Happy Winter Solstice!

Hope you are all enjoying your winter break. I'm having a great time in Scotland with my family. Here's a photo I took yesterday from my house of the sun setting on the shortest day of the year. It was 3.20pm!

And here are a couple of my 2 week old niece Ariana!

Greetings from Miami Beach

Have a great winter break!

Hey 6th graders, I hope you all have a fantastic time over the next couple of weeks. I just finished looking over your quizzes from yesterday and put the grades in teacherease, so now it is up to date with all all your assignments from trimester 2. Speaking of grades, I just saw the office send off your final report cards and comments from Trimester 1. So look for those in the mail tomorrow or Monday. All the teachers here at NOVA put in a lot of time and effort writing your comments, I hope you appreciate them!

I also just read through all of your reflections from today. There were some very insightful comments, I was very impressed. Thanks for your comments on my teaching as well, they were very thoughtful, I am certainly very grateful for all the feedback.

Tomorrow I am catching my flight to Miami to visit my brother, then onwards to Scotland to see my parents, sister, and my brand new 1 week old niece! I'm very excited, its my first time back to Scotland in a few years. I am taking my camera, and I hope to post some photos on here while I'm gone. I hope you all have a great time with your families whatever you get up to, I will be celebrating the traditional Scottish holiday of Hogmanay (look it up).

This is the Scottish Flag in case you were wondering.

Energy Source Persuasive Essay

As I told you in class today the homework assignment for Friday December 9th is to write a persuasive essay arguing why we should use more of a particular energy source. I would like you to choose between petroleum, natural gas, propane, coal, biomass, wind, hydropower, geothermal and solar. The essay should be no longer than one page (double spaced if typed) and I would like you to include all of the following:

• a description of the energy source, including whether it is renewable or nonrenewable
• where the energy source is found
• how the energy is used
• three (or more) pro's (advantages) of using the energy source
• three (or more) con's (disadvantages) of using the energy source
• the future of the energy source
• other interesting facts about the energy source
• a short statement listing the websites and other resources you used

To help you I wrote my own persuasive essay so you can see what it should look like. I wrote my one about coal since it seemed like none of you had chose coal as your own topic. Click here to read it. Feel free to copy the structure of it, but please write your own.

 

www.eia.doe.gov/kids

: Energy Information Administration’s Kid’s Page

www.energy.gov/kidz/kidzone.html

: Department of Energy’s Kids Zone

http://www.awea.org/:

American Wind Energy Association

http://www.teachcoal.org/

: American Coal Foundation

http://www.nei.org/

: Nuclear Energy Institute

http://www.hydro.org/

: National Hydropower Association

http://www.ases.org/

: American Solar Energy Society

http://www.propanecouncil.org/

: Propane Education and Research Council

http://www.biomass.org/

: American Bioenergy Association

http://www.geotherm.org/

: Geothermal Energy Association

http://www.api.org/

:American Petroleum Institute

http://www.ngsa.org/
:Natural Gas Supply Association

Potential and Kinetic Energy

Nice work on the Energy Story assignment. I'm almost finished grading them, I will post all the grades to teacherease once I have finished grading everyones, and I will hand them back to you in class tomorrow. Most of you did very well on it, but some students seem to be confusing Mechanical Energy and Motion Energy. Also a lot of you seemed reluctant to mention Nuclear energy in you story, maybe you are unsure about what it is? Below is the text from the U.S. Energy Information Administration that I used in class, take a look over it if you are still unsure about each of these forms of energy.

Potential Energy Potential energy is stored energy and the energy of position — gravitational energy. There are several forms of potential energy.

Kinetic Energy Kinetic energy is motion — of waves, electrons, atoms, molecules, substances, and objects.

Chemical Energy is energy stored in the bonds of atoms and molecules. Batteries, biomass, petroleum, natural gas, and coal are examples of stored chemical energy. Chemical energy is converted to thermal energy when we burn wood in a fireplace or burn gasoline in a car's engine. Mechanical Energy is energy stored in objects by tension. Compressed springs and stretched rubber bands are examples of stored mechanical energy. Nuclear Energy is energy stored in the nucleus of an atom — the energy that holds the nucleus together. Very large amounts of energy can be released when the nuclei are combined or split apart. Nuclear power plants split the nuclei of uranium atoms in a process called fission. The sun combines the nuclei of hydrogen atoms in a process called fusion. Gravitational Energy is energy stored in an object's height. The higher and heavier the object, the more gravitational energy is stored. When you ride a bicycle down a steep hill and pick up speed, the gravitational energy is being converted to motion energy. Hydropower is another example of gravitational energy, where the dam "piles" up water from a river into a reservoir.

Radiant Energy is electromagnetic energy that travels in transverse waves. Radiant energy includes visible light, x-rays, gamma rays and radio waves. Light is one type of radiant energy. Sunshine is radiant energy, which provides the fuel and warmth that make life on Earth possible. Thermal Energy, or heat, is the vibration and movement of the atoms and molecules within substances. As an object is heated up, its atoms and molecules move and collide faster. Geothermal energy is the thermal energy in the Earth. Motion Energy is energy stored in the movement of objects. The faster they move, the more energy is stored. It takes energy to get an object moving, and energy is released when an object slows down. Wind is an example of motion energy. A dramatic example of motion is a car crash, when the car comes to a total stop and releases all its motion energy at once in an uncontrolled instant. Sound is the movement of energy through substances in longitudinal (compression/rarefaction) waves. Sound is produced when a force causes an object or substance to vibrate — the energy is transferred through the substance in a wave. Typically, the energy in sound is far less than other forms of energy. Electrical Energy is delivered by tiny charged particles called electrons, typically moving through a wire. Lightning is an example of electrical energy in nature, so powerful that it is not confined to a wire.