Class Response- Owl Pellets Lab

In class, we dissected owl pellets. Owl pellets are the undigestable parts of the owls diet. They contain the fur and bones of what the owl ate which include rodents like shrews, rats, and mice. The process in which the pellet is made is very interesting. Owl's use their stomach muscles to seperate the indigestable parts like the bones and fur. These go to the intestines. After about 24 hours, the pellet is regurgitated. Owl's must do this because they swallow their food whole.
After doing this lab, I learned many interesting facts about Barn Owl's. They produce pellets because they swallow their food whole and from the pellet itself, you can find out a lot about the owl like what it ate and through more extensive research, you can possibly find ou twhere it lives.

Current Event 2

http://www.timeforkids.com/TFK/kids/news/story/0,28277,1944959,00.html

In this article, a team of scientists found over 17,ooo spiecies living more than 656 feet below the surface of the ocean. At this point, sunlight can no longer be seen. These spiecies live in complete darkness and survive on matter that falls down that deep. This discovery is apart og the Marine Census which will be complete by October 2010. Oceanographers believe that thousands more spiecies will be discovered. Over 2,000 scientist from over 80 countries are working on this. The research can cost up to $50,000 a day! They found 40 new spiecies of coral, undersea stars, transparent sea cucumbers and tubeworms.

I found this article to be interesting because of the amount of new spiecies that were found. I never knew that animals would be able to live so far below the sea level that sunlight doesn't even reach there. It seems that the scientists just thought that these species didn't even exist!

Current Event 1: The Taste of Bubbles

Link: http://sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/48608/title/FOR_KIDS_The_taste_of_bubbles

In this article, scientists did an interesting test about the taste of bubbles. They did this test on five groups of mice. Each group had different tasting abilities which were controlled by the scientists. They found that when humans or animals detect different tastes by using their taste buds. The carbon dioxide in these drinks, knock off some protons from the proteins thus causing a sour taste.

I found this article interesting because it effects humans almost everyday. We don't usually think so deep into smaller things such as this but personally this fascinated me.

Bullying (Man's Inhumanity to Man)

Society or our own school community cannot put an end to bullying because other people probably expect someone else to do it. They don't have the courage to step up and do it even if someone else is trying. Just like in Lord of the Flies how Jack isn't defending Piggy he probably thinks someone else will do it and he should not bother. But, if more than one person steps up to end a cause like bullying, then it will just reinforce how serious the people are and how bad the cause is.

Summer Reading (Literature)

Question: What sort of person do you imagine the author of the novel to be?
I imagine that the author of The City of Ember is a very imaginative person. They seem to have more of a mystical view on things in life especially since the book I read was about the lights going out in a city.

Welcome Scientists

1. My favorite school subject is science because it is fun to do experiments and learn about our earth and stuff.
2. The best book I ever read is The Lightning Thief.
3. My favorite food to buy in the cafeteria is the chocolate chip cookies when they are warm and soft.
4. On the weekend when all my chores are done, I like to play outside when it is nice out or play the Wii.
5. If I won a free airline ticket to any place I wanted, I would go to Switzerland because in 5th grade I studied about it and it seems like a nice place. Also, I hear it has really good chocolate.
6. My favorite color is orange.
7. If I had a pet, it would definitly be a dog and I would name it Buddy.
8. This year if I work hard enough, I hope to get all "A's" in all three trimesters.