FROGS :)

   Now that our worm dissection is over, it's time to move on to our next big dissection, and unfortunately, last, of the year. It's time to bring out the frogs!
  If we're on schedule here, we should begin the external examination on Thursday and Friday; and then make the incision into the internal examination Monday continuing on.
  Before we learn about it, here are some cool facts I found out about frogs (mostly the ones I know; I found some of them while browsing.)
Frogs are: amphibians; so they breathe through their skin. The part I didn't knwo is that they can actually drink through it too! ; frogs can have kinds of eye colors humans can't: even gold and silver; there are more than 4,000 species of frogs in the world today.
When I was browsing through a couple of sites, I learned this really cool terminology- herpetologists study frogs and toads, and ranidadophia is another word for a person who is scared of frogs.  Bet you never knew that :)
 ~ http://www.buzzle.com/articles/frog-facts.html

To end this post, a few funny jokes and riddles I got from a bunch of websites (I'll reveal them after the frog dissection) Let's see who can find the answer... without cheating TOO much, though its rather easy to just search frog jokes...
 1) What kind of shoes do frogs wear?
 2) What happens to the frog when it parks in the "no parking" zone?

AND, finally this really funny story/joke I found:
     The Frog and the Princess
      Once upon a time, a beautiful, independent, self assured princess happened upon a frog in a pond.
       The frog said to the princess, "I was once a handsome prince until an evil witch put a spell on me. One kiss from you and I will turn back into a prince and then we can marry, move into the castle with my mom and you can prepare my meals, clean my clothes, bear my children and forever feel happy doing so."
     That night, while the princess dined on frog legs, she kept laughing and saying, "I don't think so."
                    ~ http://allaboutfrogs.org/funstuff/jokes/dntthinkso.html

DISAPPOINTMENT

It's snowing... AGAIN :/
So much for an early spring...
*doesn't count for the contest(:

Spring May Be Here To Stay!... for now...

     This was probably the worst winter yet! Snow, snow, and even more snow! All our snow days were gone in less than two weeks, and all our extra days are gone, not to mention extending school for an extra day! This winter reached a record high; the last was in 1965, give or take a few years.
     But, maybe the groundhog was right this time! He predicted an early spring, and you never know. For the past couple of days, it has been the regular freezing in the morning, but in the afternoon, beautiful, ranging from the 50's to 60's. As soon as it came, it would be cold again the next morning, but warm in the afternoon.
    This Friday, was just gorgeous! It really felt like that this winter was almost over! Time to bring the flip flops out! Still, I was dissapointed- this weekend wasn't as cold as before, definitely warmer, but it was sooo windy outside.
   Unfortunately, the weather forecast is telling us that there are snow showers once again on Tuesday!!!!!!
snow again?

Thanks a lot for giving us jope nature, because of those few days...

ZOO :) (after)

Well, I guess I was a little dissapointed: there was no monkey... But I guess I should have known that there would have been a really really tiny chance that they would actually bring a monkey. But nevertheless, it's not like she didn't bring other animals. And we got to learn things related to our science unit. Yesterday, she brought four animals, all from different classes: mammals, birds, and reptiles, and a "surprise animal."
We learned how to distinguish mammals from the other creatures, as well as birds, amphibians and reptiles. For example, mammals have fur, drink milk, are born alive, are endothermic (fancy name for warm-blooded) and have floppy ears. And what she brought was A TIGER!!! AND WE ALL GOT TO TOUCH IT IN THE END!** Next, birds had feathers, could fly, etc. For that one, she brought a hawk. At the end, we got to touch the different kinds of feathers, like to help fly, for decoration... For reptiles, who have scaly skin, we got to see a snake! And feel it!** Last but not least, we also got to see a lizard but couldn't touch it because of the salmonella. The surprise: an armadillo, which I thought was sooo cute! And we got to touch it! ***
This zoo experience was really fun and we really should keep planning things like these!
Spread the love of science ~Pippin14

* ehh, I'm just kidding! she didn't bring a real tiger. In the zoo, one of the old tigers died, so it was his carcass/fur, but we did get to feel it.
** same for the snake, not real but we got to feel the skin
***armadillo WAS real, but since it was really nervous, we couldn't touch it but she brought us a shell and stuff so we could feel it.

ZOO :)

                 So, due to budgets cuts that schools are currently having, the board of education doesn't really want students going on field trips. Since we are learning about biology and things like amphibians, fish and mammals. As you know, we just recently dissected a worm and will soon be doing a frog. Due to this, my teacher wanted us to go to the zoo. But as I stated before: What to do about the budget cuts? Well, BetaScientists had a brilliant stroke of genius (often for her :D) and decided that if we couldn't go to the zoo, she would make the zoo come to us.
               And somehow she did: tomorrow, the zoo is coming for a little visit and bringing tons of little animal friends with them! I can barely wait for them! Only problem is, what animals exactly would they bring? Common Sense: they're not going to bring animals like tigers, giraffes, lions, etc. And truth is, those animals are usually the heart of most zoos. Anyway, I think we're probably going to see like maybe snakes, lizards, bunnies, I don't know what else could they  bring? I'm most excited about if they'll bring a monkey? I absolutely love monkeys and whenever I think zoo, the first thing that comes to mind after tigers and elephants are MONKEYS! I really, really hope they'll bring a monkey.
              On the other hand, we're getting a free, fun Friday tomorrow so better to look at the good side!
              Updates tomorrow on the "zoo field trip" :)
~ AwesomeSpectacular<3
GO ON PIPPIN'S QUESTION BOX!
            SPREAD THE LOVE OF SCIENCE -Pippin14

Can stepping in a room full of alcohol fumes make you drunk?

Well, can it? This was a great question that Pippin14 was wondering about last year, and I was thinking about what to post about for the little contest me, Pippin, and Toadsrockz are currently having, this seemed like a great question to try to answer.

If you look at the question, I actually have two different answers: both yes and no. Who knows which one is right? But mostly, I believe that no, it cannot make you drunk.

First of all, the main way you get drunk, is basically drinking alcohol, of course. The nicotine then almost in a way takes over your brain and influences you to experience things like hallucinations, etc. So what I'm trying to saym it that you only get drunk when the alcohol, the nicotine, the drug, is actually in your blood and in your system. This way, when you walk into a room full of alcohol fumes, it wouldn't affect you in any way, other than maybe either smelling good or bad to you.

On the other hand, maybe, just maybe, it could make you drunk. When I was learning about the digestive system, I learned why your mouth waters when you see food, and why that is actually when digestion starts in the mouth. The reason your mouth waters is because when you see the food, your brain is preparing itself for the meal you are about to consume. So maybe if you have have drunk alcohol before, your brain, while thinking your going to drink it, prepare and make you crave it. In contrast, if you haven't, your brain would be preparing for what your about to drink, so in a way, there is a chance you could be drunk.

In conclusion, there are many sides to this argument, so feel free to comment on what you believe.
Personally, I'd rather think that it wouldn;t really affect you in any way because I feel you're only "drunk" when the alchol is in you system.
Just something to think about :)

WORMS!

Today, we finished the internal dissection of our worm! It was sooo fun!
I learned so many different things I hadn't learned before, especially when it came to the the digestive and circulatory system. When I first saw the worm, it looked like a straw to me, long and thin. It was hard to think that such a small organism could have such complex body systems.
Though the preservative didn't smell too good, it was really cool to see what the inside of a worm actually looked like, along with learning many new facts. What I thought was the coolest was if you poked the intestines or cut through, you could clearly see the dark, fertile dirt, which was the worm's main source of food. Next, I also didn't know that a worm's brain was so tiny!
In addition, if you kind of lifted the whole digestive system in a way, you could see the ventral nerve cord running through the bottom; a white line and bouncy in a way.

All in all, the new vocabulary I learned through the lab were: setae
                                                                                           anterior
                                                                                           posterior
                                                                                           dorsal
                                                                                           ventral
                                                                                           clitellum
While observing the exterior and interior of the worm, I saw and can now tell the difference between the dorsal/ventral, the anterior/posterior, and all the organs: mouth; pharynx; hearts; esophagus; crop; gizzard; intestines; clitellum; anus; ventral nerve cord; and blood vessels.

Can't wait for the frog! :)

Snow, Snow, and EVEN MORE SNOW!

This is truly the worst winter yet! The snow is almost never-ending! Just yesterday we had an ice-storm, and now all the roads are covered in ice, and it's very slippery outside! Numerous schools have been closed due to inclement weather today.
It's only the beginning of February, and we have had numerous storms come our way! Plus, there's supposed to be another storm this Saturday and sometime next week.
This truly is the harshest winter yet. Though it looks like a winter wonderland outside, it's not as perfect as people think. To me, snow= shoveling. You see, not too fun, huh? Maybe for some of those lucky ones that get to stay inside, but I'm always stuck shoveling. Last week's storm was so bad that we literally had to push our car to get it out because of all the snow and ice accumalated under it! Not too fun.
Happy Groundhogs Day everyone! Hope there's an early spring; I don't want six more weeks of winter!
Stay safe, it's icy outside! (:

PIPPIN'S QUESTION BOX

~And as stated by Pippin14, spread the love of science<3 ! ~

Awesomespectacular Is Back!

Hey people! Awesomespectacular is finally back after the summer, though a little, well, a LOT late! Sorry, with all the chaos of the beginning of school, I've rarely had time to blog unlike Toadsrockz and Pippin14, who were right back on track. In fact, my last post was over SEVEN months ago in April! Oh well, but I'm back to blogging. Welcome new bloggers! Check out Pippin's Question Box for more information! Well, thats all for now.

AwesomeSpectacular1009(:
P.S. mostly intended for Pippin14 and Toadsrockz.

The Great Race!

I must say, this was one interesting project! It was fun, though at the same time a little irritating because every time I tested it, my car kept breaking down(I made it out of Lego Blocks). In the end, my car is finally intact. My Lego car represents Newton's Second Law of Motion, which is that both mass and acceleration affect the force of an object, which can be calculated by multiplying the mass by the acceleration of the object. Next, when the momentum changes, it is directly proportionally to the force acting on it. This is represented by my car, because I tried to add more mass to my car, which would lead to more acceleration, which would then lead to more force. This way, my car could possible go pretty far until friction stops the tires from rolling on the surface. As my car is built up of Lego Blocks, I tried to add more mass by adding extra Lego Blocks and a passenger. In the end, I had to remove the passenger because it kept falling out every time I tried to test the car! Hopefully, because of some of the extra mass I've added, it created more acceleration and force for my car to go fast as well as far. May the best person win!