Year of Documented Learning

Astronomy

My favorite part of astronomy was learning about the sun. The sun was interesting in so many ways. There were many interesting words that described the sun. One was the core. The core is the middle of the sun. Then there is nuclear fusion which is the process of hydrogen atoms joining together to form helium. Also there is the radiation and convection zones. The radiation zone is a region of very tightly packed gas were energy is transferred mainly in the form of electromagnetic radiation. Convection zone is the outermost layer of the suns interior. Photoshere, chromoshpere, corona, and solar wind are some more interesting words. Photoshere means sphere that gives off light. Chromoshere means color sphere. Corona is the white halo around the sun during an eclipse. Lastly solar wind is when the corona gradually thins into streams of electrically charged particles. The last few but cool words are sunspot, solar flare, and prominence. The sunspot is areas of gas on the sun’s surface that are cooler than the gases around them. A solar flare is were energy heats gas on the sun to millions of degrees Celsius, causing the gas to erupt into space. Then very last prominence is huge, reddish loops of gas. That is why i found astonomy so interesting. Weather and Climate

What i like most about weather and climate was learing about the kinds of storms. Even though i knew mostly every kind of storm there was it was still fun to learn about them. Like with thunderstorms it was cool to learn that they normally only form in cumulonimbus clouds, also known as thunderheads. Then with tornados, i learned that If a tornado occurs over a lake or ocean, the storm is known as a waterspout. With hurricans i found that they begin over warm ocean water as a low-pressure area, or tropical disturbance. Something else that was interesting was learing about a storm-surge. A “dome” of water that sweeps across the coast where the hurricane lands. i thought that i knew alot about these things. But once we finished up with all of them i figured out that it was just the begining about what i was going to learn in the future.

Earths Waters

Earths waters was a very exiting thing to learn about. What i liked learing about most was the ocean motions. Things that have to do with the ocean motions are wave actions, tides, ocean water chemistry, and currents and climates. When discusing wave actions there are things to know about like waves, wavelength, frequency, wave hieght, tsunami, longshore drifts, rip currents, and groins.

~ waves ~ the movement of energy through a body of water.

~ wavelength ~ The horizontal distance between crests

~ frequency ~ the number of waves that pass a point in a certain amount of time

~ wave hieght ~ the number of waves that pass a point in a certain amount of time

~ tsunami ~ type of wave

~ longeshore drift ~ movement of sand along the beach

~ rip currents ~ rush of water that flows rapidly back to sea through a narrow opening.

~ groins ~ build a wall of rocks or concrete

Geology

Geology was really cool. There is not much to say about it but i did find a few things interesting. Some of the things were the types of rock. The kinds like igneous rock, sedimentary rock, and metamorphic rock. What is really cool is how all of these are created. Metamorphic rock is created from being compresed under millions and thousands of years of ground and rock. Then Once they are down far enough they begin to form differently due to heat. Sedimentary rock is formed by the processes of erosion, deposition, compaction, and cementation.

~ erosion~ running water, wind, or ice loosen and carry away fragments of rock.

~ depostition~ sediment settles out of the water or wind carrying it.

~ compaction~ process that presses sediments together

~ cementaion~ dissolved minerals crystallize and glue particles of sediment together

Lastly there is igneous rock. There are two types. One type is extrusive and the other is intrusive. Extrusive is when igneous rock formed from lava that erupted onto Earth’s surface. Intrusive is when Igneous rock that formed when magma hardened beneath Earth’s surface.

Weathering and Erosion

There is not much to say about weathering and erosion. But what i did find interesting was how we learned about how much the worlds ground can eroid over time. Yet weathering is what caused the ground to eroid. So that was really cool.
Those were the things that i found interesting about all these subjects.

manitou and colorado springs water

Colorado Springs water and Manitou springs water come from very different places.

Manitou springs water comes from a reservoir located near Pikes Peak. The location is critical because the water flows here from natural springs and snow melts that are located on Pikes Peak. Also, it comes from a creek called North French Creek. This takes over 30 acres of forest. The reservoir holds 720 water acres of water the is transferred through a water cleaning plant then directly to Manitou citizens. After it goes through the distribution tanks above the city near Crystal hills. Manitou water is clearly much more locally supplied.

Colorado springs water on the other hand comes from an area much farther away but it is still semi-local coming from a snow melt near the continental divide. Most of the water comes from the divide well about 75% of it does. The water travels through about 25 reservoirs and or dams and 200 miles of pipes to be distributed through out Colorado Springs. Obviously Colorado springs gets water from a place much farther away but it follows the same process to be cleaned as Manitou water.

Water Cycle

The water cycle is a continuous process in which water moves through the environment. It has no beginning or end. If water were to start out in a puddle it would evaporate in to the clouds which then starts condensation and results in perspiration then the puddle water would turn into rain, hail, or snow.

Hybrid Cars

Fuel-Effiecent Cars Annotated Bibliography

1) Ten great fuel-efficient cars.

http://cars.about.com/od/helpforcarbuyers/tp/top10_fuel.htm,

This website as some useful information. It is about ten favorite fuel-efficient cars. It is useful because it explains a lot about the different fuel-efficient cars. What is explains is how the car is good for the environment and how much money you can save and just useful information in general. The website mentions these top ten fuel-efficient cars; the ford Focus, Honda fit, Honda Civic, Mercedes-Benz E320 blutec, Mini cooper, Nissan Altima, Nissan Sentra, Toyota Camry Hybrid, Toyota Corolla, and Toyota Prius.



2) Cost for fuel-efficient cars.

http://www.automotive.com/fuel-efficient-cars/index.html

This website discuses the prices of the top 5 most fuel-efficient cars. They all range from 19,000-22,000 dollars. I noticed for some of the cars the prices are lower for the newer cars. An example is that the 2010 modle cost 19,800 but the 2008 model cost 22,600 dollars. That is manly what this websites talks about.



3) Fuel-Efficient Cars
http://greenhome.huddler.com/products/category/automobiles

This websites talk about the different kinds of Fuel-Efficient cars. There are 7 kinds. The 1st kind is the electric car. Then there is the hybrid car, diesel and biodiesel car, gas cars, hydrogen cars, Air cars, then last there is natural gas cars. That is what this website talks about.

4) 8 Fuel-Efficient Cars
http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2008/autos/0803/gallery.most_fuel_efficient/2.html

This website talks about alot of the same stuff. This one talks alot about prices of these cars. The prices that they talk about is the Ect. annual fuel cost. They also talk about the lowest base price. For all of the cars they talk about the same thing.

Fuel-Efficient cars

1) What, specifically about your topic, are you going to research? What is a hybrid car?

2) What conclusions did you come to? What do you recommend average citizens do to make a difference? A vehicle that uses two or more distinct power sources to propel the vehicle. The Hybrid Vehicle uses at least two power sources such as gas and electric. The combustion engine and electric motor powered by batteries are connected to the transmission both propelling the vehicle together.
The currently produced hybrid vehicle has a gasoline or diesel combustion engine which turns a generator. Then the generator charges batteries or ultra capacitors that power an electric motor. The electric motor then propels the vehicle. The pros of owning a hybrid are the gas savings and the benefit to the environment. The big concern is that they generally cost around $3,000 to $6,000 more than standard vehicles. In the amount of five years you will save at least $3,000 dollars. and not only do you save money but you do not put as much pollution in the air. source
source 2

3) What would happen if, worst-case scenario, nobody listened to your recommendations? The worst that would happen is people would not save as much money and more pollution would be put into the air

4) What would happen if, best-case scenario, everybody listened to your recommendations? The best things that could happen if people were to buy hybrids is people would save much more money and be able to spend it on more important things. Also there would be less pollution on the air.