About Me

Today in Computer Tech, we made a scratch project all about me. In the project I added the following sprites: a soccer player, a soccer ball, a tennis ball, a picture of me and a self drawn sprite. I chose the galaxy backdrop. I chose these sprites because I like soccer and tennis. I also chose the backdrop because I’m interested in astronomy. I animated the soccer player to kick the ball and the soccer ball move. My favorite part of the project was learning how to make new costumes and learning how to draw new sprites.

Halloween story

One halloween night, I was strolling down the streets when something flickered. I looked, nothing, so I kept walking but then I thought I saw it again, I looked and saw it. A light flickering like a old light bulb that doesn’t work. It seemed to be calling me over. I walked closer, then I realized something.  It’s coming from the graveyard, I thought. But my curiosity took over me and so I went down into the lonely graveyard. I walked into the graveyard, closer and closer to the light, down rows of old stone slabs marking the death of a loved one. Then I saw the source of the flickering light, it was a girl, she looked no more than 11 years old.

“Hello?”, I asked, “What do you want?”

She made this motion with her hand, come. She lead me to a grave. I read it, Angelina Martice 1981-1990.

“ Is that you”, I questioned, not expecting an answer.

“ Yes”, said the girl. Only then did I realize that the girl did have an eerie atmosphere and was kind of see-through.

“ You, can speak?”

“ Yes but I must at the spot of my death”.

“ Why did you bring me here?”

“ It gets quite lonely in this area”.

Once again my curiosity took over and I started asking her  questions. “Where did you live before you died”, “How did you die?” and so on.

She answered calmly, “ All your questions will be answered in a matter of time. I can show you everything, including death”. Had I been listening closely none of this would have happened, but I got lost on everything.

“You wouldn’t mind showing me?”

“Not at all, just sit on my grave”

“What?”

“Sit on my grave!”

“Why?”

“Didn’t I tell you all your questions will be answered soon!”

“ Well, if you say so”, I said. I sat down when there was a sensation that I could not describe. It was as if I was falling at millions of miles per hour and being spun around at the same speed. Suddenly it stopped. I saw a town it looked like the one that I live in but it looked older.

“Where am I?”, I asked

“YOU ARE IN MY MEMORIES”, Angelina Martice’s voice said, “IT IS MY STRONGEST ONE”.

“Which one is that one?”

“I AM ANSWERING YOUR FIRST TWO QUESTIONS, WHERE I LIVED AND HOW I DIED”.

“So where is this place?”
“WHERE YOU LIVE NOW BUT IN 1990”.

“How did yo-”

“WATCH!!”

I saw a girl, probably Angelina, in a witch costume, running around with her friends, I saw very original halloween costumes, skeletons, werewolves, monsters and witches. They went trick or treating for a while and then everyone left but Angelina. She was walking slowly, like in a trance, towards the graveyard, and then once in ,stopped and kneeled down. A female ghost appeared. They talked for a while and then Angelina sat down and closed her eyes. A man in black snuck up on her and stood there. The ghost told Angelina something and she spun around….. Then everything blacked out.

“What happened?” I said after I got off the gravestone.

“That’s all I remember”, she said, glancing behind me.

“What were you talking about”.

“She was showing me her memories and how she died”.

“ Wait, what!”, I spun around and I saw him, a man, dressed in black, his face covered with black soot, I saw something sharp glinting in his hand, a bright red. And then….. It fell.

 

Salt Storms In Central Asia

Salt Storms in Central Asia

The Aral Sea in Central Asia has dried up. The drying up has been going on for almost 40 years. The lake was a big fishing spot and many of the towns near the coast relied on fish to make a living. This drying happened because of us.

Causes

The drying up happened because the people diverted the two rivers flowing into the lake. Those rivers were the reason the lake didn’t dry up earlier, but when the people diverted the water to irrigate cotton farms elsewhere, which means that all the water evaporating from the sea wasn’t going to be replaced by the water from the rivers and there was a drought recently which meant that most of the water wasn’t going to get replaced by rain.

Image result for aral sea

Effects

The effects of this disaster are very bad. The salt left from the sea is blowing into towns nearby. The salt gets on to the grass and because there is a lot of salt, the grass becomes salty. When, livestock eat it they get sick and will most likely die. They towns near the coast have no way of getting fresh fish. Many people lose their job because of the shrinking of the lake. Some towns will have no water.

Hard to burn wallpaper

Chevron wallpaperThis wallpaper not only decorates your room but it also protects you from a fire. The wallpaper is fireproof. They are made from nanowires, a wire or rod that measures a billionth of a meter  The wallpaper is made from hydroxyapatite a mineral found in bones and teeth. It is also fire resistant. Regular wallpaper is usually has cellulose, and cellulose catches fire quickly. Ying-Jie Zhu lead this research team that made this wallpaper. The wall paper also, when it gets really hot, it sounds an alarm. “The smart-fire-alarm, fire-resistant wallpaper will be helpful for public safety,” Zhu hopes. He also saidit holds the prospect of “saving human lives and reducing the loss of property in a fire.”

Orange Snow Covers Most of Eastern Europe

Orange Snow In Europe

Recently people in eastern Europe got to see a very strange and rare sight. Orange snow fell on many parts of Russia, Bulgaria, Greece and the Ukraine. But this isn’t the first time this happened. Meteorologists say this usually happens every five years or so.

Image result for orange snow

How it happened

This orange snow was caused by sandstorms in the Sahara desert in Africa. The sandstorms sometimes make a lot of sand and dust to be picked up and swept into the atmosphere. The sand then drifted across all the way to Europe where it mixed with the snow and rain.Image result for saharan dust storm

Conclusion

Many people were amazed by the orange snow. Many people skied, snowboarded and did other stuff with the snow. Some people even said it was like skiing on mars. But make sure you don’t fall down, unless you want a mouthful of sand.   

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7593XzOJIA

Personal essay

 

Some people think that having a brother is good but I think that having a brother is hard. Somethings you just can’t get when you have a brother like peace and quiet. Having a brother is hard because you always have to do whatever they want to do, share everything with them, and because you always get blamed for things that you didn’t do.

 

“Three, two one, let it rip!!!”, my two brothers said in unison. I just rolled my eyes. My two brothers had forced me to play a game called beyblade. It’s like those spinning tops but they spin longer. “I could be doing other things like reading my book and playing something else”, I thought. Then I pulled the string on the launcher . After 2 boring minutes of watching the beyblades spin. My brothers said, “Again, again!”. After that battle I thought” one more time and and I’m going to burst”. That is only one example of me having to play something I don’t like with my brothers. Here is a list of the things my brothers force me to do even though I don’t like playing it: my brothers like to play cars and I don’t, my brother like to play beyblade and I don’t, and my brothers like to play punch the Peter ( me) and I definitely don’t.

 

Another reason I don’t like having a brother is because you have to share everything. One day when I was about 6 years old I got a present for my birthday. Back then I was interested in Pokemon cards. One of my friends gave me a box containing an EX Pokemon card. It was very powerful I really wanted to open it right then so I could add it to my collection. Apparently my brother Johnny was interested in the card too. He said he wanted it. I said that he couldn’t have it , but my mom said we have to share the card. I started to argue, I said that it was my birthday, but my mom said it was final and if we kept on arguing there won’t be enough time to open the rest of the presents.  Sometimes you have to share things you don’t want to share like things that are important to you and fragile things or things they might lose.

 

The most important reason of why having a brother is hard is because they always blame you for stuff they did wrong and say it was you. This story is an example of when they blame you for something. My other brother Charlie is pretty strong for his age. He likes to kick and punch Johnny and me and tell on us for punching him just for the fun of it. One day he decided to take a trophy from my room and told on me for taking a trophy from his room! Mom believed him because he is 5 years old and I am 10 and because she thinks it is something I would do.

“ Go to your room!!” mom yells.

“B-but-”.

“I said go to your room!!!!!”.

I get blamed a lot by my brothers. They like to take stuff from my room and say that I stole it from their room. Johnny likes to takes things he wants but I won’t give him and charlie likes to physically hurt me and tell on me for hurting him.

 

Now you know if you don’t have a brother how hard it is because you have to do whatever they want, you have to share everything you have, and mostly because you brother blames you for everything even though you did nothing. So if any of you out there want to have a brother, I would think twice.

Would you eat lab-grown meat?

 Article = Would you eat lab grown meat?

Source = youngzine

Article date = Feb 15, 2018

Author = Alexis

Flipgrid = https://flipgrid.com/917fe8

 

Summary =  Lab-grown meat also known as clean meat may be the meat of the future. Studies show that our usual way of getting meat takes up 30% of the world’s land.  Lab grown meat takes up 99% less land, 96% less greenhouse gas emissions, 90% less water and doesn’t kill the animal.

Image result for lab grown meat

How to make a lab grown hamburger

Lab grown meat is made by removing adult stem cells from a cow, which is said to be a painless procedure, then they separate the fat cells from the muscle cells. They use the muscle cells to grow the meat. The muscle cells are then placed in an artificial environment also know as a cell culture. In order to grow the cell needs amino acids and carbohydrates. One muscle cell could grow into millions of cells resulting in many hamburgers or whatever kind of meat you are trying to grow. Five years ago a lab grown hamburger cost $325,000 now the price has been reduced to $11.

What does it lab grown meat taste like ?

Image result for person eating lab grown meat

Lab grown meat is right now made just out of muscle so it is not as fatty as a regular hamburger. Scientist who make lab-grown meat are trying to put healthy fats and imitation blood into the meat to make the meat taste more like regular meat.

Related image

Conclusion

I think we should eat lab-grown meat. Studies also show that one-third of the public is in favor of lab-grown meat. Remember, lab-grown meat is not only good for the environment, it is also good for us, eating lab-grown meat means that we less likely to get antibiotic resistance from eating meat because lab-grown meat is not grown near antibiotics. Eating lab-grown meat also is made in a cleaner environment than outdoor farms, there for the risk of contamination from bacteria is thus eliminated.

 

 

Nonfiction reading unit

In the last 2 months, I learned how to read nonfiction better and how to take notes better. In this blog I will be teaching you some of the things I learned.

Here are some key points you need in order to have a good summary when reading nonfiction:

 

Cause and Effect Graphic Organizer by teacherspayteachers.com

Image result for teachers pay teachers cause and effect graphic

When you take notes on a nonfiction text recognize the text structure, if it is Compare and Contrast, Problem and Solution or Cause and Effect graphs are the best way to organize your notes. A Cause and Effect graph is shown above. Remember: notes are never full sentences.

 

Emma, Matthew, Jack, Jalyn, Victoria, Kathy, Liya, Taryn were in my group for the nonfiction reading unit. We studied volcanoes, tsunamis and earthquakes. Our research on those topics lead to different questions. One question I had was do all earthquakes happen because of fault lines and tectonic plates? After many days of research I came to this conclusion. Scientist believe that different things such as a collapsing cave can cause similar effects as an earthquake but all earthquakes happen because of tectonic plates and fault lines because if it wasn’t it wouldn’t be classified as an earthquake.

 

We did this thing called flipgrid. It is where we talked about our reading unit in a video. It was very fun.

link to flipgrid

 

 

 

Temperate forest food web

A food web is a transfer of energy to fuel another living thing. The sun is the ultimate source of energy, if there was no sun every living thing would die. In a temperate forest food webs the plants absorb sunlight and turns it into glucose, a sugar, in a process called photosynthesis. Then consumers like squirrels, birds, mice and rabbits will eat the seeds and plants. Which would be eaten by more consumers that don’t eat plants such as foxes and hawks and the decomposers decompose organic material .

If one of the animals was to die out it would unbalance the whole web. For instance, in this temperate forest food web if the rabbits were to die out, the hawks might die out without any food to eat.   

 

 

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