7th Grade Science Class: Cern

Monday, May 23, 2011

Ben's 4th Quarter Scribe Post

Science Class of Thursday, May 19

Hello everyone, in my scribe post I will be giving a summary of Thursday’s class. Enjoy reading and be sure to check out the links.

We started off the class with talking about some final details of the CERN trip to Geneva, Switzerland. After that, we reviewed the order of everything. Here is the order:

?-Quarks-Protons/Neutrons/Electrons-Atoms-Molecules-Elements-Compounds/Mixtures-DNA-Cells-Tissues-Organs-Systems-Organisms-Species-Genus-Families-Order-Class-Phyllum-Kingdoms-Biomes-Planets-Galaxies-Clusters of Galaxies-?

Here is a link to a game about the order of everything. It covers some things that we didn’t get to yet, but for the most part it is relevant. I find the order of everything pretty cool because it begins and ends with a question mark, probably to show that there is still much to discover. So back to the class, we finished with the order of everything, and then talked about cells. Here are some cell notes I took:

Cells are the basic units of structure and function

All cells are created by other living cells

All organisms are made up of cells

One square centimeter of skin holds 100,000 cells

Cells weren’t discovered until the late 1600’s

People couldn’t see them, but when microscopes were invented, it was possible to see cells

There are two types of cells

One type is Prokaryotes cells, they have a nucleus and are very small

The other is Eukaryotes, they don’t have a nucleus and are much bigger than Prokaryotes

Later on in class, after we reviewed all the information about cells, we talked about microscopes and their history. Here are notes I took about Microscopes:

The first cells were discovered using microscopes

The first microscope was a tube with a lens at each end

The first light microscope was made in 1886 and magnified 1,000x

Electron microscopes were created in 1933 and magnified 500,000x

In 1981 the first tunneling microscope was made and magnifies 1,000,000x

Tunneling microscopes go inside of a living thing

Today only light and electron microscopes are used

A common lens used today is convex, which are in eyeglasses and magnifying glasses

Ms. D told us to get with a partner and then grab a microscope. She gave us some safety and usage tips about using microscopes, for example, hold the microscope by the base and the arm, or, make sure to start off with the lowest powered objective and put it back at that one too. She gave us slides with small things on them, like volcanic ash or blue wool, and then we got to look at them under microscopes. I think the best view was with the middle objective, which was 40x, because it wasn’t too far away or too close. We finished up using the microscopes and put them away. For the last few minutes of class, Ms. D reminded us of the last few critical details about the CERN trip. Then that was it for Thursday’s class.

Real Life Example

I don’t know if you’ve heard about this recent debate in the USA and other parts of the world. It’s about stem cell research. To extract stem cells, embryos inside of people are killed. Embryos are vital for reproduction and many other things inside the body. There was a recent article about in the NY Times. This is another article from the University of Wisconsin about the history and more information relating to stem cells.

Here is a link to Moodle so you can check out reflection post tips or upcoming homework.

I hope you all liked reading my scribe post for this quarter.

THE NEXT SCRIBE IS………..NATHAN HUNTZ

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Cern and Cells

Hello everyone,

Yesterday May 17th we learned about cells and CERN. Cells are the basic unit(structure,function) of every living thing. Ms.D asked us how do we know if we are alive? Many of us had different answers but most of us said by movement. Ms.D said that we know if we are alive by movement, respiration, reproduction etc. There are 6 kingdoms Animalia, Plantae, Fungi, Protist, Monera, and Archaebacteria. Animalia is the animal kingdom. Plantae have cell walls that are used to protect the plant, and chloroplast which makes the plant green. Fungi is where the mushrooms and other fungus go. This kingdom decomposes waste my teacher from Ecuador told me they kind of recycle a big part in nature.

Monera is where bacteria fall into. They told me that most bacteria is actually helpful to your body.In my other school they taught me that archaebacteria was part of the monera kingdom but Ms.D said that it was separate kingdoms. Archaebacteria is bacteria that live is extreme environments.

Large Hadron Collider

this is what the hadron collider could affect us.The Large Hadron Collider at CERN near Geneva, Switzerland will open new views on the deepest secrets of the universe, stretching the imagination with newly discovered forms of matter, forces of nature, and dimensions of space which it is pretty cool and we could advance greatly in technology. Then we saw a couple of videos about the hadron collider and a presentation. We also saw a funny video of some people that work there and made a rap song. We are going to Geneva, Switzerland mostly because of the Hadron Collider. The Large Hadron Collider, or LHC, is a facility at the European Center for Nuclear Research (CERN) on the French-Swiss border. It is designed to take particles at high energies and smash them together, to see what results are obtained. This Machine is huge and amazing, also with this machine we could do black holes which they are awesome.