Is Air There? (10pts)

In this lab, we had a jar, two rubber bands, and a Ziploc bag. First, we covered the top of the jar with the Ziploc bag, then, we held the bag to the jar by putting the rubber bands around the bag on the jar. After this set up was done, someone pushed down into the jar. The air in the jar made this hard. This is because air takes up space just like anything else. The rubber bands made it hard for the air to escape. After pushing, we pulled. Pulling the bag was hard too because pulling the bag would mean a need for more space, but since there is only so much, it took time to get more in there.

Response to Recent Article about Greenhouse Effect (15pts)

The earth is not too cold, not too hot, but just. Nevertheless, this is a delicate balance. Now we know that gases produced by smokestack industries, the internal combustion engine, and the like could dramatically warm the air, because those gases contain co2 (carbon dioxide) and methane. When the sun emits its UV radiation towards the earth, many encounters occur such as

• co2 and methane trap heat by absorbing the sun's rays
• transparent air let most sunlight through, but 30% is bounced back by atmosphere, earth's surface, clouds, and particles of the air
• bright snow reflects sunlight back into space
• ocean and land mostly absorb

Greenhouse gases grab thermal radiation, echo some of it back down to the warm ground, and ultimately, the heat gets trapped. Thick clouds reflect the sunlight back into space, but thin clouds trap the sunlight just like greenhouse gases.

If we don't do anything about our constantly emitted greenhouse gases, we could and up like Venus, a greenhouse disaster.

I think that if we don't stop this disaster in the making, I don't even want to think about the suicides that would take place, the deaths of plants that wouldn't be able to stand the weather, and ultimately, the end.

http://www.livescience.com/common/media/video/player.php?videoRef=GoldilocksGreen

Convection Popcorn Lab (10pts)

For this lab, we put a brown bag full of popcorn kernels into microwave, and then let the microwave do its job for a minute and thirty seconds. During that time, the microwave gave off radiations, which is the process in which energy is emitted as particles or waves. Radiation travels through space until it has reached a object to penetrate. In this case, the microwave emitted the radiation into the space in the microwave, and enough radiation eventually reached the popcorn kernels to the point at which they popped.

Temperature Interactive (10pts)

http://forces.si.edu/atmosphere/interactive/atmosphere.html

Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas that takes up less than 1% of the atmosphere, but it is needed to keep the earth warm. Carbon dioxide retains the heat that would have escaped out of the atmosphere. This greenhouse effect is the reason that the earth is warm enough to sustain life. Carbon dioxide comes from many things such as volcanoes, car exhausts, factories, power plants, and decaying plants and animals. Many of the animals that lived 350 million years ago became buried in swamps before they could decay. Eventually, they become oil, natural gas, and coal. And when we burn these fuels, they quickly release their carbon dioxide. Mars and Venus are almost all carbon dioxide.
Oxygen was formed when the sun's ultraviolet radiation broke apart molecules of water, but today we get oxygen when green plants use the sun's energy to convert carbon dioxide and water into sugar and oxygen.
The ozone is the reason evolution took place from water animals to land animals. This is because before the ozone came about, the sun's harmful UV radiation still penetrated earth, and the animals were safe from it underwater. But when oxygen was formed, so did the ozone, which blocked the ultraviolet radiation from coming down to earth. But in the 1980s, chemicals in aerosol sprays and refrigerants thinned the ozone layer in the stratosphere, and more UV radiation was able to reach earth.

Collapsing Can Lab (10pts)

First, we filled a soda can with two bottle caps of water, then placed the can on a burner. Once water vapor started coming from the top, we counted down from thirty. After we reached one, a person took the tongs and flipped the can into a saucepan filled with cold water. Immediately after the can was in the water, the can's sides contracted to the center of the can.

This implosion occurred because when water was boiled, or made hot, the molecules spread farther apart from each other. When the can was plopped into the cold water, the molecules went from really far apart to really close so fast, it sucked the edges of the can to center with them.

The Water Cycle

The Water Cycle