Earth Day Project

Penny Lab

Penny Lab

For a science project, we were supposed to see how many drops of water we could fit onto the surface of a penny, and to predict the number of drops before the experiment. To start this experiment, I needed a penny, a piece of paper, and a plastic water dropper. Then I estimated the number of drops I thought it would take and then start to drop droplets of water onto the penny. In my experiment it took about 21 drops for the water to overflow. And the predicted number of drops for my particular experiment was approximately 10 drops of water, which was obviously off. I believe that it took 21 drops because of surface tension, caused by the polar molecules pulling on the other. The surface tension on the penny caused the water to pull into a rounded shape before it spilled.

Picture: http://www.basf.com/group/corporate/en/function/conversions:/publish/content/news-and-media-relations/science-around-us/mincor/images/tropfen-250.jpg

The Structure of Water

Mekong River

Dear Jane,

The Mekong River is found in the southeastern part of Asia. I am visiting this river in order to observe the progress of the depletion or the growth of this river over time, and the environment around it. Ranging from the South China Sea to the Plateau of Tibet, it is 313,000 miles long. This river is used for food, water, transportation, and resources for their crops. The river is wide and can flow slowly in some areas of the river. Many different tributaries flow into this river making it even larger.Even though the water isn't the cleanest there are a variety of life, such as fish. There are over 700 species of fish located in the water. There are many fresh water fish providing a variety of different food selections for the surrounding towns and traveling animals.

Earthquake Webquest

1. Generally earthquakes occur close to the coasts of continents or out in the ocean where the edges of the plates are located. Many of the largest earthquakes occur on the coasts of Asia but earthquakes could happen anywhere. Most earthquakes occur in the water, on the coasts of water, and in cities near the water. There have been other places earthquakes happen but there are a lot of them that occur with a water surrounding.

2. Earthquakes often occur in a water setting because those generally are where transverse plates are located. These plates move back and forth causing earthquakes.

3. This area is called the a fault. And a fault is formed when one plate moves and collides with another causing one to be pushed down and one to be pushed up or stay in the same place.

4. I believe that the earthquake closest to Manitou Springs was the Denver earthquake in 1882. This was the largest earthquake in Colorado history measuring a 6.2 on the Richter scale. This 6.2 magnitude earthquake was a classified as a strong earthquake and could cause damage to largely populated places. And I believe that if I did my math the correct way, that this 6.2 magnitude earthquake gave more than 10,000,000 stronger shaking than a 1 magnitude earthquake and gave off more than 190 times more energy than a 1 magnitude earthquake.

5. On January 15, 2009 there was an earthquake that had a 7.4 magnitude. It occurred east of the Kuril Islands at 10.49.39 a.m. an had a depth of 36km. With the event ID us2009bwa this earthquake could be felt from, Servero-Kuril'sk, Kuril Islands, and Russia 270 miles south. It could also be felt from Kuril'sk and Kuril at 360 miles, Tokyo, Japan from 1110 miles and from Moscow, Russia sat 4500 miles. This earthquake occurred near the outer-rise of the Pacific Plate and also near where the Pacific Plate subducts underneath the Okhotsk Plate. Again if I have done my math right there was more than 100,000,000 stronger shaking than a magnitude 1 earthquake and gave off more than 220 times more energy than a magintude 1 earthquake.

(Source -http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/recenteqsww/Quakes/us2009bwa8.php#details)

6. The safest was for people to protect themselves during an earthquake is to:

1.)If you are indoors get under something sturdy, most oftenly used and probably the safest is a door frame.

2.)If you are outdoors, get to a open space where buildings are fairly far away and where you are away from power cords that fall and break. But if you are near a building go inside to a door frame.

3.)If you are in a car stop where it's safe but stay in your car if you can't get inside.

4.)If you are in a sloped area such as a mountain and you can;t get anywhere safer the safest ting to do is watch for falling rocks.

5.)If you are at the beach as quickly as possible get to a higher ground several yards inland and find somewhere safe to wait till the earthquake is over.

(Source for safety - http://seagrant.uaf.edu/features/earthquake/prepare2.html)