Riccardo's Science Blog

Our Charity  Fair Tri-Fold  Summary : Human trafficking is one of the biggest problems that it is not publicly talked about. Human trafficking is modern day slavery, and yet we don't inform the public about it. Our charity, World of Children, has honorees that work to rescue and rehabilitate victims of child trafficking so that they are safe, supported, and have the opportunity to rebuild. Ever charity fair is unique, and there are new experiences to be learned every year. This year, the selection of the charity was even more important than in previous years. Therefore, we had to spend more time and we realized that not all charities post tax and revenue information. We also used our strengths to improve things such as our instructable and out product. We had to be flexible, so when had to change our unit of measurement, or we had to use unique tools in replacement for other things. All for all, charity fair is a different experience every year, but this was ...

WAC #2 - Should We Bring Back Extinct Species? Riccardo Gavardoni 8B What is de-extinction? De-extinction is the process of resurrecting species that have died out or gone extinct. Although once considered a fictional topic, the possibility of bringing extinct species back to life has been raised by advances in selective breeding, genetics, and reproductive cloning technologies. Why do we want to bring animals back? Some species can help restore the environment. Some scientists claim the woolly mammoth could help restore the tundra, and even delay global warming. Due to the fact that ice is melting and the soil under contains carbon which would release if more ice melts. The woolly mammoth could theoretically “punch down the snow in the winter time allowing cold air to come in and in the summertime, they would knock down trees which are very absorbent and release the grasses,” said Steph Yin in We Might Soon Resurrect Extinct Species. Extinct species has some risks however, t...

Summary : De-extinction is the process of resurrecting species that have died out or gone extinct. Although once considered a fictional topic, the possibility of bringing extinct species back to life has been raised by advances in selective breeding, genetics, and reproductive cloning technologies. Scientists are working to raise an enormous amount of money in order to perform de-extinction on animals such as the woolly mammoth. Some scientists claim the woolly mammoth could help restore the tundra, and even delay global warming. Due to the fact that ice is melting and the soil under contains carbon which would release if more ice melts. The woolly mammoth could theoretically “punch down the snow in the winter time allowing cold air to come in and in the summertime, they would knock down trees which are very absorbent and release the grasses,” said Steph Yin in We Might Soon Resurrect Extinct Species.  S&EP-Communicating Information: Using the platform KQED, I was a...

Summary : Air pollution can be caused by many things and harms the environment in many ways. One of the biggest ways we pollute is through the carbon footprint when buying goods. Goods are transported through vehicles such as planes, cargo ships, trains, and most commonly, trucks. When you order things online or even buy them in store, they most likely come from out of the continent depending on the item. This is a big problem since planes emit 0.8 g of CO2 per mile, the most of any transportation. One way we can reduce these emissions is stores can buy in bulk, which gets them more product for less money, and less transportation is needed. or the consumer can buy things locally. This helps because if you check the "made in" tag or you purchase at things like farmer markets, it saves the atmosphere a lot of CO2. S&EP - Using Models : I used models when my group and I created a map to show the journey it took to create our fortune cookies. The map shows how different...

Picture of Victor Nguyen's FLUXX cards in play. Summary: Fluxx is a very interesting, unique game. It is different from most other card games, in that the rules and the conditions for winning are altered throughout the game, via cards played by the players. Fluxx has a basic set of cards. There are new rules, goals, keepers, actions, and creepers. A game deck consists of 84 to 100 cards with four different card subtypes printed on them, New Rules, Keepers, Goals, and Actions. Starting with a simple Basic Rule of 'Draw 1 card / Play 1 card', players will draw then play a card to and from their hand. New Rule cards will change the rules mid-game, oftentimes changing the number of cards you draw, the number you play, the number of cards in your hand and so forth. Goals are cards that lay out the victory conditions for the game, consisting of two or more Keeper cards that must be in front of the player on the table while that Goal is active. The Keeper cards are various...

Question : Which of the following questions can be answered by studying these fossil layers? Wrong Answer: What are the common ancestors of fish? Correct Answer: Which organisms lived before/after/or at the same time? Why the correct answer is correct: The reasoning as to why "Which organisms lived before/after/or at the same time?' is the correct answer is because you can use relative dating to see which organisms are younger or older compared to one another.

Summary : Fluxx is a very interesting, unique game. It is different from most other card games, in that the rules and the conditions for winning are altered throughout the game, via cards played by the players. Fluxx has a basic set of cards. There are new rules, goals, keepers, actions, and creepers. A game deck consists of 84 to 100 cards with four different card subtypes printed on them, New Rules, Keepers, Goals, and Actions. Starting with a simple Basic Rule of 'Draw 1 card / Play 1 card', players will draw then play a card to and from their hand. New Rule cards will change the rules mid-game, oftentimes changing the number of cards you draw, the number you play, the number of cards in your hand and so forth. Goals are cards that lay out the victory conditions for the game, consisting of two or more Keeper cards that must be in front of the player on the table while that Goal is active. The Keeper cards are various people and items that go along with the game's the...

Summary: The Fobra is a new species of frog with the body of a red-eyed tree frog, the eyes of an owl, the fangs of a king cobra, and the claws of a squirrel. Since the fobra lives in planet C, a tropical planet with much rainforest and vegetation, our frog can "nest" itself in the plants to stay warm. To stay cool the fobra can soak itself in puddles and absorb the moisture. The fobra is also a warm-blooded animal. The fobra uses both its tongue and teeth to eat, depending on the size of animal it is eating. With the claws similar to squirrels, the fobra will be able to get away and climb up on trees faster, making predators unable to get it. As well having the bite similar to the king cobra, our species will bite predators when it feels threatened or scared by predators that are after them. The fobra will be able to strike extremely quickly, like a cobra, in self-defense. Red-eyed tree frogs will lay clutches of eggs on the underside of leaves that are standing abo...

Summary : This project in which I am working with my team, we have the assigned task to create a species that could thrive in the planet of our choosing. There was 4 planets we could choose from, and our species lives in planet C. Planet C is a tropical environment with a flat terrain. It is covered with rain forests that are moist and hot. There are many large pools of water or lakes in the rain forests where killer poisonous plants grow around. The vegetation is comprised of an abundance of leaves, nuts, and fruits and some of the animals are carnivorous snakes, monkeys, fish, insects and birds. Our animal has the body structure of the red-eye tree frog. However, unlike red-eye tree frogs our animal has the traits of other species, such as the eyesight of an owl, the venomous bite/teeth of a king cobra, and the claws of a squirrel. Our animal does like most amphibians do and by soaking itself in the water puddles on planet C and absorbing the moisture through their skin....

Summary:  A cladogram is a diagram that shows us evolutionary relationships between organisms. It also tells us how organisms are closely related. At the top of the cladogram are the names of the organisms. Along the side of the cladogram, you have the different traits. When there is a point and the lines converge, it represent a common ancestor. We can trace the relationships on the cladogram to know which organisms evolved from a common ancestor, not how an organism "evolved" into another. S&EP: Using Models I used models, like cladograms, to find which organism was most closely related to the T-rex. First, we organized all of the information from the cladogram onto a table. For each feature of the organisms, we filled out a row of the table. We used a plus symbol to represent if the feature is found in the organism, a zero means that the feature is not present, a minus symbol means that the feature does not apply to the organism, and a question mark means...

Summary: There are four lines of evidence for evolution: comparative anatomy, embryology, fossil records, and DNA. This evidence is what helps us determine our hypothesis, t hat all living things have a common ancestor and that natural processes can decide who lives and who dies. Embryology is the study of how creatures progress before being born and noting similarities. The fossil record is the process of comparing and contrasting animals that are alive today with fossils of animals who are now extinct to help figure out which animals they may have evolved from. Comparative anatomy is looking at the similar and different features in different organisms and species to see if they may have evolved from each other. Finally, you can use DNA to see which animals are closely related to one another. These lines of evidence help us come to the conclusion that animals evolved and are related to each other through a common ancestor. SP2 - Using models To see...

Summary: Natural Selection is when organisms who are better adapted to fit their surrounding conditions outlive those who aren't and pass down their genes. Out of the five fingers of evolution, natural selection is the only one that can cause adaptations. The idea of natural selection was first proposed by Charles Darwin, who stated that nature could determine which organisms survive and which don't. He traveled on the HMS Beagle and he made important discoveries through South America and wrote a famous book called, the Origin of Species. Darwin saw that birds on different islands acted the same, but looked different. Finches in different environments adapted to have a type of beak that suits their specific environmental so they can eat the food in their environment, he observed. Which sparked Darwin's theory of Natural Selection. S&EP-Using Models: We used a model to show how different species and animals can adapt to certain environments. We tried to use...

Summary: Evolution is any change in the heritable traits within a population across generations. Evolution helps us understand the diversity and assortment of life. The central idea of evolution is that all living things originated from one common ancestor. Evolution cannot occur over a single lifetime. Therefore, if there is no reproduction, there is no evolution. The first finger or the pinky represents small population or that population can shrink. For instance, if a population or gene pool goes through an epidemic, and only 6 people survive, those 6 people will represent the new gene pool. The second or ring finger represents mating. This is where 2 mates have a baby. If two mates with the same type of gene mate, red hair, for example, could start a whole new population with a majority having red hair. The third or middle finger represents mutation - when there's a change in the DNA. Such as if a gene mutation creates a new color of hair. The fourth or the index fing...

WAC - Is it more important to Reduce, Reuse or Recycle? Written by: Riccardo Gavardoni 8B We sometimes ask ourselves, "Is it more important to Reduce, Reuse, or Recycle?" The short answer is, we should do all of them. Nevertheless, there is always one that stands out and is the most important of all, and that is reduce. There is a reason why we put reduce at the beginning of the 3 R's. That is because there is much more waste than we imagine, and since we can't take things out of landfills, we need to prevent waste from getting there. As a result, by reducing waste we can significantly reduce our environmental footprint, as reusing and recycling take a lot of time and resources. Reducing is one of those things you can do that is easy and can help the earth in extraordinary ways. By reducing waste, we reduce the amount of waste that will need to be recycled or sent to landfills and incinerators. Which reduces greenhouse gas emissions. Reducing also allows product...

Summary :  The vast unit of time known as the Precambrian started with the origin of the earth about 4.5 billion years ago and ended 570 million years ago. Largely thought to be a hot, steaming, and forbidding landscape, the primitive crust of the newly condensed planet continued to cool. The crust consisted largely of igneous intrusions and volcanic rocks, and sediments that were eroded from this irregular surface.The Precambrian is subdivided, from oldest to youngest, into three eons, the Hadean (4600−3900 million years ago), Archean (3900−2500 million years ago), and Proterozoic (2500−570 million years ago). During the Archean Eon, the earliest living cells formed in the ocean. The Paleozoic era (570−245 million years ago) was long believed by geologists to mark the beginning of life, because of the sudden abundance of complex organisms with hard parts in the fossil record. These organisms included trilobites and shelled animals called cephalopods. Life was restricte...

The Mississippian and Pennsylvanian periods are time periods inside the Carboniferous period.  The Carboniferous period was large so it was split into two others in this picture. This picture describes best the geologic time scale. that is why I am using the picture. Just wanted to point this out. Summary: 

Summary : Geology is the study of Earth, as well as Earth's structure and the forces that shape it.  James Hutton's principle is that geologic processes that operate today operated the same way in the past. As well as in other places that have the same conditions. Hutton's principal, uniformitarianism, allows us to estimate what happened to rocks long before humans were on Earth and can help us predict what may happen to Earth in the future.  T here are three types of rocks, igneous rocks, sedimentary rocks and metamorphic rocks. Igneous rocks form when molten material from under the Earth's surface cools and hardens.  Sedimentary rocks are made of sediments that were deposited and then pressed together to form a solid rock.   Metamorphic rock is an existing rock that has been changed by heat, pressure or chemical reactions. As well as t here are ways to tell a rocks age. There is the Relative age, and the Absolute age. The Relative age is when ...

Question : After wondering about how the size of a magnet affects the number of paperclips it can pick up, a group of students develops a procedure that answers their question. They gather data and report back to the class. The correct answer to this question is planning and carrying out investigations. This is because the students researched the topic they had in mind and developed a procedure to answer this question. My mindset when taking this question was that since they researched their question and reported it to the class, the S&EP was communicating information, which it wasn't. Question : Students at their tables read three articles about different communities that have instituted plans to conserve energy. They evaluate the information to create a plan for how their own community can conserve energy and share their plan during Student Exhibition Night. The correct answer to this question is Obtaining, evaluating and communicating information, th...

      The reason I decided to return to AdVENTURE is because AdVENTURE is a collaborative, entertaining, and engaging program that suits my needs. There was no reason to leave AdVENTURE as no other middle school programs offered these benefits and attributes. This program was very beneficial to my learning as it even helped me develop hobbies such as coding and video producing. This program made me try out new activities and pushed me to my work levels. This made me a much better and harder worker, which will help me in the future. The AdVENTURE program is a program that fits my learning preferences, and I can say many other peoples learn the same way. AdVENTURE is a school that works a lot in groups, which can help the overall product of your work. AdVENTURE is a school that is made in a way where students in a group projects have to all do a fair amount of work evenly or else the final product is not as good as it could be. Meaning, that you get so much work that it is...

Summary : The environmental accords are a series of rules or policies that make sure a city or possibly urban village is a safe, clean and sustainable place to live. The environmental accords are split up into 7 different categories: Energy, waste reduction, urban design, urban nature, transportation, environmental health, and water. Each policy is in charge of helping a direct result in the community. Such as policy 6, this policy makes sure that the city has a plan to remove waste, so all of it doesn't go to landfills. For example you could recycle or create a compost bin. By making sure people follow this rule, it can help reduce methane gases because less things that cause methane gas are being put in landfills. Over time, this can help the global warming crisis. S&EP: Communicating Information: As the final piece of the urban village project, we were put in charge of creating a poster type advertisement where we would choose three environmental accords a...

Summary : Let's review some things, the pH scale tells us how basic or acidic something is. The pH scale ranges from 0 to 14.  Acids have a pH ranging from 0 to 6.9. The lower the pH, the stronger the acid. An acid that has a pH of 6 is weak while an acid that has a pH of 1 is strong. Bases on the other hand have a pH ranging from 7.1 to 14. With bases however, the lower the pH, the weaker the base.  A base that has a pH of 8 is weak while one that has a pH of 13 is strong. So what's in between? Neutral substances have a pH of 7. The most known example would be water.  Acids have a sour taste, while bases have a slippery feel. Examples would be lemon juice and soap. Acids turn a litmus paper red and bases turn litmus paper blue. A litmus paper tests a pH of a substance. A cool thing to know as well is that it is better to drink acidic things (lemon juice) rather than basic things. Most basic things can be poisonous to humans (oven cleaner). S...

Summary :  The pH scale measures how acidic or basic a solution is, 14 being the most basic and 1 being the most acidic. Water is neutral meaning it is in the middle of the scale.  A base is high (14) on the pH scale because creates a lot of hydroxide ions when mixed with water. Bases are extremely bitter and a common example of a base would be soap. An acid creates a ton of hydrogen ions and is lower on the pH scale (1). If you have two beakers containing clear liquids, but one is an acidic and the other is a base how would you tell the difference. We would use a simple piece of litmus paper. Litmus dye is taken from lichen and put on paper. Adding acid to the mix would have red litmus that would be for testing bases and vise versa for testing acids. S&EP- Conducting Investigations: This week, the main event was experimenting with cabbage juice.  We added different solutions to test the pH level and see the differences between a base and an acid.  The ...

Summary: The Law of Conservation and Mass states that atoms cannot be created or destroyed. They can only be rearranged. Atoms are the building blocks for everything in the world. Compounds are two or more atoms that combine to make something new. A chemical reaction is when atoms come together or break apart to form new things. Extra atoms after a chemical reaction become waste to be used in another reaction. This is why we try to have as few atoms leftover as possible. Atom economy is the attempt to have as few atoms leftover from a reaction as possible. An experiment of burning sulfur proved the first theory of the The Law of Conservation and Mass. During this experiment the burned sulfur weighed less than it did before, but the air around it weighed more. Meaning that weight was transferred. S&EP-Conducting Investigations: You can tell that a chemical reaction occurred if gas was created, a change in temperature, and a change in color. There are t...

Summary : Balancing equations may sound difficult to do, but there are a few simple steps to follow that can make sure that you balance an equation correctly. First of all, you need to an equation to balance. Obviously you need an unbalanced equation to be able to balance it.  Next, you need to draw boxes around each and every compound. This is so that you do not touch or change the compounds. After that count the atoms. It may sound confusing, but all that means is look at the subscripts next to each atom to find the number of atoms in the equation. If there is no number after the element, then there is only 1. Then, write coefficients for each compound until both sides are equal. The biggest rule is you can NEVER EVER touch the subscripts, you can only add coefficients. Lastly, continue counting the atoms and adding coefficients until both the reactant and product side are equal. S&EP-Conducting Investigations : We conducted an investigation to determine what causes a p...

Summary :  An ionic bond is held together by the attraction between opposite charges.  An ionic bond forms between a metal and a nonmetal.  To form an ionic compound you need both a positive and negative ion.    A positive ion is an atom that has lost one or more electrons giving it a positive charge. A negative ion is an atom that has gained one or more electrons giving it a negative charge.  Metals have a tendency to lose electrons to form a positive ion, while non metals normally gain electrons to form a negative ion.  When you have a covalent bond you have two different atoms that share electrons because of potential energy. Covalent bonds are with two non metals.   In order to form a covalent bond both atoms need a strong enough attraction and they need the room for the electrons in their outer shell.  Ionic bonds are when electrons are transferred between atoms while covalent bonds share electrons. S&EP-Using Mathematics: When l...