Extremophiles Webquest for 3-28-12

Extremophiles Webquest – March 28, 2012

Copy and paste into a Pages document and save to your desktop.

Go to http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/life/cellular-microscopic/extremophile.htm

1. What is the definition of an “extremophile” and where and when were they first discovered?

2. Scroll down and watch the video about extremophiles that “came from space.” What kinds of extreme conditions did these organisms experience?

Go to http://news.discovery.com/videos/tech-nano-storage.html

3. What kind of material do these extremophiles store?

Go to http://www.nsf.gov/news/special_reports/science_nation/extremophile.jsp

4. What does a “chemolithotroph” survive on?

5. Where are extremophiles older than planet Earth being found?

Go to http://www.nsf.gov/news/special_reports/microbes/index.jsp

6. Where are some of the places these extremophiles are found? List at least 4.

Go to http://science.psu.edu/news-and-events/1997-news/iceworms.htm

7. Why are these organisms named “methane worms?”

8. What does it mean that it lives symbiotically with bacteria?

Go to http://www.nhm.ac.uk/research-curation/research/projects/euk-extreme/

9. Click on halophiles. What is osmotic pressure?

Go to http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewnews.html?id=463

10. According to Dr. Lynn Rothschild, what is “life’s solvent?”


11. What is an “anaerobe?”


Go to http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2007/08/nasa-finds-unkn.html

12. Where were extremophiles found in this article?
13. How did they find them?

Go to http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2007/08/ancient-antarct.html

14. How old were the extremophiles that were “brought back to life?”

Go to http://www.astrobio.net/pressrelease/4632/cyborg-snails-produce-electricity

15. What do the snails in this article produce?




http://www.space.com/15045-mercury-water-ice-messenger-spacecraft.html Where has the Messenger spacecraft possibly found water?

Monday, 3/10 The Earth, Moon, Sun Webquest

Highlight the questions and websites below and insert into a Pages document. Answer the questions using the websites provided, working with one other student (you can do the bonus in your own Noteshare journal, but be sure and label it as your bonus question!) When you are finished, export your Pages document and insert it into your Noteshare journal.

Name: _______________________
Period: ______________________
Date: _________________________

Earth’s Moon, Missions to the Moon and Areas of Interest!

http://freemars.org/jeff/planets/Luna/Luna.htm

1. How does the moon compare to Earth in size and mass?


http://www.moonconnection.com/moon_gravity.phtml

2. What would your weight be on the moon?


http://www.russianspaceweb.com/spacecraft_planetary_lunar.html

3. What was the first mission to impact the moon, who sent it and on what date?

4. What spacecraft and country was the first to take a photo of the farside of the moon?

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/grail/news/grail20120307.html

5. What does GRAIL stand for?

6. What are the names of the 2 GRAIL spacecraft chasing each other above the surface of the moon?

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/grail/news/grail20120201.html

7. Watch the video above. What is the name of the principal investigator of the GRAIL mission and where does she work?

8. What part of the moon was shown in the video?


http://news.discovery.com/space/earths-two-moons-110928.html

The Brunswick MoonKAM team are taking photos using 8 cameras mounted on the two GRAIL satellites from 30 miles above the surface. Watch the movie at the link above.

9. What theory is the GRAIL mission going to help prove or disprove?
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LCROSS/main/prelim_water_results.html

10. In what permanently shadowed crater on the moon did the NASA mission, LCROSS, discover water?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/21/nasa-moon-bombing-turns-u_n_771997.html

11. In what crater was water discovered by the LCROSS mission?

12. About how much water was discovered there?

13. Apollo X1 astronaut, Neil Armstrong, was the first person to set foot on the moon. What were his first words?


14. What event began the push to go to the moon?

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/apollo/

15-20. Which of the missions actually landed on the moon? What are the latitudes and longitudes of those missions?

http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/primer/primer.html

21. Two more solar flares erupted Saturday. The two CME’s are set to reach Earth today, March 12, 2012.

22. What is a CME?

23-25. Go to page 2 and list 3 ways solar storms affect us on Earth.


Bonus: Talk to an older person, related or not and ask them where they were when we first landed on the moon. Write that here!

Sunday, 3/11

Tomorrow, you will complete your notecard for Tuesday's Review Activity. You will do this alone but using the card you made in class. When finished, you can go to the blog and copy and paste the webquest and paste it into a Pages document. You can begin this alone and, when all papers are turned in, you can work in pairs, but each much complete a paper. Following the Review on Tuesday, you can work on your webquest.

The Long-Term Observation presentation has been changed to Wednesday, March 21. You will have approximately 3 days of in class time to work on your presentation. Take the time to read over your proposal to see what you said you were going to do (take photos, collect specimens, etc) and make sure that you did it! Make sure you have EVIDENCE of what you observed!

Saturday, February 4 (From Houston!)

GO PATS!! Can't believe I'm not going to see the Super Bowl! The conference has been awesome! Lots of space and lots of pictures to show my classes! We will be doing Galileo's experiment on Monday or Tuesday!

Sunday, 1-22-12 During the Pats/Ravens game!

Half-time is over and we're in the third quarter. Tomorrow, we will be doing the catapults - OUTSIDE so wear your jackets to class! On Tuesday, we will be cutting our food into small pieces and will be finding the mass of each sample. We will store them in ziplock bags for burning on Wednesday.

Sunday, 1/16

Don't forget! You should be doing your observations and, remember, the first engineering challenge is due on Thursday, 1/19! I didn't get sketches from all students and it counted as a grade. Also, check to see that you got credit for all 4 density activities! The quarter ends on Thursday (remember, we go to Voc-10 on Friday). If you are missing a lab, you can come in during lunch any day to complete your labs.

Wednesday, 1/11 20 facts!

With one partner, come up with 20 things you learned about density from the activities we did in class. Bullets are fine. Insert this into your Noteshare journal.