LHBR -- Blogmeister

Moon Phases and Roadkill

When we first started this project nearly two weeks ago I decided to further research the idea that moon phases can have an affect on the number animals that have perished by cars. I thought that it would be interesting to study if just a simple moon phase could be the killer of thousands of animals a year. It seems kind of far fetched that something a beautiful and elegant as the moon could cause such horrible things.

My thought was that on a night with a full moon more animals would be hit by cars because of two reasons. The first one is that there is more light cast by a full moon so maybe the animals fell safer crossing the road so they take their time and then splat. Or, like humans, a full moon is able to affect the way an animal thinks and it causes the animal to wander into the road and once again, splat. Hopefully, these two hypothesees are what caused the phase of the full moon would be the day/night when there is the most Roadkill.

After going back and recording data and tallying up the data for this year and the past nine years I came to the conclusion that the full moon phase is the largest contributar to Roadkill. Nearly 110 animals were killed on the day of a full moon. The second largest killer was the last quarter moon phase with nearly 95 deaths The last quarter moon phase actually was right behind the full moon phase with about 95 kills in the past nine years. The new moon and first quarter moon phases had pretty much the same results with 70 kills each. That is what I got for results for moon phases in the past nine years.

When I first started this project I thought that the most animals would be killed on the night of a new moon because there is never any light except for the faint glow of the stars. Therefore the animal might lose it's way in the dark an meander into the street where it unfortunately perishes .But then I thought that most of the animals are nocturnal and that they can see in the dark so that a new moon night would not have a lot of kills. Then I thought of something I read where it stated that on night of a full moon sometimes old people will start to act a little strangely and hat their bodies ache (more than usual). Maybe this happened with animals too. That is why I then thought that maybe the full moon phase would have the most roadkill on it. One thing that could have made the other phases have more Roadkill is that on about five or six dates we were on vacation for that week. This could have affected my data but only by a little bit.

Next year I think that the results will pretty much stay the same. I think that over the past nine years the data has been pretty consistent and that the numbers haven't really changed. Another thing I would like to do next year is try to see if the nights on which these moon phases occur if there were clouds are not because if there are than the light variable won't really be much of a variable because all the light will be blocked.

This graph shows that the most Roadkill was found in the first week of our research which was March 9-15. This could have happened because this is one of the first weeks of spring when all the animals are starting to emerge from there deep winter hiding places and are coming back to meet spring.

To prepare for this earthcast first we had to find information to put into it. So we went on the internet to find info to put into our questions and quizzes. Then we put all of the questions together into a powerpoint. From there we added colors and pictures to make it look nice. Then on the day of the earthcast Ms. Adams played all the slideshows on the earthcast. It was cool how we put this all together.

Seedfolks

During the past weeks our entire school has read the book Seedfolks, by Paul Fleischman. It is a great book about how a common garden brings together a community with all different ethnicities and races. The first thing we did was read the book in class so that everyone was familiar with the book. While we were reading this book we had to take notes on each character, what plant they grew, why they grew it, and why they were attracted to the garden. It was really interesting to see why all the different had reasons to grow their type of plant. After we read the book and filled out our charts we had to a project. For this project we had to pick one character and the plant they grew in the book and one person from our family and make a seed packet for them. On this seed packet we had to specify what plant they would grow and why they would grow that specific plant. For instance I picked my grandpa and he was to be grass. I picked grass because he is kind and nice yet hardy, just like grass. I also picked Leona and her goldenrod plant. They are both very in your face and dependent, living in harsh conditions. This was a great book that showed me how a community can unite and form a common bond all because of a simple vacant lot that transformed into a flourishing garden.

For the past few weeks we have been learning about acid rain. We were taught how it is caused and what the effects of it. Acid rain is caused by powere plants that burn coal, wood, or other fuels. When the waster leaves the plant it is nitorgen oxide and sulfur dioxide. Then, in the clouds with a chemical reaction between the clouds and the sun those two gasses turn into nitric acid and sulfuric acid. After the chemical reaction the nitric acid can travel 50-300 miles before it rains and the sulfuric acid travels 500-1500 miles before it is deposited in precipitation form. All of this acid precipitation that is coming down on to our earth is doing a lot of damage. The acid rain kills lakes and trees, pollutes water, kills wildlife, and eats away at limestone and any outdoor statues. Luckily, there are some ways to help reduce the amount of acid rain that comes down by cutting down the amount of electricity we use. Also we can carpool with other people and use more renewable energy sources such as solar panels and wind turbines. Hopefully by using these ideas and so many more we will be able to someday totally eliminate acid rain.

This is what I believe the neutral continent of Antarctica’s flag should look like. In the very center we have the continent itself which is left white to represent all the ice and snow on Antarctica. Over Antarctica I put bars with twelve dots on them to represent how now one owns Antarctica and the twelve countries that signed the original treaty. Then I colored half the flag black and the other half white to show that half the year it is light for nearly 24 hours and the other half it is dark for nearly 24 hours. In the middle of the continent I put a pole to represent the South Pole (the only one on earth). A little below I put an S to show where the magnetic pole is (also the only one on earth). Those are the reasons why my flag looks the way it does.

Stock Market Final Report

At the end of November in math class we were given 10,000 dollars to spend in any way in the stock market. We could buy any stocks we wanted as long as we did not spend more than 10,000. The stocks that I decided to invest in are Ford, Chevron, Sunpower, and Campbell’s Soup. I picked Ford because when we started this project I thought that if the government bailed them out then they would be able to get back on track and be successful. Another reason for picking Ford is because during the summer Ford came out with some new models and I thought that maybe these new cars would be doing very well and drive the stock up. When looking for companies to buy stock in Chevron popped out because it is a petroleum company. Today while many people are trying to cut back on their petroleum consumption it is still the leading fuel in the world and so I thought that Chevron would be profitable because they work in the petroleum department. I chose Campbell’s Soup as a company to invest in because in a recession like what we are in one thing that is a necessity in canned foods. People buy canned goods because they are cheap, easy to store, and they don’t spoil for at least a year. Campbell’s Soup is a company that only works with canned goods so that is why I chose to invest in them. The last company that I decided to invest in is Sunpower. I chose Sunpower because when I read the overview of what they do it said that they work mainly with solar panels. Today so many people are trying to be greener and use renewable energy like solar panels and wind turbines so I thought that this would be a great stock to invest in.

Now that we have ended our stock market project, I have seen the performance of my stocks and if we were to ever do this project again, I think that I would make some changes. First of all, I keep Chevron only until the end of the summer. In the summer, gasses prices usually rise and that means that the Chevron stock would go up. Around September I would get rid of this stock because by then it would be winter and there is less fuel consumption and hopefully by then there will be better ways to find reusable energy and our reliance on fossil fuels will be lessened. If I had to decide I would get rid of Ford because right now the American Auto Industry is not getting much help from the government and their new models of cars are not doing very well at all. During the three month span that we did this project Sunpower did the best of all my stocks. I would definitely keep this stock because it seems like it just keeps going up. Another reason to keep this stock is in the future there will hopefully be more and more solar panels and that is what Sunpower works with. I would definitely keep Campbell’s Soup because during this recession people need canned goods and they love the taste of Campbell’s. The stock did well and I think that it will continue to do well.

If anyone else would like to try to make some money in the stock market but has no experience, here is some advice. Try not to invest all your money in one company. If that companies stock goes down, you will lose a lot of money. In this recession, people are only buying things that they absolutely need, go for the companies that sell everyday necessities. Lastly, try to buy stock in companies that are environmentally friendly because there are always people that want to be green. That is my advice to anyone who wants to make some money in the stock market.