Clinometers are fun-o-meters......

1. Take the clinometer and use the straw to spot a whale.
2. Once found, use your partner to record the angle shown on the clinometer.
3. Calculate the distance of the whale using the formula: tan(the angle) x distance

Unfortunately awaiting pictures to be uploaded.

Whale Observation Time!

The journey at McGregor's point was the purpose for long-range observation and a chance to study the tool for learning to use the clinometer to determine the angle from our current location to the spotted whales.

Question: How long a humpback whale takes going from their breeding area to feeding area at an average speed of 1mph.

Hypothesis: According to the speed of humpback whales travel, I predict that humpback whales will travel to their destination in 3 - 4 months. Because curiosity caught my eye despite their massive size they can travel at a conservative velocity of 1 mph.

The experience seeing the whales were exciting, however wasn't completely incredible due to the range gap between us and the whales. Most favorite part was simple watching the whales performing incredible but natural responses, breaching, breathing, and even viewing a tail slap!

My turn!

There are accordingly nine types of marine phyla and are listed as followed (not in order): porifera, cnidarians, platyhelminthes, mollusks, arthropods, annelids, echinoderms, nematoda & chordata. Each phyla are classes to different species of marine life such as sponges & invertebrates class under porifera, gastropods and bivalves to mollusks, etc. We split into groups of 4 - 5, went into the vans and drove off to South Maui for some awesome observations for marine life at the tide pools to study the different phyla present there! We had brought some equipment to safely count the amount of species using a quadrat in a small area and record data.

The research question was to determine which marine phyla would be seen in the tide pools of South Maui, and which would be most diverse and in quantity. With that question, and from what I have learned during this lesson, I will hypothesize that the abundance of arthropoda will exceed the number of echinoderma there at the tide pools. After intensive observation, tallying and recording the data. I can confirm and conclude that the amount of arthropoda present at the tide pools proves greater than the echinoderms that were present (if any). Despite the numbers that were recorded, there were several possibilities of error, such as misplaced quadrat line, miscount, injuries inflicted during experiment, specimens enter & leave quadrat line to contradict already tallied specimens recorded, etc.

I definitely enjoyed the lab with the opportunity to study marine life through a quick trip to the tide pools using the skills we acquired which was coupled with the great assistance by the equipment like the transect tape, quadrat, I acquired how to safely handle the marine life and putting every turned rock or stone to their original place as to not disturb their environment.

Epic GeoCaching Battle Royal Hunt! 11/16/10

Yesterday during Mr. Marggraf's class in period 3, we went on a GeoCaching hunt for 3 locations. Unable to really determine where, we had found a secret GeoCache around Safeway. Also during our hunt, we used the website www.geocaching.com in order to get the specific coordinates of several Geocaching before our journey in the vans and split into two groups.

GeoCaching is an outdoor activity where participants use a GPS to locate and navigate the places where Geocaches or caches are hidden around the world. When a GeoCache is found, there will be a small diary or notebook with some items previous GeoCaching hunters left behind, once one is found. The person(s) will document their arrival upon the GeoCache with the date, name, take one of the prizes and replace it with something of more or equal value, then move back in the same position for others to seek.

I had learned where Geocaches may or may not be hidden, the hints provided within the website proved to be of great help to find what we could, in the unit we knew how to navigate through a GPS and its uses to locate, mark and navigate to other locations.

Intense Termite Caring!!

The jar set up with the following materials.

1. 75 termites

2. 19 milliliters of distilled water

3. 120 grams of silica dust

4. 1 Block of douglass fir

5. Small container for habitat

Set up:

1. Measure a suitable amount of water & silica dust.

2. Ready small container.

3. Enter silica dust within container.

4. Spread the distilled water about the silica dust to moisturize

in the container.

5. Place douglass fir block inside container.

6. Finally enter the termites in their small habitat.

7. Record and observe in time intervals.

Entry: 8/18/10 - Experiment begun! Materials include 75 termites, consisting of

worteer termites and regular termites, ranging about 1 millimeter. The termites use vibrations with their body to communicate. Some termites have darker heads & pincers while others don't.

Entry: 8/23/10 - Termites complete tunnel system with an entrance and exit. No reaction to the wood other than inspection, possibly leaving pheromones to later relocate.

Entry: 8/30/10 - Carved tunnels more refined and organized, partial consumption of the wood.

Entry: 9/8/10 - Termite experiment has been tampered with, tunnels & homes collapsed or destroyed. Trapped termites buried alive, many of them dead but mostly still alive. Silica dust homes restructured because of sabotage.

Entry: 10/12/10 - The experiment obviously tampered with a second time, once restructuring homes destroyed. Parts of dust has been dried out of moisture and seems void of life because of unintentional human interaction.

Human interaction was the cause of the demise toward the termite habitat and the population impacting the termites severely. Attempts for them to rebuild their homes and limit casualties but failed because of a second tempering occurred, voiding the container of life in the end.

I think the termite unit very informative to the dangers that termites pose, considering they can collapse houses in about a year costing millions of dollars in property damage. I quite enjoyed from the unit and learned quite a bit, my favorite part would be in creating the website to best represent our knowledge. The least favorite part was discovering how humans have severely impacted the experiment.