New Unit

On Monday, we started a new unit on weather and climate. We will focus more on weather and only take a quiz to conserve our remaining time for part of the space unit. One thing I learned today that I did not know before is the difference between climate and weather. Weather is a description of the exact temperature and cloud cover at the moment but climate is calculated through patterns over a long span of time. We then went on to the different types of clouds and how hail forms. The typical clouds you would think of as being fluffy and white are classified as cumulus clouds. After doing a few slides of notes we worked on doing our vocab for unit 9. The one thing I need to improve on when doing vocab is reviewing it after I write them.

On Tuesday, we started class by doing four slides of notes. The first new thing I learned while doing notes was latent heat. Latent heat involves phase changes like condensation and evaporation. These phase changes involve a change in energy. Phase changes move from a low energy state to a high energy state. The energy released into the environment from phase changes are latent heat. Saturation was also a topic we reviewed from last year. The saturation we talked about involved condensation and evaporation. Saturation is when both condensation and evaporation occur at the same rates. Saturation can affect the moisture in the air  and is affected by temperature. After taking notes, we worked on creating a cloud viewer for making identifying clouds easier. This was a cool idea to help us learn the cloud types if we ever go cloud watching.

On Wednesday, we reviewed notes on dew point. The dew point is a saturation point. I never really thought about the dew found on my grass most mornings until this unit. After reviewing notes we worked on a weather stations lab mostly about pressure. While doing this lab I learned that better weather occurs at high pressure. A low pressure usually results in clouds or rain. The next time it rains I will know that it was a result of low pressure in our atmosphere.

On Thursday, we began class by taking more notes. We mainly focused on severe weather. One new thing I learned while taking notes is how lightning is formed. It is formed by wind direction from low to high causing winds to rotate. Ice particles that move up and down create static electricity forming lightning. I never knew that lightning was formed by winds. We also went over the ways to measure weather conditions. I knew of a barometer but I did not know of the rest. After that, we worked on the weather stations lab. This lab helped me understand changing pressure systems and how they impact life on Earth. One way air pressure affects humans is through the respiratory systems. Without atmospheric pressure, humans would not be able to breathe.

On Friday, we finished up the week by doing a review worksheet. This was a review for our upcoming quiz and the questions were mainly directly from the notes. This review took me the majority of class but I still had some I did not finish. One thing I can improve on for this week is studying for my quiz next week in advance. This new unit was okay and I learned a lot more about weather.

New Section

On Monday, we had IOWA testing so that resulted in our science class being shorter. To begin the class we did our normal science starter. Then after that, we reviewed notes about the atmosphere. We reviewed topics on global heating and winds, both global and local. An example of a local wind would be a lake wind or a sea breeze. One main factor of Earth's overall heating is the Earth's curvature. After reviewing notes, we worked on a new activity on the atmosphere. To start this activity, we did research on the different types of chemicals in the air and how they could harm humans. Carbon Monoxide is an example of one of these gases that could do great harm to human bodies.

On Tuesday, we did not have science class because of an abbreviated schedule due to IWOA testing.

On Wednesday, we had our quiz on section one. I thought this quiz was very hard and that we did not go over some of the topics as well as we usually do for most of our quizzes. I studied the way I normally do for all tests and quizzes, but for some reason, this was a lot harder than all the ones I have taken in the past. I had the most trouble on the multiple choice questions because I thought that they were worded in an odd way. The short answer questions made sense and I did not really have a problem answering it. Our next test will be open notes so hopefully, I will use that to my advantage when taking it.

On Thursday, we started class by reviewing our quiz. I have some material I need to improve on for next week's test. It will be open notes, so this week it is important that I add all of the side notes while reviewing them in class. This is something that I need to improve on so I can do well on the quiz. After reviewing for the quiz we did some new notes for section two. We started by learning the layers of the atmosphere, which was more like review because of the graph we did last week. The layers of the atmosphere change with density and temperature as the elevation changes.

On Friday, we worked on learning new material on the different layers of Earth's atmosphere for the test next week. The new information I learned about was about the thermopause and mesopause. These are transition layers in which the temperature usually remains constant. I added these layers to the graph we worked on last week to help me review for my test. We also learned about the ionosphere.  Most people often associate this layer of the atmosphere with the Aurora Borealis lights that occur at the poles. This happens when solar wind activity  interacts with the charged particles in the ionosphere. After doing notes we had the rest of the class time to review. Overall this week was a stressful week because we had a quiz in the middle of Iowa testing and shortened classes.