Grand Canyon. And we thought it was Paul Bunyan's pickax!

Glaciers

Recently in science we have been doing flood tables. There are 3 parts. Rain, flood, more rain, and glaciers. This post will be about the glaciers. We took a tray, and filled it with sand on one side, and put a giant ice-disk on the sand. Then we pushed down on the ice-disk and it slip-and-slid down, taking some sand with it.

This is an example of erosion. Erosion is weathered land being moved by natural forces like wind, water, and glaciers. So that is what we did, see you later!

Refraction Lab

For refraction lab we put a ruler inside a cup of water. Inside the water the ruler looked bent. The ruler looked as if it were broken. We then put it in the oil AND the water. It looked as if it had two cracks. Since the oil was lighter it went to the very top. The ruler looked larger or magnified in the oli than the water. Refraction means when light bends as it passes from one object to another object because it changes speed.