Sexual Reproduction -Two parents
-Offspring has traits of both parents
-One parent has male parts, the other has female parts
| Asexual Reproduction -One parent
-Offspring is exact copy of parent
-One parent has both male and female parts allowing it to reproduce by itself | Sexual reproduction is the method of reproduction in which two parents reproduce to create a new organism with traits of both the father and the mother. The Asexual method is where one parent reproduces by itself, and its offspring are exact copies of the parent. But which of these methods is more efficient? Well, the answer to that is that Sexual Reproduction is better than asexual reproduction for a good reason. Sexual reproduction creates diversity in a population because it has the DNA of two parents, which means it is not the same as either parent. Organisms that reproduce sexually are just creating clones of themselves. Diversity and variations are very important in a population.
 On Thursday and Friday we got to start our frog dissection in science class. We opened up the frog and tried to identify different organs on Thursday, and then we actually too out each separate organ on Friday. This was a cool experience, and it was also pretty fun. The only thing I didn't like was that the smell stuck on my hands the whole day!
I think that it was cool to see all of the different organs of the frog which made the dissection a good experience. I learned a lot doing this, and it gave me a better view of the internal frog. I was surprised at how small some organs such as the gall bladder were because I could barely find it. I also expected the heart to be bigger too for some reason. I definitely learned a lot from doing this dissection.
Yesterday all of the seventh graders at school got to go to the zoo after finishing our zoo animal research projects. I had a lot of fun at the zoo because I got to see my animal that I did research on, and I haven't been to the zoo in a long time. My animal, the Keel-billed Toucan, was in the tropical rain-forest at the zoo. It was cool to be able to see it after doing so much research on it, and I definitely looked at it differently because of how much I have learned about it.
The toucan was pretty much exactly how I imagined it to be, except that it was maybe a little bit smaller. Other than that, it was just as I expected, but it was pretty cool to actually see the bird hopping around on the branches which was better than just seeing it in picture
Recently we have been learning about amphibians in science class. The word amphibian means double life. What does that have to do with amphibians though? Well, amphibians literally live a double life. Their first life is lived in water as a tadpole, also known as the larvae stage. Larvae is when they are younger, and not mature. The transition into the second life is not immediate though. It happens over time, as the tadpoles undergo metamorphosis. Metamorphosis is when an amphibian loses its gills and develops lungs, allowing it to live on land. Then they leave the water and actually do live on land returning to the water only to lay their eggs.
When salamanders undergo metamorphosis they don't lose their tails like frogs and toads do. They also don't develop the strong hind legs for jumping that they do. In fact, larvae salamanders and adult salamanders look almost exactly alike. Frogs and toads lose their tails though and also develop stronger hind legs and skeletons. These are the basics of metamorphosis.
 When light goes through the eye, the first thing it hits is the outer layer called the cornea. This outer layer protects the eye and it is the part that you can touch. Next, a controlled amount of the light passes through the pupil, or small black hole in the center of the iris. The iris controls how much light is allowed through the pupil
The next thing it hits is the lens, which refracts it toward the retina. The retina has two types of cells, cone and rod cells, which receive the light and create electric impulses from it. These electric impulses get sent to the brain via the optic nerve. Finally the brain forms an image which is the image that we see. This is what really happens with the eye, and is the complicated process of how we can see.
 Whenever it rains, we get to see a rainbow in the sky, but did you ever wonder where that rainbow came from, or how it was formed. Well, it all has to do with light, and something called refraction. Refraction is when light travels through a different medium causing it to bend. In this light is refracted into all of the colors of the visible light spectrum.
When it rains there are lots of small water droplets in the air. Sunlight goes through those droplets, and gets refracted into all of the colors of the rainbow. Finally they form the arc that we know as a rainbow! As you can see there is actually some interesting science behind how a rainbow forms. As to whether or not there is a pot of gold at the end of it though, I couldn't say.
 A lot of people ask why the sky is blue. And yes, there is actually a scientific reason for that. It all has to do with light. When light travels to the Earth from the sun it has to travel through the atmosphere. Once the light hits the atmosphere, all of it travels through the air, but something happens to the blue light that doesn't happen to the rest of the colors. It gets scattered more that the rest of them do.
Scattering is where light gets thrown different ways because of other things in the air such as clouds or anything else in this case, for example. When the light from the sun goes through the atmosphere all of the colors go through without being scattered very much, but blue gets scattered much more than all the other colors. Blue light gets thrown throughout the sky, making it blue.
In science class every table group was assigned a different animal to do research on. We had to do research on the classification of the animal, its' adaptations, its' methods of reproduction, and human interactions of it. My group was assigned to the keel-billed toucan, and I did research on the classification section. It was the easiest section of research, but after I finished my part I had to help my group who had a much tougher job than I did. That got kind of stressful, but we got it done as a group. I was actually very happy because my group got extra credit on the research for how much we did.
Well I was responsible for finding classification information for the keel billed toucan. Here is a brief summary of my research:
The keel-billed toucan's scientific name is ramphastos sulfuratus, which translates to "hind legs" and "to burn." The keel billed toucan is mostly black, with a yellow chest and blue feet, as well as some red tail feathers. It also has the famous, huge beak consisting of red, orange, green, blue, and yellow. The toucan lives in rain-forests of Mexico and into South America. Their diet consists of fruit, nuts, insects, eggs, and some other small animals. The keel-billed toucan is under the conservation status of least concerned.
 I think the greatest scientific discovery in history is the discovery of electricity by Benjamin Franklin in the mid-1700s. Since the discovery of electricity, the whole world has changed and continues to change and develop every day. Without electricity we wouldn't have every day things like light bulbs, toasters, mixers, and electric ovens. We wouldn't have any of our cool new gadgets and such! Hwo terible would the world be?
Over the last two hundred and fifty years the world has changed drastically and electricity is one of the main reasons for that. Now people all over the world have access to simple electric machines that are always making their lives easier. Electricity has made complicated things quite simple. Imagine candles being the only light, other that the sun, that people had three hundred years ago. It was more work, and much more dangerous in a sense. This is why I think that electricity is the greastest scientific discovery.
Yesterday in science class Mr. Kirste informed us about a challenge from the Kleenex company. The challenge is to come up with an experiment that can be run, and that tests things like the strength or absorbency of a Kleenex. This is a really good chance for our school because only ten schools in the country were chosen to be part of it. I forget exactly what you win if your experiment idea is chosen, but it is a lot of money, plus the company pays for all the materials needed for the experiment. I think I have a pretty good idea, and I am excited to see what my teacher and group think.
The experiment that I thought of tests the absorbency of Kleenex tissues. The materials needed are some type of a mechanical blower, some type of goop, and three different brands of tissues, one being Kleenex. The experiment will be the blower blowing goop into the Kleenex, and then timing how long it takes for it to break. Then I would so this on the other tissue brands. The goal would be to find out how Kleenex brand tissues compare to other brands. I think this would be a good experiment.
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