You Best Grab a Snorkle...Cuz We're Going Down!

Hey Matey, what do you know about the ocean? Why not check out some facts about the Pacific and Atlantic ocean. I used this in my class and had two groups spend 15 seconds perusing the sheet. Then they competed as I quizzed the teams on the information. They did not do too well. I had them do it again but first gave them one minute to plan how to work effectively as a group. They did much better and not only learned about our oceans but also how to collaborate as a group.

Oceans Competition

Atlantic Ocean	Pacific Ocean
1/5 of the earth’s surface	28% of the earth’s surface
You could fit 6 United States in it	Average depth is 14000 feet
Current is in counter-clockwise direction	Current is in clockwise rotation
Is actually growing in size each year	Larger than all land put together
Has more shark attacks than any ocean. Only about 50 attacks occur each year with about 10 fatalities. More people are killed by elephants than sharks each year	Has what is called the “ring of fire”, meaning it is circled by earthquake lines and volcanic eruptions
Has highest tides that measure higher than a 3 story building	Named by Ferdinand Magellan. Means peaceful sea.
Icebergs are the biggest danger to ships	Decreased in size in 2000 when part of it was renamed as a separate “Southern Ocean”
Deepest part is Milwaukee Deep 28,000 ft	Has about 25,000 islands on it
The deepest recorded free dive is an astounding 282 feet by	Home of the “Great Barrier Reef”, the largest living structure in the world and can be seen from outer space
The Arctic has as much ice as the Atlantic has water	One pearl from a clam was found and sold in New York for 10 million
Average depth of 6000 feet	Red bass often live for 50 years
	Accounts for ¾ of all volcanoes in world
The legendary continent of Atlantis resided here	Some parts (near the equator) are normally about 86 degrees
Is about 9000 miles long	Supplies about ¾ of all fish for food
Varies in average temperature greatly between 80 degrees to 28 degrees	Has deepest depth of 36000 feet            (called Mariana Trench)
Most hurricanes occur in the Atlantic ocean	In 1960 2 men reached the deepest part of the trench. The pressure was over 16,000 pounds per square inch. This would be like one person trying to hold up 50 jumbo jets
Is the saltiest ocean on average	Accounts for almost 1/2 the water in world
Ocean Facts	Is a natural healer for many skin ailments
Sound travels 5 times faster through water than air	3 times more garbage is dumped into the ocean than the amount of fish caught each year
Contains about 80% of all living things on earth	Nearly 1/3 of the oil comes from the ocean
The freezing point is 28.5 degrees (regular freezing is at 32 degrees)	The blue whale is the largest animal and its heart is about the size of a Chevy Nova
One mouthful of sea water contains over 1 million bacteria	Many deep sea creatures have both male and female sex organs
Swordfish can swim about 75mph	Sea coral has been used to graft onto human bones to enhance healing
Many fish change sex in the ocean	3% of the ocean is freshwater

A Science Lesson about Taste...without the Smell!

Here is a fun science lesson about taste. My students really enjoyed this and were very active throughout the lesson.

Taste Testing Without Smell

We all know that some foods taste better than others but what gives us the ability to experience all these unique flavors? This simple experiment shows that there's a lot more to taste than you might have first thought.

What you'll need:

• A small piece of peeled potato
• A small piece of peeled apple (same shape as the potato so you can't tell the difference)

  Instructions:

1. Close your eyes and mix up the piece of potato and the piece of apple so you don't know which is which.
2. Hold your nose and eat each piece, can you tell the difference?

 What's happening?

Holding your nose while tasting the potato and apple makes it hard to tell the difference between the two. Your nose and mouth are connected through the same airway which means that you taste and smell foods at the same time. Your sense of taste can recognize salty, sweet, bitter and sour but when you combine this with your sense of smell you can recognize many other individual 'tastes'. Take away your smell (and sight) and you limit your brains ability to tell the difference between certain foods.

No Saliva, No Taste?

 In order for food to have taste, chemicals from the food must first dissolve in saliva. Once dissolved, the chemicals can be detected by receptors on taste buds. Therefore, if there is no saliva, you should not be able to taste anything. To test this theory, dry your tongue with a clean paper towel. Once your tongue is dry, try tasting a few samples of salt, sugar or other dry foods. Rinse your mouth and dry your tongue after each test.

Materials:

• Food items - sugar, salt, crackers and other dry food
• Clean paper towels
• Water (for rinsing in between tests)

Have you ever thought about why foods taste different? It's really quite amazing. Your tongue and the roof of your mouth are covered with thousands of tiny taste buds. When you eat something, the saliva in your mouth helps break down your food. This causes the receptor cells located in your tastes buds to send messages through sensory nerves to your brain. Your brain then tells you what flavors you are tasting.

Taste buds probably play the most important part in helping you enjoy the many flavors of food. Your taste buds can recognize four basic kinds of tastes: sweet, salty, sour, and bitter. The salty/sweet taste buds are located near the front of your tongue; the sour taste buds line the sides of your tongue; and the bitter taste buds are found at the very back of your tongue.

Everyone's tastes are different. In fact, your tastes will change as you get older. When you were a baby, you had taste buds, not only on your tongue, but on the sides and roof of your mouth. This means you were very sensitive to different foods. As you grew, the taste buds began to disappear from the sides and roof of your mouth, leaving taste buds mostly on your tongue. As you get older, your taste buds will become even less sensitive, so you will be more likely to eat foods that you thought were too strong as a child.

What if you could not taste anything? Things like medications, smoking, not getting enough of the right vitamins, injury to the head, brain tumors, chemical exposure, and the effects of radiation can cause taste disorders.

ü  We have almost 10,000 taste buds inside our mouths, even on the roofs of our mouths.

ü  Insects have the most highly developed sense of taste. They have taste organs on their feet, antennae, and mouthparts.

ü  Fish can taste with their fins and tail as well as their mouth.

ü  In general, girls have more taste buds than boys.

ü  Taste is the weakest of the five senses.

ü  Dogs have taste buds. Most of their taste buds are located at the tip of the tongue. However, they only have about 17% as many taste buds as we do. (That means that they only have about 1,700 taste buds.

GOT TASTE?

1.      Of the five senses, which is the weakest sense?

a.    Taste

b.    Touch

c.    Smell

d.    Hearing

2.    When you eat, what helps break down your food?

a.    Saliva

b.    Teeth

c.    Time

d.    Sulfuric Acid

3.    Does your tongue have different taste buds? If yes, what are they?

_____________________________________________________________________

4.    Which of the following is not one of the four basic tastes?

a.    Salty

b.    Bitter

c.    Nasty

d.    Sweet

5.    Which two senses are directly connected?

_____________________________________________________________________

6.    Do animals have taste buds?     Yes              No

7.    What is YOUR favorite taste? Explain your answer

___________________________________________________________

  8.     What is the value of having taste buds? Explain your answer

_______________________________________________

Site of the Day-Translate One Language to Another

Here is a great site to translate a word or a big block of words from one language to another. Try pasting the Gettysburg Address in the tool and see what it looks like in Russian, or German, or...Dutch, or...

CLICK HERE

Critical Thinking Quiz

Okay class, shake off those cobwebs and use common sense to answer these puzzling questions. The answers are listed below but try not to peek.

Critical Thinking Quiz

1. Two men play five games of checkers. Each man wins the same number of games. There are no ties. Explain this.


2. What is pronounced like one letter, written with three letters, and belongs to all animals? 




3. A man builds a house rectangular in shape. All sides have southern exposure. A big bear walks by. What color is the bear? Why?




4. What is the beginning of eternity, The end of time and space; The beginning of every end, And the end of every race?




5. What is very light but can't be lifted?




6. If there are 3 apples and you take away 2, how many do you have?




7. What overpowers you-without hurting you?




8. What question can you never answer "yes" to?




9. I have two U.S. coins totaling 55 cents. One is not a nickel. What are the coins?




10. When is longhand quicker than shorthand?

ANSWERS:

1. They aren't playing each other.

2. Eye

3. White. The house is at the North Pole so it is a polar bear.

4. The letter E

5. A bubble

6. 2 (you took 2)

7. Sleep

8. "Are you asleep?"

9. 50 cent piece and a nickel (one is not a nickel; the other is)

10. On a clock.

Hershey Bar Educational Challenge

Next time you have a standard Hershey Bar, take time to answer the following questions. Most can be found using the wrapper (a few require research and basic math skills). See how many you can answer:

Hershey Candy Bar (HCB) Challenge

      1.       How many ounces in your Hershey Bar?___How many oz. are needed to make a pound?____

2.       How many complete HCB would you need to eat to eat a pound of HCB?____________________

3.       If you add 2/3 of your friend’s HCB to ½ of your HCB, what is the fraction? _________________

4.       If you multiply ¾ of your HCB with 2/3 of your friend’s HCB, what is the answer? ____________

5.       Who is Hershey’s manufacturer?______________Where are they located?(city,state)__________

6.       What is the longitude and latitude of the manufacturer?__________________________________

7.       Which hemisphere is it located in?___________________________________________________

8.       What is the capitol of this state?_____________________________________________________

9.       How many fat grams in your HCB?__________________________________________________

10.    If there are about 9 calories in one gram of fat, what is the number of calories from fat ?________

11.    What is the percentage of total calories from fat? (Guidelines: not more than 30%)_____________

12.    What is the largest ingredient in milk chocolate? _______________________________________

13.    Is that ingredient good for you? _______ Why/why not? _______________________________________________________________________________

14.    What % vitamins does your HCB have?__________Calcium ___________ Iron ______________

15.    The 35 mg of sodium is another name for_____________________________________________

16.    Too much sodium is not good for you because it can: ____________________________________

17.    What are the numbers in the bar code? _______________________________________________

18.    Why do you think the HCB needs a bar code?__________________________________________

19.    What shape is the HCB? ___________________________________________________________

20.    What is its perimeter?____________Area?____________Volume?__________Grams?_________

21.    Why is there an apostrophe in Hershey's?______________________________________________

22.    Which letter is used the most on the front wrapper?______________________________________

23.    What does the ® mean on the front of the wrapper? _____________________________________

24.    What do you think makes the wrapper the most attractive? _______________________________

25.    How many calories does the HCB suggest should be eaten each day for a balanced diet? ________

26.    Who is the founder of Hershey's Chocolate?___________________________________________

27.    Is he still living? _____ If  yes or no, how old is he/how old would he be now?_______________

28.    What is the month and date the HCB should be eaten by? ________________________________

29.    Why is “emulsifier” in the ingredients? _______________________________________________

30.    Create 12 new words from the words Hershey Milk Chocolate (must be 4 or more letters). __________________  _________________ ________________  __________________  __________________  __________________  ________________  _________________  __________________  __________________  ________________  _________________

THE ANSWER KEY IS PROVIDED BELOW:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hershey Candy Bar (HCB) Challenge (Answer Key)

                                                                                   

1.       How many ounces in your Hershey Bar? 1.55  How many ounces are needed to make a pound? 16

2.       How many complete HCB would you need to eat to eat a pound of HCB? 11 (17.05 ounces total)

3.       If you add 2/3 of your friend’s HCB to ½ of your HCB, what is the fraction? 4/6+3/6 = 7/6 or1 1/6

4.       If you multiply ¾ of your HCB with 2/3 of your friend’s HCB, what is the answer? 3/4 x 2/3=1/2

5.       Who is Hershey’s manufacturer? The Hershey Co. Where are they located? Hershey, Pa.

6.       What is the latitude and longitude of the manufacturer? 40.285924, 76.650247

7.       Which hemisphere is it located in? Western or Northern Hemisphere

8.       What is the capitol of this state? Harrisburg

9.       How many fat grams in your HCB? 13grams  Calories? 210

10.    If there are about 9 calories in one gram of fat, what is the number of calories from fat? 117 (110)

11.    What is the percentage of total calories from fat? (Guidelines: not more than 30%) 20%

12.    What is the largest ingredient in milk chocolate? Sugar (always the first ingredient listed)

13.    Is that ingredient good for you? Why/why not? _________________________________________________________

14.    What % vitamins does your HCB have?    0%    Calcium   8%    Iron   2%

15.    The 35 mg of sodium is another name for      Salt

16.    Too much sodium is not good for you because it can cause bloating, swelling, stroke, H.A., B.P.

17.    What are the numbers in the bar code? Computerized tracking code

18.    Why do you think the HCB needs a bar code? Inventory, QC, tracking

19.    What shape is the HCB? Rectangle (5 3/8 by 2 1/8 x 1/4)

20.    What is its perimeter?15 inches  Area? 11.42 sq. in. Volume? 2.855 cm(cubed) Grams? 43 grams

21.    Why is there an apostrophe in Hershey's? Named after Milton Hershey (possessive)

22.    Which letter is used the most on the front wrapper? 4- E’s

23.    What does the ® mean on the front of the wrapper? Name is trademarked

24.    What do you think makes the wrapper the most attractive? Answers will vary

25.    How many calories does the HCB suggest should be eaten each day for a balanced diet? 2000

26.    Who is the founder of Hershey's Chocolate? Milton Hershey

27.    Is he still living?  No If  yes or no, how old is he/how old would he be now?  154 years old

28.    What is the month and date the HCB should be eaten by?  Check BB date

29.    Why is “emulsifier” in the ingredients?  To keep ingredients together or bound

      30. Create 12 new words from the words Hershey Milk Chocolate (must be 4 or more letters). Various answers