Favorite Peer Projects

All of my classmates' projects did very well this quarter in terms of quarterly projects. But I feel a few stand out as being exceptionally well done, in both presentation as well as execution of a topic and the teaching of said topic. Among these few I would like to mention three: Calvin Vu's project over The Unique Properties of Space, Acacia Cornado's project over Black Holes, as well as White Holes by Zakaria. First, Calvin Vu's project over Unique Properties of Space surprisingly taught me some facts that I was not aware of. Facts such as that a human can survive up to 30 seconds without any sort of protection in space. I didn't think this was possible and I believed that you would freeze, explode/compact, or something along the lines of that. But most other facts that he covered in his presentation I already knew. Acacia's project over Black Holes, on the other hand did not teach me much other than details that I deem somewhat irrelevant. But the project was very well put together and executed with well payed attention to details. It was very factual as well. Zakaria's project was the other side of the coin in my opinion. While not very well presented nor being projected properly in my opinion, the project's subject matter was something to pay attention to. The idea and theory of White Holes is something that is not very well known nor spoken or understood. Being mathematical in concept, I feel that the theory of white holes is very much "swept under the rug" despite being a very logical concept as well as being a very interesting one.

Blog Post #2- Earth Day

Earth Day is an internationally celebrated annual event, when events and demonstrations are performed and held worldwide to promote and support environmental protection and the preservation of our only planet and home. It is celebrated on April 22nd, first being celebrated in 1970 as part of a proposition that peace activist, John McConnell proposed to honor the Earth and promote peace. Gaylord Nelson then founded Earth Day while working as a US senator. Today it is coordinated globally by the Earth Day Network in over 192 countries worldwide, each year. I believe this day is important because, for whatever reason, it seems that many people choose to ignore the cries of help from the planet and thus harm it- be it intentionally or not. We are slowly killing our planet by over harvesting it's resources, over populating it, and poisoning all that is not ours. We need to promote awareness of these problems and how to stop them to save ourselves and the Earth for future generations. Some things you can do for Earth Day to help save our home include- recycling, using less water, reusing, and minimizing electricity usage. By recycling paper you can save thousands of trees as well as water and fossil fuels. By minimizing water and electricity usage, you are also preventing the over use of fossil fuels and over production of green house gases. Reusing items also helps keep items such as plastic bottles out of our landfills as well as oceans and surrounding environments. Some random facts about Earth day include:
1. On Earth Day 2009, Disney released a documentary film called Earth that followed the migration paths of four animal families.
2. On the very first Earth Day, 20 million people gathered in the streets of America to protest the industrial revolution. An environmental movement was born as a result.

3. In Panama, 100 endangered species of orchids were planted and maintained to prevent their extinction in honor of Earth Day.

4th Quarterly Project Blog Post #1

With our universe being as vast as it is, does it really make sense for us to be alone in space? Many scientists don't believe so, but they don't think extraterrestrial life comes in the forms of UFOs and green martians. They have made their own theories and illustrations of what they believe is to be out there. In my project we will explore some of these ideas and the collaborators behind these theorized life forms. One of these scientists's names should ring a bell- Stephen F. Hawking. Hailed as the modern centuries' Albert Einstein, he is one of the most respected and knowledgeable scientists of this day and age. He is a strong believer in extraterrestrial life, in particular, the idea of non-carbon based life. For reference, all life on Earth, is carbon based. The carbon cycle plays a key part in keeping our Earth alive. But not all life in the universe will be the same, non- carbon based life is a very probable theory to life elsewhere in the universe. Many scientists have explored how this would even be possible and have come up with many theories. Scientists have also gone to the extent of exploring possible diets, behaviors, and environments that these lifeforms may possibly live in. Scientists are not the only ones to theorize other lifeforms. Hollywood has made their own ideas- Alien, Predator, Prometheus, StarWars, Europa Report, Star Trek, and other movies have featured other alien lifeforms.

Artist's illustration of possible alien life. 

Favorite Peer Projects

My favorite peer projects for this round of quarterly projects would probably have to be the Kuiper Belt project, A Story of Woe, and Titan: Moon of Saturn projects. The Kuiper Belt project was very informative, I liked it a lot due to the information I actually learned from it. While some of the basic facts I already knew about, for example, that the belt is located between Mars and Jupiter (effectively acting as almost a boundry in between the rocky/terrestrial planets and the gaseous/Jovian giants). But I did not know that, if it hadn't been for the gravitational pull of Jupiter, that the Kuiper Belt would have become another planet. I was also intrigued by the possibility of future mining operations on asteroids in the Kuiper Belt, very cool stuff. Another one of my favorites, the Titan: Moon of Saturn project, was also very intriguing to me- mostly due to the fact it could hold the possibility to have life. I, previously, had thought that moons were mostly made of rock and ice. Lacking actual oceans or liquid water, for of course, it's insanely cold when you are located that far away from the sun. But Titan has an ocean and tectonic plate activity, with a continent and atmosphere. One of my fascinations with space is the possibility of life out there in space. I was also intrigued by Nick's project of Europa, and I have seen the sci-fi film he referred to in his project (saw it on the plane ride to Turkey, I thought it was pretty cool for a B-rated movie, a little slow at first though) but thought it was unfair to talk about it extensively since it would be a repetition of what i've already stated about the Titan project. Finally, another one of my favorite projects was, A Story of Woe, by Kara (I believe that's how it's spelled) who took a very interesting approach to her project. While I personally did not agree too much with it, it was very original and interesting. It also informed there's such a thing as a bi-planetary orbit, never knew about that before. All around, good projects overall. Still wish I hadn't forgotten my credits and it pains me every-time I remember. :(










The "alien life" in Europa Report, the Sci-Fi movie Nick referenced in his project. It used bioluminescence (my previous project!) to lure the astronauts to their deaths.

Blog Post #2: "When We Left Earth" NASA Documentary and Space Travel

"When We Left Earth", a NASA documentary produced by the Discovery Channel, was a compelling series of episodes over American space travel and how we pioneered one of the final frontiers- space. Consisting of 6 episodes, "When We Left Earth" documented everything from the first Mercury missions on through the Gemini and Apollo programs, the construction and launch of the space shuttle, as well as the upbringing of the Hubble Telescope, SkyLab, and International Space Station. The series was created in part with NASA to help celebrate the agency's 50th anniversary (in 2008). The series, in my opinion, was very instilling and entertaining. I have had the pleasure to meet some of these astronauts in person thanks to my father and wished I had been old enough to realize just how special these men and women are/were. This documentary series was inspiring and just absolutely awesome. I never really wondered about space or thought about how it would be to go up there. Now I do, I would love to go into space, into the unknown. Space is an awesome place, it's the final frontier- and we should pioneer it. Especially at the rate that we are destroying the Earth, we may need it in the not so distant future.

Summary of Project: The Birth of Our Solar System

Our Solar System was born approximately about 4.5 billion years ago from a huge cloud of space dust and gasses. The very center of our solar system, the sun, was created by a nebula. A nebula is an interstellar cloud of dust, hydrogen, helium and other ionized gases. A shock-wave of some sort, triggered the cloud of dust and gas to start binding together, eventually forming a star. But not all of the dust from the nebula turned into our sun. Some formed the planets by swirling around into a spherical shape. Electrostatic forces or carbon coatings caused them to stick to one another and build up on each other. Mutual gravity eventually brought them together into the formation of a planet. Dust and some gasses primarily made up the terrestrial planets, while primarily gasses made up the Jovian planets. But our solar system won't last forever. The sun, being a star, will eventually evolve into other forms of stars as their "life cycle" goes on. Eventually the sun will become so large that it will essentially set the entire Earth on fire and then consume it. But that's won't happen for a few billion years, so we don't have much to worry about. Everything in the solar system, including us, was created from some space dust. Isn't that remarkable? Our entire planet, all of the living organisms, and several other planets were created out of nothing but dust floating around in space that had been disturbed.

Blog Post #3: Favorite Peer Projects

My favorite peer projects were probably the Stone Forest, You are Warned: You Will be Warmed, and the Aurora Borealis projects. The Stone Forest project interested me due to it's sheer beauty, it's a marvelous landscape that is commonly projected in depictions of "old" China. I would love to visit that place and climb the stones and hike through the forests. I also learned a lot from this project, including the myth of the forest and the fact that it's mostly a giant sheet of limestone rock that has been eroded away. I never would've known these things and the project actually taught me something interesting. The project, You are Warned: You Will be Warmed, was another one of my favorites mostly due to the title, very clever. But it also brought to the table the dangers of global warming and greenhouse gases. Global warming is a very real threat to not only us but to other wildlife as well as the planet as a whole. I very much liked that they included animals that are being affected by the issue of global warming; such as polar bears who live off the ice and no longer can do that due to the melting of the polar ice caps. Lastly, I liked the Aurora Borealis project for most of the same reasons i liked the Stone Forest project. The "Northern Lights" are a beauty to behold and I would love to see them in person one day. They are also somewhat of a mystery to me, before their presentation I had a faint idea of what caused them (something to do with temperature or ionization of the air) but their project taught me that and more. Such as, that there is more than one type of this spectacle that happens in the Southern hemisphere (Aurora Austrialis). I also learned that different gases at different temperatures is what actually causes the lights to change color.

Blog Post #2: Canyon Lake Gorge Field Trip

The field trip to Canyon Lake Gorge was a very interesting and exciting, fun field trip. Honestly, I've loved dinosaurs and prehistoric life since I was little (I remember receiving a dinosaur encyclopedia for Christmas and it wasn't one of those basic kid ones either), so the trip was fun. Searching for small prehistoric fossils like the fossilized sea urchins, gastropods, and other shells and ancient sea critters was fun. Some of the stuff, if not most, I had already known- such as the fact that prehistoric sauropods walked like an elephant, leaving figure eight style foot prints due to their round feet. I also knew that carnivores had a 3 toed- very bird like foot print and moved in a weird swaying motion. One thing I found very interesting was the fact that scientists, paleontologists, today have found a way to find patterns in the rock using high powered microscopes and are now able to tell fossilized colors and that they have already figured out that dinosaurs were very colorful. I never knew that was even possible and when I heard it, it just blew my mind. I also thought the landscape was beautiful, I loved the small series of waterfalls where ferns were growing, that was spectacular. I wanted to just climb around and have fun wandering off wherever and exploring the landscape.

Blog Post 1#: Second Quarterly Project, The Effect of Tides on Marine Biology

Our project will explore the effect ocean tides have on the organisms that live in it, the marine environment and it’s occupants. The ocean’s tides, as some of us may know, have an effect on us through our interaction with water. Boating and swimming are some of the most known relationships we have with tides. Have you ever seen a sign on a beach warning of rip tides or something similar? These powerful tides are almost unseen but can rip a person from the beach out into deep, open water. But some of you may ask, what really is a tide? A tide is “the alternate rising and falling of the sea, usually twice in each lunar day at a particular place, due to the attraction of the moon and sun.”- quoted from Google. Due to the gravitational pull on the Earth, the oceans around the world rise and fall as the Earth and Moon perform rotations around one another and the Sun. The rising and falling of these tides has a major effect on marine biology. Many organisms have thus evolved to use the rising and falling of tides to their advantage, to the point that if the tides ceased to exist- so would they. For example, in Mangrove forests a type of fish called the Mud-skipper resides. But it’s no ordinary fish for not only can it live in water- but it can also live on land (for a short period of time though). Most fish in inter-tidal environments survive the retreat of the tide by living in tidal pools or hiding under wet vegetation. But Mud-skippers have adapted to the retreat of the tide by evolving into a completely amphibious fish, feeding and interacting even when out of the water.  
Picture of a Mud-skipper:

Favorite Peer Projects

Titanoboa: The Amazonian Monster, was one of my favorite projects solely based on the fact that it was over a giant snake. Titanoboa was a massive snake that measured at about 50 ft long and weighed over a ton. Related to the modern day Boa Constrictor, it lived in a similar environment- the dense, swampy, humid and hot jungles of the Amazon. It lived during the Paleocene era around 60 million years ago. It would hunt it's prey by ambushing it, then constricting the unfortunate prey to death- be it crocodiles or other ancient Cerrajon animals. It could then go up to a year without eating again. Fossils of the snake were uncovered while workers were mining for coal and uncovering layers of rock in the Cerrajon coal mine.

Marine Fossils was another one of my favorite projects, as I have had a fascination with fossils for awhile, specifically marine fossils. A fossil is any impression or remains of an organism that is preserved in rock or mineral. Fossils are identified by certain qualities- skeletal structure, characteristics, functions, etc. The first person to come up with idea of classification was Aristotle. Two common types of marine fossils were trilobites and sponges. Ichthyosaurus are another type of marine fossil, a lizard-fish like animal that hunted fish and squid during it's reign. It's fossils were found in Torres del Paine in Chile. Two organisms that exist today that are living relatives of marine fossils include salmon and dolphins, they have similar skeletal structures and teeth as their ancestors did.

The Middle Between Birds and Dinosaurs was another one of my favorite projects, most projects that had to do with dinosaurs or prehistoric life held my attention for some portion depending on how well it was done. There were three main similarities between birds and dinosaurs that helped scientists theorize this link between species- they had similar feet, laid eggs, and had hollow bones. In China, a fossil was found by a Belgium scientists that was of a dinosaur, as it had needle sharp teeth, but it had feathers. The dino-bird was named Archeapteryx and sparked a worldwide revolution in paleontology, that maybe dinosaurs and birds were one and the same, just evolved.

Summary of Quarterly Project: Megalodon.

Not only was Megalodon the biggest prehistoric shark that ever lived; it was the largest predatory marine creature in the history of our planet. This shark not only existed, but it hunted and swam throughout the ancient oceans- 1.5 million years ago before going extinct. Carcharodon Megalodon, the king of sharks, was named after it’s teeth. Carcharodon, in ancient greek, translates to “ragged tooth”, due to the serrations the teeth this family of shark equip in their mouths- designed to rip and tear through flesh.  This shark had teeth as big as the palm of your hand, at about 7 inches long. Due to sharks having a cartilage skeletal system instead of a bone one like most vertebrates, fossilized evidence of shark “bones” is very hard to come by. But some vertebrae have been found. Fossils have been excavated from many parts of the world- including Europe, Africa, North and South America, Puerto Rico, Cuba, Jamaica, The Canary Islands, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Malta, Grenadines, and India. Megalodon teeth have also been found in areas far from continental lands, including the Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean. Due to fossil evidence being found nearly all over the world, we can assume that Megalodon was a cosmopolitan- it’s range encompasses the entire globe.most paleontologists propose that Megalodon, due to its ability to reach high speeds and great size, would prefer to hunt. Fossil evidence has found that Megalodon ate a large variety of fauna, including dolphins, porpoises, small and large whales, and even giant sea turtles that roamed the ancient oceans. During the late and Pliocene and Pleistocene eras, there were ice ages, which cooled the oceans. This is also cooled the Earth’s oceans, this cooling in turn impacted Megalodon, as it preferred warmer, tropical, waters, and as a result it may have declined in population until its ultimate extinction during the Pleistocene era. Competition, climate change, and decline in food supply are three theories to their decline.