Barn Owls

Class response #2: Barn Owls



Topic:

My topic is about barn owls. I wanted to learn more about them since in class I heard that they were different from most owls. They seemed interesting to learn about.

Interesting Facts:

~ Female barn owls are usually bigger than male barn owls.

~ The barn owl is located in many places such as North, Central and South America; Britain and Western Europe to the Black Sea; North, Central and Southern Africa, Madagascar, India, Burma, many islands of the East Indies, Australia and Tasmania.

~ Only some northern birds may move south in winter.

~ Barn owls eat certain types of birds, bats, lizards frogs, insects, and fish.

~ They locate their prey by sight or sound and strike the animal with their talons. They take off very quickly with their food firmly in their beak.

~ They are known to have, probably, the best sense of hearing of all owls and can locate prey in total darkness.

~ The owls communicate by hissing, screeching, and beak snapping, which indicates anger.

My opinion:

My opinion on the barn owls is that they are a lot like the other owls, but better. I think it's really cool how they can catch their prey so easily in pitch, black darkness. I am also amazed that they eat birds because they are birds, aswell. That's like a human eating another human (YUCK!). The owls communicate pretty much the same as humans do anger wise. Whenever my mom gets mad her teeth chatter, which is kind of like how the owls snap their beaks. Overall, the barn owls were fun to learn about. They are kind of weird, but they're pretty much normal compared to other animals like snakes (YIKES!).

Site: http://www.oregonzoo.org/Cards/BirdsOfPrey/barn_owl.htm

Gregor Mendel: The Father of Genetics

Class Response: Gregor Mendel


Topic:

My topic is Gregor Mendel. We learned about him in class briefly and I wanted to find out about more of his discoveries, experiments and more.

Interesting Facts:

~ Gregor Mendel took a qualifying examination for teacher certification at a secondary school in the city of Znaim at for teaching and failed.

~ In 1851 he entered the University of Vienna to train to be a teacher of
Mathematics and Biology. It was there where he developed skills as a
researcher. He studied physics, chemistry, mathematics, zoology and
botany from 1851 to 1853.

~ He studied for two years at the Philosophical Institute at Olmutz Czechoslovakia.

~ He was a well loved monk and abbot who became famous after he passed away on January 6, 1884.

~ Gregor Mendel's theorys about genetics were ignored by the academic world and were not understood because hes discoveries were ahead of his time.

~ He spent over eight years growing over thirty-thousand pea plants studying genetics in the garden in his monestary.


My Opinion:

In my opinion, Gregor Mendel is interesting to study because he was the first person who figured out why people looked the way they did. He figured out that people got vertain traits from their parents. The theory that people had in his time period was that you features were mixed, but the truth of the matter was that you got some features from your mother and some from your father. I cant believe he actually spent eight years of his life growing over thrity-thousand pea plants to learn about this unknown topic which was more of a twentieth century study (much more ahead of his own time). While studying him, I read that he was a quiet person. This was believable because I read that his fame wasn't recognized until after he passed away. I'm glad he discovered this because if he didn't, we wouldn't know as much as we do about the human body, for example, diseases. THANK YOU GREGOR MENDEL!

Sites:

1. http://www.lycos.com/info/gregor-mendel.html
2. http://712educators.about.com/cs/biographies/p/mendel.htm
3. http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/information/biography/klmno/mendel_gregor.html

A Dead Star's Dusty Ring

Who: Marc J. Kuchner

What: Scientists looked through the Spitzer Space Telescope at a dead star far away.

When: February 21, 2007

Where: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

Why:
To see what will happen to our sun and planet Earth in five billion
years and discovered something different from what they originally
thought.

My opinion:

My opinion on this article is to
expect the unexpected because the scientists thought that what they
were going to see while looking at the dead star through the Spitzer
Space Telescope was a bunch of extra dust that got pushed away from the
Helix nebula. Instead of it getting pushed away, the dust surrounded
the Helix nebula. Scientists found even older white dwarfs with dust
surrounding them, too. The scientists think that this is what will happen to our
star in five billion years when it breaks down because the dust
consisted of the same thing comets consist of. Our sun has comets that
orbit it just like the dust that is orbitting that white dwarf. This
article made me curious about what was going to happen to our solar
system once it dies out. I wondered if in five billion years there would even be an Earth because of the way we treat it. I also wondered if those other dead stars once had an Earth and solar system like ours. There could be a whole different kind
of life out there somewhere in space that we haven't discovered yet.

Site: href="http://www.sciencenewsforkids.org/articles/20070221/Note2.asp">http://www.sciencenewsforkids.org/articles/20070221/Note2.asp

A Meal Plan for Birds

Who: Researchers from the University of Cambridge in England

What: Testing scrub jays with food

When: February 28, 2007

Where: The University of Cambridge in England

Why: To learn about animal planning

My opinion:

My
opinion on this article was that these birds, scrub jays, and other
animals are just like humans. They plan out what to do with their food
to save it up for later. The experiment that was done by the
researchers from the University of Cambridge in England was to see what
the birds would do when in each room there was a different story food
wise. The researchers put these birds in chambers with two side rooms.
In the first part of the experiment, the researches grounded up the
bird's food so that they couldn't store it. On some days, the birds
were put into one of the rooms for up to two hours with no breakfast
and other days were put into the other room with ground up food. This
taught the birds that there was food in one room, but not the other.
The birds were given a surprise one day and got to eat as many pine
nuts as they wanted and stash away extras where ever they wanted for
later. I thought the birds were smart because they put most of the food
in the room where they knew the food never was. In the second
experiment, the researchers put peanuts in one room and food pellets in
the other. The birds learned which room was which and when they were
given a session to do whatever they wished with the food, they put more
peanuts in the food pellet room and more food pellets in the peanut
room. To me, these birds were very clever with planning what to do with
their food.


Site: http://www.sciencenewsforkids.org/articles/20070228/Note3.asp

A Fix For Injured Knees

Who: Cato T. Laurencin

What: Doctors may be able to grow cells into human ligaments to fix torn ligaments.

When: February 28, 2007

Where: University of Virginia in Charlottesville

Why: To help atheletes get back in the game and to fix torn ligaments.

My opinion:

My opinion on this topic is that it's a good idea to create ligaments from cells. What the doctors do when you tear your ligament (usually the ACL which stands for anterior cruciate ligament) is replace it with a healthy ligament from another part of your leg. This procedure takes a long recovery and is painful. Instead of doing this, scientists are trying to discover a way on how to make this a "not so painful" experience by using a fake ligament. Cato T. Laurencin, and other scientists from the University of Virginia, took cells from rabbits and put them with artificial materials and made an artificial ligament. They tested the artificial ligament in rabbits. The cells grew slowly and turned into a natural ligament. The artificial materials were dissolved. In my opinion, if I tore my own ACL, I would NOT want to go through the pain of having the original idea of replacing the it with a healthy ligament because I hate pain. I would rather have something simple and painless done.

site: http://www.sciencenewsforkids.org/articles/20070228/Note2.asp

HIIII

HIIII GUYYSS.....wasapppp.....finally blogged after like having a month of doing this....teehee....im a procrastinator like tht.....dont no wat it means....m-w.com my friend!.....:).....



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~smarterkid