Term 4

Well, term 4 begins tomorrow. I have science lessons on Thursdays and Fridays if I'm not wrong. It's nice to know that the lab lessons are back. I've always enjoyed the hands-on experiments and the entire lab experience. I've always felt that having science lessons only twice a week is not enough. However, not much is being gone through during science and science is really one of those topics that you have to read and understand the content by yourself.

The End of Year Examinations is just about a month away. I'll be starting my revision for science as early as tomorrow and plan to revise for one topic every 2 or 3 days. I'm interested to see what the final science paper will be like, especially with Sexual Reproduction, as it was not covered in our tests at all. I think it's good that we're being given past year exam papers to attempt, as they always serve as a preview for what to expect. You also get to compare what are some of the common questions that are being asked and use these type of little details to your advantage.

I'm hoping for an overall A1 in science and I believe I have what it takes to achieve that grade!

We'll see!

The Wonders of Coffee

A witty and interesting article I found on some of the amazing benefits of coffee

http://www.cracked.com/blog/7-scientific-ways-coffee-gives-you-super-powers/

Some interesting parts:

Drinking coffee also helps you to run faster! Studies have shown that after drinking coffee, you take one second less to run 20m. This would help athletes too!

A study of over 120,000 people found that death by liver cirrhosis disease decreases with coffee intake! Drinking two or more cups of coffee daily could reduce the risk of chronic liver disease by half! That's a lot!

The cirrhosis study also revealed that the rate of suicide drops by 13 percent for every cup of coffee consumed daily.

In conclusion, drinking coffee has been scientifically proven to be good for us in many different ways. It's really incredible how much difference a cup of coffee can make! Like the article says, it's like drinking coffee gives you super powers! I couldn't agree more!

Science Test Results Term 3

This term's science test consisted of Lenses and Ecology. I found the questions in the test paper rather easy to answer with the exception of one or two. With that said, I was slightly disappointed when I found out that I had only scored 31/40. I guess I expected to score a little higher! Lenses was a rather easy topic to cover and it required practice to master. Ecology on the other hand, was a large topic, and thus there was a huge variety of questions that could be asked.

Nonetheless, I am satisfied that I scored an A1. I am most certainly sure that I will not be given an exemption for Science, so I'll have to work hard for the EOY exams. It will be difficult having to study for so many topics, let alone for one subject.

My aim is to score an A1 for the EOY Science paper and I will work hard to make sure that I achieve this result.

Music helps us learn better!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/3095807.stm

Music not only good for the ears, it has been proven to be good for the brain too!

It is believed that there are hundreds of benefits that music brings!

"You can activate different parts of the brain, depending on what music you listen to. So music can stimulate parts of the brain that are underactive in neurological diseases or a variety of emotional disorders". This is a huge discovery! Perhaps music can be used to help people with certain mental disorders or disabilities. That would make music a cure too!There has been CDs released that claim to benefit one's body upon listening to the songs included. Certain musical pieces can help to reduce blood pressure and pulse rate.

Personally, I listen to music very often. Sometimes, I listen to music to calm me down, and I've always wondered how it's able to do so. I never thought that listening to music actually had so many benefits! It's incredible! I'll definitely continue to listen to music more! This discovery has led me to wonder:"Does music cast negative effects on us too?"

Eyes take gossip to heart

http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/74498/title/Eyes_take_gossip_to_heart

They say that beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder. But did you know that it is actually ugliness that allows the beholder to see a face more easily?

What I mean is that people find it particularly easy to see the faces of individuals about whom they’ve heard nasty or unpleasant gossip.

Scientists have conducted experiments and it has been proven true!

It's no wonder that I remember all the naughty ones in my class a few years ago but completely forgot about the better behaved ones!

Science Experiments

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3szrdXqlbs

This answers the question I always had about how magicians could walk on glass barefooted and hardly get hurt! Well, the trick is that the glass used is sharp, but not sharp enough to pierce through our skin. There was a demonstration where the guy tried to pop the balloon using the glass, but the glass wasn't sharp enough to burst the balloon! It means that when magicians actually walk over glass, it's actually not that painful at all! I guess all it took was to convince onlookers that the magician was in pain, by putting up an act!

So there you go, a magician's trick revealed! All thanks to the wonders of Science.

Caution, Pollution!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/8617258/Pollution-can-lead-to-brain-damage-and-depression-warn-scientists.html

After reading the article, I've realised the importance of keeping our environment clean and green. We should always clear litter in bins and not dump them on streets. As we can see from the article, it has its consequences.

It is very interesting that they carried out experiments using mice to determine if pollution does lead to depression.

Do remember, prevention is better than cure!

OUCH!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4TljodZ3HY&feature=related

Term 2 Reflection

Well, Term 2 was a rather lengthy term. For Science, I'd say it was rather challenging. I have to admit, I've lost all interest in Science. It's too complicated.Maybe Science just isn't my thing...It took quite awhile for me to understand the more advanced bits on Light. Drawing ray diagrams was rather easy, well since it's not really that "scientific". Acids and bases for me was all just memory work... What fun is there in that....

I found the test rather hard and it showed in my results. Fortunately because of some changes, I got a grade of B3 instead of a B4. I'm not too pleased with my marks, because I know that in terms of the class average, it's one of the lower ones. But for someone who felt that homework was more important than studying for this test, a B3 is pretty damn good. I'll learn from my mistakes and I'll prepare for next term's material during the school holidays to get ahead.

I hope for at least an A2 in Science in Term 3. We'll see. (I still don't see how I'm gonna apply what I learn in 10 years time. I'm not going to be a scientist)

Olive Oil

We know that olive oil has lots of uses, for food, and even for the body. We apply it on our skin but what I was surprised to find was that it was used somewhat as a conditioner for hair. This surprised me as I thought, "Wouldn't my hair become so greasy and oily? How's this treament going to work???"

Well, it is a rather easy treatment and you can try it out at home. Instead of spending on expensive shampoo and conditioners, who knew that you could count on something that you so often find in your kitchen!

It is believed that extra virgin olive oil is the preferred choice of oil, but any olive oil made in Italy or Greece should be fine.

Firstly, you have to heat the olive oil in the microwave until it's warm, but not too hot! You wouldn't want to burn your scalp! You'll have to move the oil through your hair with your fingers, spreading it evenly to the tips of your hair. After you've done that, you can comb your hair before putting on a shower cap. Leave the olive oil on your hair for at least half an hour. Many people actually leave it on their hair overnight! They wash it off only in the morning. Well, it would depend on how dry or frizzy your hair is.

After you've waited it out long enough, you can wash the olive oil off with your shampoo. It's going to take more than 1 wash for you to get all that oil out. Remember to make sure no oil is left on the hair. You do not have to condition your hair, because obviously it's going to be so silky smooth and soft already.

When you towel dry your hair you'll finally be able to see the effects of the olive oil. Many have said it works amazing and makes your hair unbelievably smooth! Ladies, you might want to try this treatment out! I'll definitely be recommending this to my mum! Do leave a comment if you have any queries and I'll try my best to answer them! I'm no hair expert though..

Interesting Discovery!

The most interesting result of the recent NASA's mission was the discovery of the smallest planet outside our solar system, named Kepler-10b. This planet has 1.4 times the size of our planet, and it is the first rocky planet discovered outside our solar system.

The planet outside our solar system are called exoplanets, and this exoplanet was found after eight months of collecting data by the spacecraft, in period from May 2009 to early January 2010.

This is the first discovered rocky planet orbiting a star other than our sun, and this will certainly give more credibility to NASA+s attempts to find the Earth-size planets in or near the habitable zone, the region in a planetary system where liquid water can exist on the planet's surface.

If we were to compare some of this planet's properties with planets in out own solar system then Kepler-10b is more than 20 times closer to its star than Mercury is to our sun and thus not in the habitable zone.


I feel that it is remarkable for NASA to have discovered a new planet! Hopefully they will continue to experiment if it will be possible for humans to survive on it.

Science Test Results

I got 35/40, which I am really proud of. Although they were many others who scored slightly higher marks than myself, I feel that getting 35 is already incredible. I admit that I was expecting an A1 for Science as I found the paper rather easy. I lost only 1 mark in MCQ and the rest of the marks I lost were due to the questions on equations. I have now gained a better understanding of word and chemical equations.

I hope to keep up the good results next term.

The next topic we'll be learning is acids and bases. As this is the first time I am studying this topic, I am still unclear of certain parts. I hope to have a better understanding of the topic after more explanation is given and I practice more.

Science Test

We have had our Science Test for Term 1. The MCQ questions were rather tricky but the open ended ones were rather straightforward. I hope to get an A1 for Science and can't wait to see my marks this coming Thursday!

Ionic Bonding, Covalent Bonding

We have moved on to learn about chemical bonding. I will be posting more about the types of chemical bonds in another post. For this post, I'll only be explaining the reasons why atoms bond.

Atoms bond because they want to achieve the electronic configuration of a noble gas.

Noble gases are monoatomic as their valence shells are fully occupied by electrons. This makes noble gases stable and they no longer require undergoing bonding with other atoms.

Atoms bond either by transfering electrons or sharing electrons with those of other atoms.

When the 1st shell is fully occupied(2 electrons), you will have a duplet structure.
When the rest of the shells are fully occupied, you have what we call an octet structure.

Electronic Configuration

Protons and neutrons can be found in the nucleus of an atom. However, electrons are arranged differently, as you can see from here:

The e-s represent electrons. The 1st shell of an atom, the shell closest to the nucleus, can only contain a maximum of 2 electrons. The 2nd, 3rd and 4th shell however, can contain up to a maximum of 8 electrons each.

The electronic configuration of an element is somewhat a representation of the diagram using numbers and dots.

For example, when an atom has 8 electrons, the electronic configuration will be 2.6 .
When an atom has 20 electrons, the electronic configuration will be 2.8.8.2 .

The image I inserted is knwon as an electronic structure.

Ions

An atom becomes an ion when it gains or loses electrons.

Atomic Structure

Atoms are the smallest units of an element. The atoms of a certain element are different from those of another element.

The atom is made up of 3 subatomic particles : Proton, Neutron, Electron

A proton is positively charged (1+)
An electron is negatively charged (1-)
A neutron is neutral (0)

More about protons:

The number of protons in an atom is known as "proton number". The proton number can be found in the periodic table. It is the number found at the bottom of the element symbol. Another term used for proton number is "atomic number". They both mean the same thing.

Nucleon number:
Nucleon numbers are the sum of the number of protons and neutrons. Nucleon number is also known as "mass number".
*Note! : Nucleon and neutron are different!!!!

Electrons
The number of electrons is the same as the number of protons in an atom. Electrons can be gained or lost.

When an atom loses one or more electrons, it becomes a positively charged (1+) particle, otherwise known as cation.
When an atom gains one or more electrons, it becomes a negatively charged (1-) particle, otherwise known as anion.
*Note: This is because the number of protons and electrons are no longer evenly balanced. Remember that a proton is positively charged while an electron is negatively charged.

Introduction

Hi there, I'll be using this platform for my Science E-Portfolio. I'll be posting about things I've learnt in class as well as reflections or interesting science articles. Hope you enjoy your time here!

Feel free to leave your comments!