03.31.2020 - Tuesday - (left side of science notebooks)

03.31.2020 - Tuesday -

Science notes and assignment (left side of notebook)

YouTube:  I’ve tried to post a few, quick, YouTube videos. They’re not, exactly, professional science videos :-) but, they are meant to remind us of some of the subjects we’ve studies this school year. The most recent was on local tie-ins. (Montara Mountain, seasons, etc.)   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZBrRi_fbWc

The quick video on pitch, or frequency, will relate to notes later this week about how plants use only certain frequencies of light for PHOTOSYNTHESIS.

1. Current Events:  Check out CNN 10 today as they talk about the Olympics being postponed and also about the city of Lisbon.  https://www.cnn.com/cnn10
1. …
2. …

II.  Notes: NITROGEN CYCLE and life.

A.  We, currently recognize SIX KINGDOMS of life.  Not long ago, we recognized five.  The BACTERIA kingdom was divided into two, separate, kingdoms; archaebacteria and bacteria. The archaebacteria are bacteria that have been found in “extreme” environments like hot springs and hydrothermal vents in our oceans. These are places where scientists thought life could not exist and it means that we can look for life beyond Earth (extra-terrestrial life) in more harsh environments that we originally thought.

B.  The kingdoms are:

1.  Archaebacteria

2.  Bacteria

3.  Plants

4,  Procaryotes

5.  Animals

6.  Fungi

C.  You’ll, probably, see procaryotes (one-celled, organisms that have a nucleus) further subdivided into different kingdoms in the next few years. 

III.  For PLANTS to be able to survive on land they had to be able to use NITROGEN for growth and to use in CHEMICAL REACTIONS. Most of our atmosphere is NITROGEN, (about 80 percent!) so we might think that obtaining nitrogen wouldn’t be a problem. However, plants can’t use the Nitrogen in the atmosphere directly. The Nitrogen in the atmosphere travels around in pairs (N2).  So … how do plants get the Nitrogen they need?

A.  This is where BACTERIA come in. There are special bacteria in the soil that take the nitrogen that falls with the rain and combines it with oxygen and, basically, rearranges the nitrogen so that it can be taken up and used by the roots of plants.

IV.  Class tie-in. Remember “The Martian” again!  Mark Watney was studying DIRT on Mars. When he became stranded on Mars, and had to farm potatoes to survive, he added the human waste from the crew with Martian dirt in an attempt to make SOIL. SOIL is alive! Dirt is not.