ARE YOU MADE OF STARDUST ?

1. ARE YOU MADE OF STARDUST ? AN INTEGRATIVE STUDY LEADING TO AN UNDERSTANDING OF NATURE.

3. CHAPTER ONE!

4. STARGAZING NIGHT! Lesley, Lauren, Caitlin, and Allie lay on the ground in the middle of the field on a thick, huge, carpet like towel and looked out into the night sky…...It was dark and quiet. There was not a sound around except for the occasional insect chorus that seemed to creep out of no where! Suddenly they saw it, a streak of light, as though somebody had moved a cursor over the sky and made a white line that was powdery and bright across the sky!

5. STARDUST STARGAZING! Did you see that? Did you see that? That is a falling star..No it isn’t…it’s a piece of rock falling through the sky…And their voices gradually died…as the number of white lines crossing the sky grew in number and there was no time to speak at all. “You know we are trying to find out if we are made of star dust this year in school”, said Lesley. “Yeah right” said Lauren. “I wonder how we are going to do that?” asked Caitlin.

6. Lots of pieces of ‘stories’ fall through the sky. Some are big enough to change our way of life! Scientists say that all it takes is about 200 kilograms of asteroid material to ‘kick up’ enough earth material to block out the sun. All planets and their satellites get ‘hit’ by star stuff, all the time!

7. Look at our moon through a good telescope and you can see that it is pock marked with so many asteroid collisions that you wonder how spaceship earth could have escaped such a pummeling!?

8. Some pieces have hit the earth. One of them did actually throw up enough dust to block the sun and make things real uncomfortable for the dinosaurs! Luckily for us those big monster lizards died out and allowed a species like ours to develop.

9. How do we know to ‘read’ the story that each meteor, asteroid, or rock has to say? How do we know that this rock is ‘star stuff’? How would we know if we are ‘stardust’? • Read on and you will take a journey of discovery…..

10. RULES OF THE GAME Just a few rules to the game. These rules are there for you to make the best of the game of learning. Remember, in this game winner takes all. Knowledge is power. Play the game well. The most important rule, is for us to respect one another.

11. Being ready for class with all materials, Raising your handand listening to what is going on in class, shows respect for one another.

12. THINGS TO REMEMBER Bring your Journal and Agenda books with you daily. Write a date and a title for each daily journal entry. Use both sides of the paper. There should be at least 2 sections in your Journal. The rough and the final sections, and they both are equally important. When you listen in class, take down rough notes. Your daily homework is to write final notes, and place it in the final notes section of your journal.

14. Rewards, rewards……!!! • “when you want to contribute to the discussion in class, think how you will be rewarded for speaking up in class and contributing to the discussion.” – Jonny. • Sometimes the teacher is not going to be able to get to your raised hand. You must be patient and await your turn. However, it is very important that you try and contribute in class),

15. How to write notes and succeed! • Eye contact with teacher helps in learning to listen attentively. • Raise your hand when you want to add to or question any material that is discussed. You are rewarded for intelligent input at all times. Go ahead and raise your hand if you’re sure!

16. What is discussed in class must be noted down in your rough notes section. You can do this in several ways, we will discuss all of them. For now, write a date and title, and start writing these ideas…….what should you write in the rough notes?

17. Writing rough notes….. • Use quick sentences, words, concept maps, telegraph , in such a way that you can remember what you discussed in class later at home. You can use the notes the teacher puts on the board or on screen. Add to it with scribbles and notations. Read what the textbook says about the topic, and note down questions.

18. How to write final notes… • When you go home there is homework for you to do everyday! It may not take much time, but what you do in the homework is extremely important. Both in terms of what you are intending to learn and in what we want you to develop in science skills. You are also graded for it. That’s how you show others how much you have learnt. It’s a measure of your success!

19. Final notes….. • In order to write final notes, you must be able to read and understand what was discussed in class, and then rewrite what you understood in the final notes section. You must now write clear narrative sentences describing what it was that you learnt. Make each sentence count. • To this description add information, about the topic, from another source, such as the internet, or a book, or a scientist!

20. Final take….. • The final notes should take you 20 minutes each day. If you have not finished what you wanted to write for that day in 20 minutes leave it for the next day. Don’t leave it for too many days undone. It will be hard for you to catch up!!! Have a date and a title for each day and topic. • Add further information on the topic by researching, from the internet, at the library, or your textbook. Add the proper bibliography when you do this.

21. Weekly schedules tell you what is going to be studied for a period of time and helps you plan for those weeks. Attach it safely in your journal. This year we will be trying to find out if we are all made up of “stardust”! BEING SUCCESSFUL….HOW TO…

22. GRADING IS DONE WITH: • 30% GIVEN TO YOUR JOURNAL, • 30% TO LAB REPORTS AND LAB • WORK, • 30% TO TESTS, AND • 10% TO QUIZZES AND CLASS • PARTICIPATION. • Always be prepared with all the materials you need for class. ( i.e. Pens (black, blue and red pens – for correcting; pencils, graph paper, scissors, protractor, ruler etc.)

23. WHAT MAKES SCIENCE CLICK..! What makes science click is that we always start with an idea. This idea does not have to be correct. But we always do something about finding out whether it is true or not! Suppose you were given a loop of paper and you were asked to guess how many pieces of it you would have, if you cut it lengthwise? What would your idea be?

24. Checking out an idea!? Take the strip of adding machine paper and make a loop out of it and stick the ends together, after you have made one twist with one of the ends, just before attaching the ends together with masking tape. You will then be asked to cut along one surface (lengthwise!) until you have reached the place where you began. If this is difficult, please ask. THIS IS THE HARD PART!

25. WHAT’S WITH THE MOBIUS STRIP? How many pieces of paper would you have when you do this? Was it the same idea you had before you started the activity? What if…..you had made two twists to the end before you stuck it together? How many pieces would you have?

26. MOBIUS STRIP The Mobius strip is a curious paper model. It has mathematical significance, but we are not really interested in all of that. The Mobius strip is the simplest geometric shape with one surface and edge. You could be traveling for ever on a mobius strip. Try running your finger on any one surface. For your final notes research on the internet about this…

27. A hypothesis about shapes! When you did this activity you made a Hypothesis. A Hypothesis is another name for the idea with which you start any work in science. It does not have to be correct and you may find that it is not correct after you finish the experiment.. This happens a lot in Science!

28. What is your hypothesis? In the previous activity your hypotheses was to guess how many pieces you would have when you cut it along one surface. It was an educated guess based on past observations and experiences. Was it correct? Does it matter?

29. Chapter 2

30. THE COOKIE CONNECTION When you try writing rough notes today why don’t you try a concept map. It helps you write notes and put in a lot of details quickly. While you chew on the cookie I gave you, savor the ingredients that it is made up of. Then tell me what they are. Your answer would probably be: Flour, sugar, salt, milk, butter etc. But what are those materials made up of?

31. Elements that make up cookies! • These elements that the cookie is made up of are themselves made up of smaller little pieces. The first people to get this idea were the ancient Greek Philosophers like Democritus. They concluded that all matter must be made up of small ‘atomos”!

32. A person called John Dalton eventually said that ‘elements’ are substances that have only one kind of atom in them.

33. THE COMPOUND Elements come together to form Compounds. There is always two or more elements in a compound. Compounds can be made up of similar elements but be totally different!

34. The watery compound! Water is made up of 2 atoms of hydrogen and one atom of oxygen, however, if your increased the number of oxygen atoms, from one to two you would have a totally different compound! 2 atoms of hydrogen and 2 atoms of oxygen combine to form Hydrogen Peroxide.

35. DANGEROUS SALT ON YOUR EGG! Salt is made up of two elements: Sodium and Chlorine. Sodium is a very explosive metal, and Chlorine is a very poisonous gas. It was used in WWII. You can guess why it was used!

36. Mixing elements…. Mix these two dangerous elements together and you get a totally new compound which has its own, wonderful, safe, characteristics or properties. Sugar is made up of three elements: Carbon, Hydrogen, and Oxygen.

37. JUST WHAT IS PAPER? If you tried to analyze what paper was made up of, you would find that it is made up of the same elements that sugar is made up of. However, the amount of each element in paper and sugar are different. C12H22O11 – SUGAR; C10H11012 - PAPER

38. So what about us humans? By changing the amount of elements that are together it is possible to make a totally different compound! Sugar has three elements in it; Carbon, Hydrogen, and oxygen. We human beings are quite a bunch of elements combined together!

39. Where did it all begin? If we could tell where these elements actually got made, we could begin to understand where it all began. One of the first concepts or ideas we are going to investigate is: Where do these elements come from and how are they made?

40. NATURE’S KITCHEN If these elements, that everything is made up of, come from stars then we would be made up of star dust! This is our quest for this year. We are trying to investigate whether this may be true. • Where’s Nature’s Kitchen, Where the elements are cooked, Where does life begin…? Where should our search begin!!!

41. Chapter 3 !

42. Measurements In order to investigate where elements come from and how they are made, it is necessary to establish standards of measurements.

43. Why have measurements? Without these standards it would be difficult to tell someone what we found out. Everything that is stated must be backed up with standards. These standards are there to help us in our quest and to communicate with others in the scientific community.

44. Measurements. In the world of Science, measurements are done in the Metric System. This system is not new in our country, although we do not use it frequently. Measuring in the Metric system means, measuring in tens!

45. The metric system is easy…! Its so easy! For example 1000 meters is a kilometer. This is easy as we can count in 10’s. A thousand is a hundred of the 10’s. Similarly a 100 is 10 of the ten’s! The English system is the confusing one, we do not use it in science at all! (Pounds, Ounces!)

46. Prefixes in the metric system. • Kilo stands for thousand in the metric system. While 100 meters would be a Hectometer, 10 meters would be a decameter. Similarly 1/10th of a meter would be a decimeter, 1/100th of a meter would be centimeter, and 1000th of a meter would be a millimeter. In this way there are prefixes that tell us exactly what we are talking about.

47. WHAT EXACTLY IS A KILOGRAM ? • THE PICTURE SHOWS THE PLATINUM-IRIDIUM INTERNATIONAL PROTOTYPE, AS KEPT AT THE INTERNATIONAL BUREAU OF WEIGHTS AND MEASURES UNDER CONDITIONS SPECIFIED BY THE 1ST CGPM IN 1889. • THE KILOGRAM IS THE UNIT OF MASS; IT IS EQUAL TO THE MASS OF THE INTERNATIONAL PROTOTYPE OF THE KILOGRAM. IT IS ESTABLISHED TO END ANY CONFUSION REGARDING THE MEANING/DEFINITION OF THE WORD “WEIGHT”.

48. MEASUREMENT cont’d • There are different units used to measure different kinds of quantities. Mass is measured in grams, volume in liters and length in meters. • Prefixes in the metric system helps us understand what portion we are talking about. ‘Kilo’ means you have have a thousand units of a measurement, and ‘milli’ means you have a thousandth of a measurement.

49. How much do you have? • If you take a bottle of water and weigh it, you say that it weighs 2 kilograms, or that you are holding 2 kilograms of mass. However, if you took a bottle and measure how much water you have in it you say you have 2 liters of water in the bottle. You can also weigh the bottle of water and express how many grams of water you have in the bottle. Measurements work to communicate how much material you have!