Class Response #2- Water Cycle Activity

Last week in class, a student from Rutgers did an activity with us in class to teach us about the water cycle and how humans interrupt it. First, we talked about the water cycle. Basically, water is evaporated into the air from lakes, oceans, and other bodies of water. The evaporated water travels up through the atmosphere and is stored in the clouds. Once the clouds are full, it rains and the water falls back into bodies of water. The cycle repeats itself over and over again. However, humans take water for ourselves and disrupt the water cycle. To learn how this works, students were all given an index card that said either " spoon (assigned tub of water goes here) " or " cup (dump into tub of water) " . The tubs of water were labelled Aquifer, Reservoir, Ocean, Industry, Plants & Animals, Rivers & Lakes, and Agriculture. If your card said spoon, you had to take a spoonful of water out of the assigned tub of water and dump it into a cup. The people who were cups, or clouds, collected the water and then dumped them into a tub. This showed how at the end of the first part of the activity, the water levels hadn't really changed much. That was because the water was distributed almost equally between all of the tubs. For the second part, though, " human (big cups) " were added to the activity. The people who had the big cups had to take water out of the Aquifer and dump them either into Agriculture or Industry (human-related tubs). At the end of this part, the Agriculture and Industry containers were nearly overflowing! This shows how much humans use of our Earth's water. This activity was great in showing the water cycle and how water travels and is used everywhere.

Class Response #1- Digging For Oil!

In class, a student from Rutgers University came and taught us about oil. Oil is found underneath the ground; powerful tools are needed to drill that deep into the solid earth. After we were taught about traps, reservoirs, and sources, we were given a packet of maps to trace on a single sheet of paper. We were instructed to mark the places on the paper where all three overlapped, and then we were told to go to a lab table. Once there, we received another sheet of paper with a blank chart on it. In the middle of the lab table was a container covered in tin foil. There was also the outlines of a grid that matched the grids from the packet. Together with our groups, we had to dig for oil by poking holes in the foil in the places we marked on our maps. When oil was found (which turned out to be syrup in kitty litter rather than kitty litter alone), we had to record our findings. We used special equations to figure out how much money was spent drilling holes, and how much was received from the oil found. Overall, the activity we did to help us learn about oil was a fun and easy way to develop an understanding about oil.(:

Extra Credit: A Weather Poem

A Wintry Sonnet
Christina Rossetti

A Robin said: The Spring will never come,
And I shall never care to build again.
A Rosebush said: These frosts are wearisome,
My sap will never stir for sun or rain.
The half Moon said: These nights are fogged and slow,
I neither care to wax nor care to wane.
The Ocean said: I thirst from long ago,
Because earth's rivers cannot fill the main.
When Springtime came, red Robin built a nest,
And trilled a lover's song in sheer delight.
Grey hoarfrost vanished, and the Rose with might
Clothed her in leaves and buds of crimson core.
The dim Moon brightened. Ocean sunned his crest,
Dimpled his blue, yet thirsted evermore.

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Weather is used in this poem when it shows the changes that occurred when winter morphs into spring. Christina Rossetti explained what was altered when the seasons changed. For example, the Robin had said, "The Spring will never come, and I shall never care to build again." He had said that during the winter. However, when spring arrived, the Robin was once again able to build his nest. Rossetti's knowledge of weather helped enhance this poem because if she didn't know what happened to rosebushes, robins, the half moon, or the ocean when spring came around, the poem wouldn't be as great as it is. In this poem, the weather discussed is the cold, harsh weather of winter that eventually became the warm, inviting weather of spring. Since the poem is mainly about the weather changing, without the mention of weather the poem would be extremely different; in fact, it wouldn't be anything. Rossetti used personification and rhyme in her poem. She used personification creatively to write her poem, and she used rhyme to give the words a steady flow. Although this poem didn't teach me any new facts about weather, I still enjoyed reading this great sonnet by Christina Rossetti.