Origins of Sand Lab part2

Beach observations: April 11th

Big Beach: The sand; not uniform in color but is mostly tan, there are rather large (for sand)grains of white and rather small grains of black.
The area around the beach; there is a mosly dead reef off shore and a cinder cone on one side of the beach.

Wailea Beach: The sand; tan and fine with a rather even color, though there are small grains of black and white.
The area around the beach; lava rocks on either end of the beach, some coral off shore.

Origin of Sand Lab part1

Intro: There are two types of beaches; detrital and biogenic. Detrital is a beach that comes from rocks, here they are made from lava rocks so they are usually black or red. Biogenic beaches originate from organic sources like fish feces and dead coral. We will test if a beach is biogenic by testing for calcium carbonate by pouring vinegar in a sample. The chemical reaction that will ensue is as such; vinegar (acetic acid) + calcium carbonate ----> calcium acetate + water + carbon dioxide 2CH3COOH + CaCO3 ----> Ca(CH3COO)2 + H2O + CO2 .

Question: What enviormental characteristics make a beach biogenic or detrital?

H: I think that beaches with alot of coral in the water around it will be biogenic, while beaches with rocks in the water will be detrital. If I find coral at a biogenic beach and rock at a detrital beach then my hypothesis will be correct.

Materials: Journal
Writing implement
sample cups (2)
vinegar
pipette
transportation
appropriate clothing

Procedure: 1)drive to Waipuilani beach
2) collect sample in sample cup
3) record enviormental observations in journal
4) go to Oneuli beach
5) collect sample in sample cup 6) record enviormental observation in journal
7) go to lab
8) perform vinegar test on samples For your reference: vinegar (acetic acid) + calcium carbonate ----> calcium acetate + water + carbon dioxide 2CH3COOH + CaCO3 ----> Ca(CH3COO)2 + H2O + CO2
9) record results
10) make conclusion

Whale Lab continuation

My question was 'what type of pod is most frequent for whales to be in at diferent times in the season?' my hypothesis was that in the middle of the eason there would be more competition pods while late in the season there would be more mother/calf pods. As seen in the table above, as the season goes on there are more single adult and competition pods not mother/calf pods. I was incorrect in my hypothesis.

We had fun on the whalewatch and it was cool chillin with my friends. At one point everyone was clustered around one part of the boat because there was a whale swiming around nut i was just siting on my bench chilling out when i saw this grate breach i looked around and i was the only one who had seen it.

whale lab

Whales are very complex and mysterious animals and we still don't know all about them. Many people for many reasons come to Hawaii to see them. As Tiffany Kidder from the Kai Kanani said, "As the new generations of whales come in to adult hood the whale population becomes less scared of humans."(2010)

What type of pod is most frequent for whales to be in at different times in the season?

For first observation we went out to McGregor's point. For my partner(Lindsey) and I the observing went rather well, we saw many whales and completely filled our data sheet. My personal favorite part was working with my friend because she is fun to fork with and we were able to joke around and still get alot of work done. I would say that the most chalenging part is probably the fact that i forgot that we were going out side so i wore three inch heels and those of you that have been to McGrogors point you know that is a very bad place to wear heals because it is so rocky and un even. I love watching whales because it is so incredible to me that they can throw themselves in the air like they do.

Procedure:
0. record location and weather observations
1. find whale(s)
2. spot whale through clinometer and have buddie record angle
3. record all aspects outlined on data sheet
4. repeat for every whale (group)
5. once all whales recorded calculate distances

Tide Pools

in this lab we found, counted, identified, and recorded the diferent animals in the tide pool. we would encounter animals that fall in to one of these nine phylum: porifera, cnidarians, plathelminthes, nematoda, mollusks, annelids, arthropods, echinoderms. we unreeled and layed down 20 meters of our transect line in a random area of the tide pool, then placed the quadrat at 0, 5, 10, 15, and 20 meters and counted, identified, and recorded the animals in to their correct phylum.
our research question was: which phyla most present in divercity and sheer amount in the south maui tide pool? I thought that molluskc would be the modst plentifull while cnidarians would be the most diverse. I was only half wrong, mollusks were the most plentiful but arthropoda was the most diverse. some sources of error weresplashing around and scaring away some of the creatures, not getting an exact count from not diging around in the muck and finding all of the animals.
I had lots of scientific fun during this lab especialy in the field. my team worked verry eficently together in the field. I love science so its hard for me to pick my favorite part but i would have to say that in this lab it was being in the water and colecting the data itself. I gained the skill of identifying animals and placing them in their phylum.

gps

hi mr.M my group did take actual pictures. We also took a video but it wouldnt upload to my blog and i remembered that i could use my flash drive after the class was over.
this is what our gps devices look like


this is a pic of the second geocache we found

this is inside the first geocache

this is a picture of the first geocache we found

Geocache

Geocaching is really cool and fun. there are tons of geocaches world wide and everyone can play all you need is a GPS device. You can find coordinates of all the geocaches at http://www.geocaching.com/ using that website and this one http://www.trimble.com/gps/whygps.shtml you can learn all you need to know about gps and geocaching. when in doubt, google it.

Before this unit I didn't have a clue of how to use a gps system at all even how to turn it on. I am now the group expert, I am completely gps literate.

The first time we went out on a geocache hunt someone had taken the cache so it wasn't there. When we went out for the tournament though we found two caches and were a bush away from the third. We did rather good but both groups in fourth period got all three. ohwell our group rocked!