What's Going On Here?

Calling all Biology students! Out by your butterfly garden, I noticed something happening that you are learning about in this week's chapter about plants.

Here is a plant in the genus Oxalis in the shade:

And here is the same kind of plant in the sun:

Can you tell me what is happening here?

The Garden that We Built

April 22 was Earth Day, and boy, did you guys do it up right! Thanks to the Three Rivers Foundation, you guys used your own hands to make SHS's very first butterfly garden! I am so proud of your attention to detail, the way you got in there and worked hard in the sun, and helped each other to do something good for your school. Now we have completed what is the first step to all kinds of cool projects - like tracking butterfly and hummingbird migrations, an eventual bigger garden, and even building a box turtle habitat. Good job!!!

And here's the result of your hard work! (Drumroll......)

Great work, guys!!

Chemistry: What Are Fossil Fuels?

This week in Chemistry, we are taking a little trip away from your text book and are going to study something out of ~Chapter X~.....

What's Chapter X, you ask? It's a chapter that I built myself so that you can learn a little more about hydrocarbons - how we get them, how we use them, and how they affect us. By the end of the chapter, you will know more about alternatives to using hydrocarbons also.

To start off, go to this link: What are fossil fuels?

Use the website that comes up to answer the questions on your class handout.

Let's Take A Walk

Spring is upon us - more or less. :) And depending on whether or not there are hurricane force winds outside, you may have gotten a chance to walk around outside some and notice a few things. If you are in Biology right now, you might start noticing some things we've been learning about in class. For example, on a shrub along the Brazos river, I saw this thing...What is it? What kingdom is it from?

You're right, I just asked you a trick question. This organism is actually from two kingdoms - it's part fungus and part algae - a symbiotic relationship known as a "lichen."

Not too far from the lichen, I saw this thing...

Whoa!! What is that?!!? The Blob? Maybe you need a bigger picture to figure it out...

Still don't know? Let's try an even bigger picture...

Those green blobs aren't blobs at all - they are algae. And if you go back to the first picture of "the blob," you'll see that it is using it's photosynthetic skills like the sun won't shine tomorrow. See all of those bubbles? What gas do you suppose is in them? To answer that question, you've got to think back to the chemical equation for photosynthesis:

Light + Water + Carbon dioxide --> Sugar + Oxygen

That's why algae can be good for water ecosystems. It is not only part of the food chain, but it oxygenates water for other organisms.

And even the Blob can't do that.