Titanic: 100 Years Later
Exactly 100 years ago today (actually, last night at 2:20 a.m.) the unsinkable Titanic disappeared beneath the waters of the North Atlantic. The story of the doomed ship is infamous, and all these years later, we still seemed to be fascinated by this tragic moment in time. And a century later, we have some of the best images, information and computer graphic illustrations to show us the wreck as it is today as well as how we think (to the best of our knowledge) the Titanic sank on that fateful night.
Here is the most up-to-date and current image of the bow of the ship. It is from National Geographic and it is a mosaic of over 80 individual images pieced together to give us this ghostly scene of the watery grave.
Titanic's Bow
Here is a smattering of some of the best sites out there today on the Titanic.
The Best Sites For Learning About The Titanic | Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day….
Unseen Titanic – Interactive: The Crash Scene – Pictures, More From National Geographic Magazine.
Titanic: 100 Years — National Geographic Channel.
Passengers on the Titanic – A story map presented by Esri.
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Lastly, here is an excerpt from the National Geographic special with James Cameron, titled Titanic: The Final Word, in which the sinking of the ship is brought into the 21st Century.
Solar Storm Is Coming!!
This Thursday, March 15th, our Earth is going to be hit by a massive solar storm caused by solar flares.
Thankfully, though, it will not be as severe as the largest one in recorded history, which happened in 1859, it is the largest in the Sun’s current 11 year solar cycle. Check out the article below!
BBC News – Robotic cheetah ‘breaks speed record’
You wont believe your eyes when you see what the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (USDARPA) just did! They essentially created a robotic cheetah, which is capable of running at about 18 mph (29 km per hour).
The original design of the robot is to more effectively help war fighters across a greater range of missions. The basic movements of the robot, as you can see, has been modeled after animals in the wild that have great speed. This robot can even flex and unflex its back in order to stretch the spine and run faster….
Wow…!
STUXNET: Anatomy of a Computer Virus
Over the next little while, we are looking at organisms and structures under the microscope. Now, we are just scratching the surface to the micro-world that we cannot see or feel that exists as part of our daily lives, and viruses are included in that mix. But did you ever think that a computer virus worked in the same way? That it might be visible under a microscope? Sadly, it cannot be seen under a microscope since it exists completely within a computer as a piece of software. But a computer virus can be just as “deadly” as a living virus. Take for example the following virus called STUXNET. To see the video, click on the title below the image.
Stuxnet: Anatomy of a Computer Virus from Patrick Clair on Vimeo.
Mousetrap Mayhem!
What a success! This year the students constructed some of the most innovative, creative, strong and well built cars I have seen! Here are just a few examples of some of the cars from this year. Congrats to all the racers and for all your hard work and success!!!
SCIENCE 7 QUIZ
Updates for science 7!!
Students have a section one quiz coming on Tuesday, November 29th. All the material that they need to prepare for the quiz is in their workbooks. Any questions or anything, please let me know. Thank you!!
Rube Goldberg examples are finally up!
For my science 8 class, I have finally gotten around to posting up a few examples of some of the Rube Goldberg videos from previous years. The examples I posted are some of the best ones that I have seen form students, but they are certainly not the ONLY ones that are fabulous. I have a few more stored to show in class 
To see the examples, you can click on the SCIENCE 8 button at the top of this page, then go to MECHANICAL SYSTEMS unit and scroll down. Or you can click here. Enjoy!
A Flock of Starlings is called a Murmuration
This video was filmed by two young ladies, Liberty Smith and Sophie Windsor Clive, in the U.K. It shows the remarkable abilities of what scientists call “flock behaviour”. This behaviour is seen in birds and fish, but to this extent I can honestly say I have never seen! An amazing video and display of nature.
Murmuration from Sophie Windsor Clive on Vimeo.
Why You Should Write in Science
I stumbled across this article among my hundreds of other reading materials and posts through my Google reader.
The article title clear: Why Science Teachers Should Write | Powerful Learning Practice. (written by Marsha Ratzel). In the article, she explains why it is so important that students write as a way to learn science – and why science teachers should write as well.
The opening paragraph sums up the article nicely for me:
“Science needs people who can explain what they’re thinking so that the rest of us can understand the world. That’s one of the reasons students write in my science classes.”
