We finished Chapter 11 today by considering fission in nuclear power plants and the structure of nuclear power plants, from the reactor core and control rods and the reactor vessel, to the containment building, how steam is generated, and then the usual turbine and generator. You should be able to describe the point of each of these structures. On Friday we saw the video linked below on the left from BBC has some nice features, but the explanation of how we get energy from fission misses the point and actually misunderstands the nature of bonding. Still, it's worth a view. The video on the right shows what goes on inside the nuclear reactor vessel where the fission is happening. Who would have thought such a pretty blue would indicate such a dangerous environment?! Assignment:
Fossil fuels, renewable energy resources, and nuclear energy will be the focus of this week.
Assignments:
Work began work in earnest on the mural we are making to illustrate the timeline of Earth's history as geologists have come to understand it. We will continue our work tomorrow as students illustrate the timeline for each period of time that we marked off today.
Homework:
Students worked in pairs to identify significant features of each geological period, era, and eon.
Assignment:
How do we know the ages of the rocks in which we find evidence of past life on Earth? One important tool for this is radioactive dating. So we introduced radioactivity today. We will be making a timeline for the hallway, an 11-meter-long sequence of Earth's history. Students will also be making travel brochures for each of the 11 geologic periods of the Phanerozoic era. More details about this will be noted next week.
We presented information about the Hadean and Archean eons, including evidence that there were blue-green algae even in the Hadean Eon. The variety of life on Earth grew through the Archean Eon and the following Proterozoic Eon. Then we enter the Phanerozoic Eon, the one we are now living in. It's beginning is marked by the Cambrian Explosion. Life became abundant, and in short order, geologically speaking.
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Earth ScienceMr. Swackhamer Archives
March 2020
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