Yayyyy School is OUT!!!!!! No getting up at 7:00 and NO homework!

       Hey everyone I had such a great break. How was yours? Well hopefully I will here about all my classmates in their blogs. Here are their links if you want to read them. Here is kates Celine's Aubrey's Chase's Zoe's and Alencia's. 

       So lets get back on topic so the topic is what we did during Christmas break, I'm going to talk about my break. So first my sister came from Maine then my cousin came all the way from Finland. The first couple days we sat around talking and playing kinect (I recommend the game Just Dance 3)and going to the movies. Just being plain lazy :) which is AWESOME. Then after the first 5 days of fun. We packed up for a 8 hour (which turned out to be a ten hour) car ride to Florida. Let me tell you a 10 ride with 5 seats 5 people, the dog and our legs crammed due to the luggage was ... surprisingly fun just VERY uncomfortable. 

       

This is sorta what it looked like. 

       O.Kate where were we? Ohh ya now I remember well like I said the car ride was very long so we were SO happy to arrive to Florida. Well while we were there we decided to go on a boat ride and thought some dolphins would be nice to meet. But noo the 2 hour boat ride was for nothing all we saw were birds and rich houses!!! We were pretty bummed out about that but the next day we got to go to the beach so that was good for me! Then we made 3 batches of Christmas cookies and they all turned out like dog treats!! ewwww but finally the last batch turned out AMAZING. On Christmas day we had a great meal with or course mash potatoes, my favorite and much more. We decided we couldn't wait to open presents until the morning so we opened all the amazing presents. Then 2 days later extended family came and we had so much fun talking and eating MORE delicious food :P yummy 

       Sadly we had to leave the next day so we repacked and started another long ride back.The next few days we were shopping like crazy for my cousin and my sister since very cold weather was waiting for them!(I'm jelous!) When we said our goodbyes to my cousin we were all tearing up because we won't see him untill June! That day was VERY gloomy! :( escpecialy for my aunt.  

        

hrytr Sorry couldn't talk very well back there I had 12 grapes in my mouth. It is a tradition from Spain that my family does even though we aren't from Spain. There are tons of traditions like these ...ohh woops sorry I forgot to tell you why I had stuffed 12 grapes in my mouth! Sorry! We do that on New years eve and the 12 grapes are so we have a great 12 months :) We also started a new tradition, to scratch lottery tickets for luck. I can't believe its 2012 yayy new year for changes and fresh, new starts. I love new years eve but my dog sure doesn't he was laying in my mom's lap! Aww poor puppy!

       When a new year comes what do you fill out? A new years resolution of course and you also set goals. My new year resolution was to keep in contact with my old friends but make more new ones. I'd also like to do better in school. Help more around the house. And last but not least do more for others whether its people or animals. I hope you complete your new years resolution before the world ends! JK There is no scientific proof its not true! Don't worry! I hope you had a great christmas break!

A million dollars! A flying toaster!! A panda eating cheese! Aww It was all a dream!

       Hey guys today we are going to talk about dreams! I love dreams but nightmares are creepy! Have you ever had a great dream but it didn't completely make sense? Well most of my dreams are AWESOME but don't quite make sense. Like this picture doesn't make sense:

       Dream a little dream of me! Oh, do you guys know this song? No? well I suggest you look it up! Yes, isn't it a great song? Well I love it! Anyway lets get back on topic... DREAMS. Did you know the average person dreams about 2 hours a night! That adds up to six years over a lifetime! Man, that is a lot dreaming!! Dreams have been studied for a long time but we still don't know why dreams happen, if they have a purpose or meaning. Isn't this picture awesome once I dreamed I was an astronaut and discovered a new world! 

       In 1953 scientists discovered REM or Rapid Eye Movement sleep. A couple times a week we fall into REM, a type of sleep where your eyes move a lot under your eyelids. Each time we fall into REM sleep it lasts 10 minutes to an hour! Its during these minutes that we dream the most. Dreams combine strong sensations, images and story lines that tend to not make a lot of sense. They also tend to contribute to strong emotions. The emotion that is most common in dreams is anxiety. 

      
        We have found dream interpretation guides! Some of the oldest books of existence, ancient culture says that our spirits go to a dream world  when we sleep. They also thought dreams were omens, or messages about the future. It wasn't till the twentieth century that scientists started studying dreams. Well the studying of dreams actually started in 1899 that the book, The Interpretation of dreams was published by Sigmund Freud. In his book he called dreams "the road to the unconscious". He thought dreams were a way to fulfill our desire for wishes, representing things we want to happen that we may not consciously know about. He influenced several people along with his student Carl Jung, who helped him with the research. They controlled most of the research about dreams for a long time until others joined in trying to figure out all they can about dreams. 

       

       Have you ever heard the term "sleep on it", well many people even long ago have said they went to bed and woken up with a solution. Many scientists think dreams come from somewhere psychological but more recent studies have shown that dreams may not have a reason. So, as you can see there are many different theories but no one knows for sure why they happen. One of the theories is called the activation-synthesis theory. It says dreams happen due to "random electrical signals" that come through our brain. It also says that they don't have a point and the brain tries to make the random pictures make sense. However, other theories say dreams are more of a physical effect on the brain. For instance one of the researchers,called Francis Crick said that dreams are a way for the brain to clean out the unnecessary memories. (Francis discovered the structure of DNA!) Maybe in the future someone will find out what dreams are for sure. It might be something between all the theories. 

 

Well I can't leave you without some links, so here ya go! :)
 Click here for more about health theories for dreams!
Click here to see more about REM and how dreams work!

 

Wow look at the pretty leaves! :)

Wow look at the pretty leaves! :)







         You probably know that the leaves outside are changing but do you know why? No, well your in luck because due to my science class I know and I'm going to teach you. The leaves are actually these colors all the time but they have a chemical in it called chlorophyll that is very green, so it covers the colors up. Every plant needs this along with sun and soil to make food to survive. But in the winter the days get shorter and there is less sunlight, so the plant goes into a hibernation mode and loses its leaves to survive.  

       So we can't only talk about 1 season. We can't be selfish and leave the other seasons out. There are winter, summer, autumn and spring.The world is split in half, in two hemispheres. The northern and southern hemisphere, they are cut in half by the equator. Since they are at two different sides of the world their seasons occur at different times. Seasons occur due to the earth tilt. Get it? Well here is a picture to help you understand the way it works.

          Hey so if you guys live somewhere where there is winter do you like it? Why I ask about this season is because it is my favorite because I love the cold. Snow is also AMAZING in my opinion. Tell me about your favorite season in coments or blogs. :) Well I hope you learned something and next time when people ask you why the leaves are changing you won't have to say because the seasons are. Have a GREAT day! 

AND DON'T FORGET TO SMILE :)

Click here for a little more info about seasons.
Click here for a little more info about autumn leaves
Click here for more info on the hemisphere's seasons
Click here for seasons and a quiz :)

Another reason of why I love the seasons is they are beautiful, here let me show you,this is winter:

This is spring:

This is fall or autumn:

This is summer:

;)

CORNY SCIENCE JOKES AHEAD!

      I ON the computer!!!! WOW! I think we have an I ON ic bond because you are on the computer too! :) Did ya get it you're on the computer and I'm on mine but we are talking about ions!!!!!! Hahaha ohh Corny jokes are the best! Hmm...I wonder what our first topic is lets see. IONS! An ion is just a fancy word for an electrically charged atom, meaning the number of protons and the number of electrons are different.A positive ion has more protons and a negative ion has more electrons. So an ionic bond is a chemical bonds which 2 atoms with opposite charges attract so the positively cancels out the negativity or vice versa.

       Hey I just got a text on my SHELL phone!! Wait this blog isn't supposed to be about my personal life! Where were we? Ohh yeah next we are going to talk about shells.So a shell is the path in the electron cloud where the electrons orbits. A valence shell is the last shell in the electron cloud. The valence shell is the shell that either takes an electron or loses one and becomes an ion! A positive valence is when the valence shell has more protons then electrons. So a negative valence is when there are more electrons on the shell.

     

 






Okay so cation there is some pretty good info ahead! ;) Okay, Okay I'll stop with the corny jokes FOR NOW! A cation is a ion that is positive, meaning it gave away an electron and now has more protons than electrons. An anion is a negative ion so it gained an electron and has more electrons than protons.

Well I here is another corny science joke ;) So a neutron walks into a restaurant and sits in front of the waitress who happened to be a proton. The neutron asks "How much for a juice box?". The proton replies "For you? No charge!".The neutron asks "Are you sure?". The proton says "positive!"

Well lets wrap up this blog with some web sites!

CLICK HERE for positive and negative ions :)

CLICK HERE for cations and anions :)

HERE IS A VIDEO ABOUT IONIC BONDS! :)

HAVE A GREAT DAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :)

                                           TALK TO YOU ALL LATER!!! :)

Rainbow yo!

 

    

Somewhere over the rainbow... ohh hey guys sorry I was just singing a tune I had to sing in 4rd grade when I was Dorthy in the Wizard of Oz.I was only Dorthy for the first half of the play since its very long!!

Now, bloggers today I will be teaching you about rainbows. Have you ever heard of the Irish folk tale that there is a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow? Yeah I have too but even if you walk forever you will never get to the end because it is only light! A rainbow is basically just a ray of light with a mixture of a whole spectrum or a band of colors. When you see a rainbow the sun is always behind and whatever direction the rain is falling, that is the direction of the rainbow. Also, rainbows always follow rain and of course, there has to be sun!     

WOW, rainbows have clones?  Have any of you seen a rainbow and what looks like its clone next to it? I have in Costa Rica there was a lot of rainbows and occasionally you would see a double rainbow. Well this only happens because the water droplets reflect in two directions. When there are double rainbows people hardly notice them because it’s really faint colors. (Sorry, no clone machine yet!)

 I can't let you leave this page without some fun facts about rainbows! Rainbows can also be seen in the dark!! I bet you didn't know that rainbows are full circles, even though they appear as halves. The name Iris comes from the rainbow goddess of the Greeks!! She was considered messenger to all Olympian the gods.

Thanks for listening! Hope you like it! But wait that's not all here are some awesome links! :D 

Click here! :) 

Click here! :)                              

 Click here! :)

 Click here! :)

                                (This video is just for fun!)

                              Man this little girls got talent :

                                           YOU... Yes you!

                              This is my signature puppy! :)

                              Yes you can have his autograph later ;)

My elements :D :) :P B)

Ughhh My best friend just lost her favorite necklacess!! I just hate it when I lose jewelry! So, have you guys ever wonder what jewelry is made of? Well I am going to answer this question and lots of others of others with my science blog. How can science relate to jewelry you ask, well elements make up everything on earth and that includes jewelry.
         Platinum is one of the key elements that make jewelry but platinum is also one of the key "ingredients" to containers catalysts. Platinum was discovered by Julius Scaliger in 1735. Platinum has 78 protons in its nucleus and 78 electrons but it has 117 neutrons. Platinum is a transition metal which means it is both ductile and malleable, and can conduct electricity and heat.

       
    
            My favorite color is neon green, so when I learned about this element green was always in my head. If you guessed that the element was green sorry but you are wrong, the element I studied is neon!!! Neon can be found in lightning and also used in some glow in the dark items but only in the red ones. Neon has 10 protons, neutrons and electrons.  Neon was discovered in 1898 by Sir William Ramsay. Neon is a noble gas.
 
              Have any of you seen the movie called Back to the Future?? Well I sure have cause it was my cousins favorite movie (he loves science!) If you haven't there is this car that can take you to your past and in the movie it runs on plutonium which is our next element. Plutonium isn't only used in movies but its mostly used in bombs and neuclear reactors. It has 94 protons,150 neutrons and 94 electrons. It was discovered in 1940 by G.T Seaborg. The name comes from the dwarf planet, Pluto.

    Our next element is Thulium. It is mostly used in the power for portable x-ray machines and lasers. It was discovered by Per Theodore Cleve, from Sweden.  It has 69 protons, 100 neutrons and 69 electrons. Thulium is named after Thule, an acient Roman name for a mythical coutry in the far north, maybe Scandenavia. Thulium is kinda rare since it is only found in small quantities.  
Click here!
Click here!
Click here!
Click here!
I'm a video!




Thanks for listening! Hope you liked it!;)

Periodic Table!! :)

 
Nice pic. Dmitri! ;)

       Hey bloggers!!! This is my first blogg!!!! yay! I hope you like it! So guys do any of you have older siblings?? I do and there soo annoying!! Imagine having 17!!! Dmitri was the youngest of 17!! (why is he important?) He was the guy that made the periodic table. So the periodic table is this table that categorises by the elements based on the properties of their atoms. They are also organized by color into  different categories. The color categories are: Alkali metals, alkaline earth metals, transition metals, poor metals, semi metals, nonmetals and noble gasses. Here is the periodic table to so you get an idea of what we're talking about! :) I luv these colors!!

   So the atoms are organized in groups and periods. Elements with similar configurations of electrons are arranged in vertical columns called groups. Periods are sets that describe the # of electron shells the elements have.  Hey guys do you see the number at the top of the abbreviation? That is the atomic number. No, an atomic number isn't a number that is atomic!Its the number of protons in the nucleus of each atom.
Some atoms have to be made in a lab, in fact all the elements above 92 have to be made in a lab because they are too unstable!Here are some links so you can find out more about the periodic table! http://www.chemicool.com/%20http://periodic.lanl.gov/about.shtml (This one is the song http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJGrwWOWt3Q&feature=related) Bye! talk to ya'll later!! ;)
  This the atom! :)