E & E Final Blog Reflection

Earth and Environmental is over

This is the last week of school and Earth and Environmental is already over. This is the end of all of it. It really was a good year and it had a really good end to it too. I am quite happy since I got 99% on it! This is much better than last year where I was extremely disappointed with my grade. I thought this one was easier too, but I hope I also did good due to my new studying techniques!

        Looking back on the year, two labs were really fun for me. The first was the Cookie Bake-off Lab. In this lab, we had to make our own cookies and vary one variable for each one. This was to help us understand how an experiment works. The best cookie was the one with extra eggs. I remember that our group was supposed to be the control group until one member messed up the ingredients. It still tasted good though. My other favorite lab was the Properties of Seawater Lab that my friend Andrei and I did ourselves. We researched Cyanobacteria and their detrimental effects on marine ecosystems. This was really fun since we had a lot of freedom in how we could do the lab. It still wasn't as good as the cookie eating though!

        This year was also really special because it opened up my mind. Before this year, all I really knew and cared about was chemistry. I would always study chemistry and think that all the other branches of science were stupid. I barely even studied physics! I was dreading E & E, but in reality it was really fun. Now I can learn about more branches of science because I learned that Earth and Environmental is actually interesting. It wasn't as fun as chemistry, but I still liked it much more than I would have thought one year ago.
        Since this year was so much better than I expected, I actually look forward to biology next year. I can't wait to dissect stuff. I also want to learn about about cells and how they communicate.
        Next year I want to improve two things. First is the quality and time taken to do my blog. I want to make it better while also finishing it faster. I spend about one hour per week more than I should on my blog. This hour could be spent doing something really fun and it should. I also want to increase my performance on labs. Labs are where one can learn the most from everything we do in science class. If I perform better in labs, I will be able to learn more and get better grades. Next year I hope to get A+ honor role every quarter and to get an A on each lab. At the beginning of this school year, I received a bad grade on a lab which really hurt me in the long run. My goal is to always do good on labs to prevent this from happening again.
        Lastly, I want to give some advice to future Earth and Environmental students. Firstly, learn as much as you can from the labs. The labs we do are not only fun, but very interesting. Also, keep your binder organized so you can always refer to the information that you have in it. This will  help you study. One useful point to make is that you will only have to study minimally if you pay attention in class. Mrs. Giacomelli will review for the test the day before and if you listen closely, you will see that she gives out all the answers on the test and puts emphasis on the things that will be on there. This is how I get good grades. I barely study at all! The last thing I would like to say is never give up. I once had a C in this class and was able to bring it up to a 97 by the end of the quarter. You can make things up and you can do good in this class.

Knockerball

Looking at Mercury's transit of the sun

Goodbye!!!

Earth and Environmental Blog Week 25

Monday or May 9, 2016 C.E.:

Today a professor who is the astronomy coach for Science Olympiad came with his telescope for us to witness Mercury crossing the sun. He brought in a very large telescope and put a film over it so we could look at the sun. We took turns looking at Mercury. It was extremely small and was just as big as this period. . It was a really cool experience because it doesn't happen very often. The last one happened in 2006! The professor also gave us a presentation about it which was also interesting. After this, Mrs. Giacomelli taught us about moon phases. 

Tuesday or May 10, 2016 C.E.:

No science today!

Wednesday or May 11, 2016 C.E.:

Today we learned more about moon phases. We took notes on them. There are 8 different moon phases. They are new moon, waxing crescent, 1st quarter, waxing gibbous, full moon, waning gibbous, 3rd quarter, waning crescent. We also completed a diagram of the moon and sun at each phase. We also answered questions about the phases of the moon. Once we were done, we got our sheet checked by Mrs. Giacomelli. After this, we either studied for the quiz tomorrow, or did homework. The quiz will be the last of the year and I think I will do good.   

Thursday or May 12, 2016 C.E.:

Today Mrs.Giacomelli wanted to make an experiment. She decided to try to use an app that would scan grades similar to how a Scantron machine would. If it works well, it will be used in the final. This will be awesome because we will be able to know how we did instantly. This quiz was probably the hardest one so far. It may be because we just didn't have that much time or something, but the test was bad. After some grueling decisions, I handed in my test. I now feel like the luckiest person in the world because I got a 100%!!! It was between two for four questions and I guessed them all right. :-)

Friday or May 13, 2016 C.E.:

No blog today...

Summary: This week was a great week. I got a 100% on a quiz that I should have gotten an A- on. Although this is great, I do need to be more prepared for assessments. For this final, I will make sure to study more. 

Earth and Environmental Blog Week 24

Monday or May 2, 2016 C.E.:

Today we started Unit 10. Unit Ten is about space and astronomy. We started notes on distances in space.We talked about AUs and Light-years which I have mentioned already.We went a little more in depth, with parallax and discussed it a little more. We also talked about parsecs. After finishing notes we started our Scaled Solar System lab. We didn't have much time today so we just filled in the distances from each of the planets to the sun and the planet's diameters in a table. Eventually, we will construct a model of the solar system. 

Tuesday or May 3, 2016 C.E.:

Today we did a Kahoot review quiz on our unit. I was in second in the beginning and then I kept my lead all the way until the last question. I read it wrong and then answered it wrong. It was really funny, though. We took just a little bit of notes about the Celestial Sphere and that there are constellations found on it. After that, we continued on our lab. We completed the distance tables in the lab and began to measure out all of the distances that will be in our model. Tomorrow we will complete the model.


Wednesday or May 4, 2016 C.E.:

Today we did a Kahoot again. It was really fun, but I didn't do as good as last time. Right off the bat I got the first question wrong. I thought it was a question related to quantum physics. I was wrong and so I lost. We also did a lot of notes. We mostly talked about orbit. We talked about Kepler's Three Laws of Planetary Motion. We also talked about how orbits are ellipses and that the object in the center is not actually in the center. We also finished our model. Earth was a peppercorn in the model. Jupiter was a racquetball. I also did all of the questions in the lab.

Thursday or May 5, 2016 C.E.:

Today we did a Star Wars themed Kahoot even though it is not May the Fourth anymore. The questions were so trivial that it was mostly guesswork. Too bad I am not good at guessing :). I reviewed my questions on my lab and turned it in. We also did just a bit of notes about rotation and satellites. There is no blog for Friday because Mrs. Giacomelli was not here.
Summary: This week was a fun week. The many Kahoots were quite entertaining. I can still improve the quality of the blog if I blog at the end of each day. This I will do.

Earth and Environmental Blog Week 23

Monday or April 25, 2016 C.E.:

Today we underwent my favorite review game. In this review game, there are twenty questions. They come up on the projector. The questions are both multiple choice and fill in the blank. They are 5 points each. There are 5 bonus questions for 1 point each. They are not science related, but are usually very fun. At the end there is a wagering questions. You can wager up to 5 points. We wagered 3 points which is good since we got it wrong. The question asked for the axial tilt of Earth. I answered 23 degrees, but it was 23.5 degrees. My group still did good and there will be another game in the near future where we can win.

Tuesday or April 26, 2016 C.E.:

Today we completed a review sheet for the Unit 9 quiz tomorrow. It had a lot of good questions on it. I thought the review sheet was quite useful. We also studied the techbook. Studying the techbook is really important because many of the questions on there are used in the quiz. The assessment I took was well rounded and good. It tested us about Adiabatic and Advective cooling, cloud types, and other things in the unit. It also reviewed a little bit from last unit which is good. I think I am ready for this quiz and it will be good for my grade.

Wednesday or April 27, 2016 C.E.:

Today we took our Unit 9 Quiz. We will not take the test for the unit since we will now move on to the next and last unit. The quiz was good. I think I will get a good grade on it. It seemed shorter than last time we took one, but maybe that is just because the font was smaller than last time. I was finished relatively fast at the end of the quiz and was able to work on homework a little bit. This was nice.

Thursday or April 28, 2016 C.E.:

Today, we reviewed the quiz. Unfortunately, I did not do as well as I had hoped. I made a careless error and thus missed a multiple choice problem.We also started some vocab cards for the next unit. I completed the words astronomical unit, celestial sphere, declination, parallax, and right ascension. One astronomical unit is the distance from the Earth to the Sun. The celestial sphere is cool. It is a sort of round sphere around Earth with unknown radius that contains the stars. It doesn't actually exist, but when we stargaze, it seems like the whole thing we are looking at is a big dome. This is the celestial sphere.

Parallax

Friday or April 29, 2016 C.E.:

Teacher workday today, so no school for us! Yay! :)

Summary: This week was a good week. We finished up Unit 9 and now we are in the final Unit. I can still improve my efficiency while writing my blog and I will continue to do so.