Look at! Test it! Find it! Identification Minerals

Minerals Properties: 

Let me start with introducing what is the mineral. Since the definition of minerals are included to class lessons. Minerals are natural solid elements from the lithosphere. How do people identify the difference while most of them similar to each other. Yes, it is possible to do. Just need to know some properties of mineral such as steak, luster, fracture/cleavage, hardness, and composition.


Streak – is the color of the mineral.
Luster – is the feature of mineral that tells us metallic or nonmetallic.
Fracture/Cleavage – is the shape of the mineral, when try to break down into pieces. Fracture is when mineral is broken unevenly. Cleavage is when mineral is broken evenly.
Hardness – is to determine how mineral is hard. Glass plate will help to spot the hardness of mineral by rubbing to each other. If mineral is scratches the glass plate, so it's harder than 5.5. The hardness of glass plate is equal to 5.5. If it doesn't scratch, so the hardness is less then 5.5. This is simple way to determine the hardness. 
Composition– is chemical elements, which mineral is made up. For instance Si - silicon, O2 - oxygen - SiO2 is quartz. Si is composition of silicon. 

Those all characteristics will help to identify names of the mineral. The video below gives more clarity about mineral properties. Movie is made by high school students. Watch it and enjoy of the experiment.





Reflection:

1. What did you enjoy most about this project and why?
   I most enjoyed about this project was testing minerals. This project was awesome. During this project I learned new terminologies that contributed to make video later. Also the chart gave out that include some chemical made to get involve profound into this project. I liked chemistry and relevant things to it. 
2. What was most challenging for you during this project and why?
   Most challenging was for me during this project to find right program to work on my video. Such as I had computer with windows operation system where couldn't work on iMovie. I made some research of software that will help to make movie. But when I got done, the format didn't supported. Then I was looking for converter. Most programs weren't free. Therefore, I considered this part of the project is most challenging. 
3. What new skills did you learn from doing this project? 
   I learned a lot of new skills from doing this project. How to overcome the challenge I faced with format of my video. I gained new skills in new software. However, by teacher support it was easier to solve. The website she gave me help me to get embed of my video. I learned how to test characters of minerals and what feature row materials have. In addition, I learned the difference of features in camera. The flower made picture more clear. 
4. Is there anything that you could have done to improve any of your work?
   I think I did well and for it seemed there is not anything to improve. But next time I will attention more on time management. Because of this lack lead me to look for other programs. The class time was enough to finish project on time.

Shake Earth's Layers! Show our world!

Lithosphere Layer: Activities: Mini-Posters, Brainpop Video and Model. 
                                          Topics: Continental Drift, The Ring of Fire, Mountain Building, Volcanoes, Earthquake and Faults.

Mini-Posters: Continental drift: Alfred Wegener person who theory about continental drift. All continents were together in one giant continent called Pangaea. Evidence for this theory was the fossils, rocks and remains of animals. Same evidences found in different places.

The Ring of Fire: The Ring of Fire is the ring of active or dormant volcanoes. These volcanoes formed on convergent plate boundary. Convergent boundary happens when one tectonic plate goes under another continental or oceanic crust. The result of this process formed mountains and volcanoes.

Building mountains: Mountains building’s caused of tectonic movement. There are 4 types of mountains: folded, dome, fault-block and horst & Grabens. Folded Mountains formed by two tectonic plates pushing each others. Dome Mountains are formed from melted of rock from earth’s crust. Fault-Block Mountains are formed from blocks broken earth’s crust that moving up of down. Horst & Grabens Mountains are formed from increasing earth’s crust. Horst is mountain formed from block moving up. Grabens are mountain formed from block moving down.     

BrainPop: Volcanoes: Volcanoes are most dangerous thing when they activate with explosion. There are three types of volcanoes: Cinder core, Strato volcano and Shield volcanoes. Because the ash that came out close sun rays, turn to dark clouds. Explosion happens because gases collect in the earth mantle. The lava turns to sold position and has minerals called basalt and pumice. Shield volcano happens in most activity volcano and heat places. The Hawaii islands made up on hot spot place. There are two most activity shield volcanoes.  

Earthquake: Earthquake happens by moving plates, actually when they hit to each other or slide past one plate another. Earthquake can be so mild that people don’t feel. Sometimes so strong so can destroy entire buildings, roads. The machine people use to detect earthquake called seismograph. This machine draw waves and tells how can be strong earthquake. The active boundaries where plates meet are called faults. Activities on surface of land such as earthquakes, volcanoes, trenches and mountains depend on faults movement.

Model: Faults: Faults are the rocks in replace motion. This happens when to plates sliding each other then breaking. There are types of faults: normal, thrust and strike-slip. Normal Fault is when one of the rocks goes down because of extension of the Earth’s crust. Thrust Fault is when one rock moves up. Also this called reverse fault. Strike-slip happens when rock move to left or right side. These movements make earthquake on the Earth. The result of strike-slip can be very dangerous. If house located in the place where two rocks move to sides. House just can destroy. Examples provided according to Wikipedia resource thrust fault was found in the Qilian Shan, China. Based on platetectonics.com information,” Aside from Mid-Ocean Ridges, subduction zones, and collision zones, there are areas where the stretching or compression of plates causes slight fractures in the earth’s crust. These areas of crustal stress are called faults”. This is another definition of faults.


Asthenosphere Layer: Activities: Prediction Map and Demonstration Lab. 
                                                         Topics: Plate Boundaries and Plate Tectonics.

Prediction Map: Plate Boundaries: This activity helped to learn a lot about types of boundaries and effects of them. Transform boundary is slide pass each other. The effect is earthquake. Convergent boundary is when two tectonic plates come together. When oceanic-oceanic come together, trenches and islands create. When continental-continental is result of mountains. Divergent boundary is when two plates go away from each other. Ridges happen because of oceanic-oceanic plates, Rift-valley is caused of continental-continental going away.  Mantle Hot Spot is active volcanoes, at the end creates islands with active volcanoes.

Experiment: Convection Currents: This experiment showed how convection currents work. First step added food coloring, then it went down. Second step hot water and temperature changed the movement of food coloring. Added food coloring in second step went up, after temperature of water decrease food coloring slowly went down, once again reached hot spot moved up. The whole process presented how convection currents occur and move plates. At the end of this experiment, I learnt how convection currents work and the temperature moves the food coloring/mantle result of this circle, where happens movement of plates.


Mantle Layer: Activities: Narrative Video. 
                           Topic: Earth Interior.

Narrative Video: Earth’s Interior: The spheres above the land include: Lithosphere, Hydrosphere and Atmosphere. Lithosphere is the solid part of the Earth (sand, rock and mountains). Hydrosphere is liquid part, which is water layer (rain, oceans, snow, lakes,etc...). Atmosphere is the gas layer of the Earth. In many kilometers under the ground, from outside to inside there are Crust, Asthenosphere, Mantle, Outer Core, and Inner Core. Crust is the land with everything on it, another name is tectonic plate. There are two types of it oceanic (under the ocean) and continental. The oceanic plate is denser than the continental plate. Asthenosphere is layer between mantle and crust that consist melted rock, this is where the convection currents happen. Convection currents move the tectonic plates. The Mantle is the liquid part under the crust as known as magma. Lava comes out and makes new crust at a volcano.  The Outer Core is the liquid layer, consists of nickel and iron. The Inner core is the solid layer includes iron and nickel, this is the hottest layer.

Critical Thinking Question:
Do you agree with the theory of plate tectonics? Why or why not?

I agree with the theory of plate tectonics. Because at the beginning the landmass was Pangaea and now we have 7 continents. The Earth crust divided to pieces and the scientists proved it by learning the structure of land. Geologists concluded the all land were together then replaced and still moving. The effect of their movement people feel and see as earthquake, tsunami and volcanoes. In one words it is natural disaster. These evidences support the theory of plate tectonics.

Reflection:

• What did you enjoy most about this project and why?
  The most enjoyable part of this project is the Demonstration Lab. Because I had done a lot of labs but this one was unique. This experiment didn't require a lot of supplies. To do and presentation were easy and simple. 

• What was most challenging for you during this project and why?
  
  This project was interesting and very diverse, with so many different activities with different topics. The most challenging for me was the Narrative Video. The reason is collections right information took time but later bad happen all work has gone. I had challenge with time management but by support of my partner I did finish it on time. Thanks Ali! 
  
• What new skills did you learn from doing this project?
  
  From this project I gained my knowledge about Earth's interior and learnt new relevant terms in English that I didn't know.
  
• Is there anything that you could have done to improve any of your work?
  
  I don’t think, I have anything to improve. I did them well and want to keep them as it is.