Mr. Ardito’s Classes

71 responses so far ↓

• 1    thecoolestkid // May 4, 2007 at 11:11 am

  On Jupiter’s red spot there are 340 mph winds and lightening storms. On Venus the temperature is 890 degrees farenhight. On Neptune there are 900mph winds that make earths hurricanes look dumb.
  The USA has sent probes to Jupiter, Saturn’s moon and Venus. Scientists believe that some day earth will be like other planets.

• 2    White Ivy // May 4, 2007 at 11:17 am

  Planet Mercury Has Molten Core, NASA Researchers Find
  This article can be found at http://www.sciencedaily.com
  This article explains how scientists found out that Mercury might have a molten core. Planets with molten cores have magnetic fields, and planets that have solid cores do not. Usually smaller planets have solid cores because they take less time to cool off after they have been formed. For years, scientists figured that Mercury had a solid core because of its size. But when a spacecraft approached Mercury three times in 1974 and 1975, it sensed a small magnetic field. Since then, scientists have done more research and collected more data using echoes from very strong antennas. They found that Mercury had small variations within its orbit which proves the idea that the core or outer core is not forced to rotate along with the outside.
  I chose this article as one that was difficult to read because I knew I would find it kind of boring. I usually have a small attention span unless I’m very interested in what I’m listening to; reading; watching; etc. As I predicted, I forced myself to sit down with the article and read it. I wasn’t sure I was paying that much attention the first time I read it, so I read it two other times. The article got a bit more interesting after a started to understand it. On my third read I noticed a couple run-on sentences and a few typos. The article had some words that I didn’t know, but after reading the article over I could find out that some of them were. If not, I looked them up. There really weren’t that many, so my main problem was paying attention long enough to get information out of the article.

• 3    101kid.com // May 4, 2007 at 12:13 pm

  I got this article form the New York Times, Tuesday may 1, 2007 Science Times page f1

  This article is about coral dying. Now we see 2-4 inch coral around but a few years back 3-4 feet stoke grew every where. But there all dying of diseases like white band where the coral withers away till its bones. Another thing is global warming because the water is to acidic so the coral is literally dissolving and it made the much needed algae die too. But a really big thing is over fishing because there is less fish to eat thing like coral eating slugs. BUT there is good news, two men and 1 women or on the job. 1men is a coral seller but when he found out that he cod grow back the coral to full size 3-4 feet for 2-4 inches he started to grow a reef of his own in the see in hopes that it will grow to till it’s were it’s supposed to be.

  I think that this article is really informative and it will tell you what ever you need to know on coral as well as how to help save coral. Although it’s very long and at the end it doesn’t end but it’s good

• 4    Alphabetsoup // May 4, 2007 at 3:27 pm

  Astronimers dont know if life exicts on other planets. But if it does they
  know the planet will have wate, because is the essential to life. The planet isn’t in our
  solar system, so it is called an extrasolar planet. It orbits a star called Gliese 581,
  which is about 116 trillion miles from Earth. Astronomers have found other extrasolar planets
  but none seem to have life on it. Most are giant balls of gas. Others are close to their stars that
  water on them would boil away; some are so far that the water would feeze. The new planet is too
  small to be seen by a telescopes or to take a picture of it. But astronomers have figured out that like earth,
  it has a solid surface. It is located a perfect distance from a star that the water is neither to hot nor to cold.
  Because they couldn’t see the planet, astronomers led by Stephane Udry of the Geneva Observatory, in Switzerland,
  looked to the star for clues. They studied Gliese 581 to see whether it was “wobbling.” The weak gravitational pull of
  a planet orbiting a star can cause the star to move back and forth. The astronomers’ measurements revealed a lot about
  the new planet. For example, it’s about five times as heavy as Earth, and it orbits its star every 13 days.

  I thought this article was very inetersting because i told alot about other galaxys.

• 5    Rorofosho // May 5, 2007 at 10:48 am

  I read the article “To Treat the Dead,” by Jerry Adler. I found this article unintentionally when I went on the internet a few days ago. When I found it, it really interested me because I’ve never heard of the topic it was about. The article was about a new theory in saving people from heart attacks. The doctors researching this topic are asking questions such as “what parts of the body are dead?” and “How long until the cells are dead?” Because it’s a heart-attack, there is no loss of blood, and the internal organs are still intact. The only damage is that the heart has stopped beating and the brain is shut down. A doctor named Sherwin Nuland wrote a book on the topic in 1993, stating “it was his cells that had died. The patient couldn’t be revived because the tissues of his brain and heart had suffered irreversible damage from lack of oxygen.” Dr. Lance Becker is studying the same topic as Dr. Nuland and did a test to see if the cells actually had died. He ended up with an answer that amazed him, “we couldn’t see evidence the cells had died,” he said. This opened up a lot more for doctors in the field of resuscitation- to revive someone from, in this case, death. If Dr. Becker, and many other doctors with the same theory are correct, the typical emergency procedure was completely wrong. The way Dr. Becker sees it, doctors should reduce the patient’s oxygen intake, slow their metabolism, and adjust the blood chemistry. Dr. Becker has many more ideas to help revive patients with a heart attack such as lowering their body temperature, and they seem to be working. In a test 80% of patients were saved with Becker’s techniques, while only 15% were saved using traditional techniques.

  I really enjoyed the article I read, although it was a bit challenging. A lot of words in the article were medical terms that I didn’t ever hear of. I could have asked a family member, because many of them work in hospitals or are doctors, but I decided that I could still understand the article without knowing the terminology. For words that I did need to know I went to “dictionary.com,” and looked up the words there. I liked the article because it was not a topic that I have ever read before, and it interests me how all these years trying to save people we have been using the wrong methods. I liked Jerry Adlers’ style of writing because it he put a lot of information into a not-so-big article, which was still pretty detailed. He used a lot of quotes, which is also very good because that way you know what the experts are saying. I would definitely read more of his articles if I could find them.

  You can find the article at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18368186/site/newsweek?GT1=9951

• 6    PinkButterfly397 // May 5, 2007 at 4:48 pm

  How Darwin Relates to Today!!!!!!!

  The Article I read was called A Split Emerges as Conservatives Discuss Darwin, by Patricia Cohen. It was published May 5, 2007. It is from the New York Times website, http://www.nytimes.com.
  This article is about a group of ten republicans debating whether Darwin’s theory is correct or not. Three of the republicans candidates indicated that they believed that a “intelligent power could have created” the world. In some of the conversations that they were having they said that “accepting Darwin’s [theory] undercuts religious faith and produces an amoral materialistic world view that easily embraces abortion.”
  Reading this article it put many questions in my mind. Like how people are worrying about this in the government. One interesting point that came up in the article was about natural selection it said that it could provide many conversation idea’s like “traditional social roles for men and women and government checks and balances.” This really amazed me that thing we are learning in science are coming up in politics. Another thing that stood out to me was all the books that they recognized in the article supporting Darwin’s theory and not supporting it. How people devote there lives to writing books about this one mans theory.
  I tried to make this time more difficult for me I choose a harder article but I think that the article I choose was maybe too difficult for me. I did not understand many of the words but I got the point of the article and at least I tried. I usually do articles about new inventions, animals, and the environment. I also tried to relate to the article more and point out parts of the article that made me ask questions and interested me.

• 7    volleyball chick 4 lifee // May 6, 2007 at 2:49 pm

  The article I chose is about a gene that is said to “boost lifespan,” or the “quality of life”. It is by Marlowe Hood (posted on May 3rd, 11:41 A.M.) It is a seed magazine article from http://www.seedmagazine.com/news/2007/05/scientists_identify_gene_that.php.

  In the article Marlowe tells you that for the first time, scientists have identified a gene (PHA-4) that seems to be involved in prolonging life. This article also explains that there are “two major ways to prolong life”. Those two ways are: decreasing the “sensitivity at the cellular level to insulin”, and dietary restriction.

  The first way (decreasing the sensitivity at the cellular level to insulin) has been tested on mice and proved effective; the mice lived twice as long they should have. But it has also created a few negative side-effects such as stunted growth and reproductive malfunctions.

  The second way (dietary restrictions) is also said to do the same thing. “If you give an animal 70% of its normal intake, it will live 20 to 30 percent longer” explains the biologist Hugo Aguilaniu in the article. In a human being, that could add 15 to 20 years onto your life.

  One thing that got me interested in the article was the experiment they performed. Scientists fed worms a bacteria mixed with a genetic material that “switched off” the gene that helps prolong life (PHA-4). As they expected, the worms did not have a longer lifespan when put on a diet. This proved that the gene they discovered really does have something to do with prolonging life.

  The thing I really liked about this article is that it has more sophisticated language compared to other articles I have read. This assignment led me to read a more challenging article, and I ended up liking this article the most. The only thing I didn’t like about it is that sometimes I didn’t understand what Marlowe Hood was talking about. I had to use quotes when explaining it because I didn’t always know how to convert the sentences in the article into my own words.

• 8    DARLiNGPiNK! // May 6, 2007 at 3:45 pm

  Weekly Science Report

  Article Name: Codon Spell Check
  Author: Christine Soares
  Where it can be found: May 2007 Issue of Scientific American

  This article is about how slight changes in the sequencing of codons that shouldn’t effect the protein at the end, are having great influence on the end product after all. Scientists studied a gene called MDR1 (named for multiple drug resistance in tumor cells) and looked at the mutations called single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in that gene. They saw that come of the mutations did not effect the amino acid sequence, so they automatically assumed that the mutations would have no effect on the end protein. Wrong. Researchers at the National Cancer Institute (NCI) found that that small difference in that sequence can change that human protein into two very different shapes (in class Mr. Ardito said that it’s not only the order of the amino acids that effect the end protein, but the shape that the chain makes). The changes in that protein effect the way patients handle chemotherapy.
  To figure that out the researches focused on three SNPs (a.k.a. mutations) and injected versions of MDR1 with those mutations into human and monkey cells. MDR1 codes for a cell membrane pump that is called a P-glycoprotein, which is a protein that effects how chemotherapies are received by the cells. The researchers found that one of the SNPs reduced function in those cells and produced oddly shaped P-glycoprotein. The protein was also produced more slowly than other cells. They also found that that mutation contained a less common codon, which slowed the assembly of the protein, and then the protein did not fold correctly.
  This article was incredibly difficult for me to read. The article used more scientific terms in it, which was something I was not used to. I kept a dictionary close by while I was reading it and I also asked my mom for some help with the medical terms. I also broke down some of the terms into their base words to help me. Despite my difficulty, I really enjoyed reading the article and found it stimulating. I had a feeling of satisfaction once I finally understood the article. I think my only complaint about the article would be is that some paragraphs were about differences in codons in general terms, while others were specifically about the way the difference in codons effected that one protein and the way that chemotherapy works on other patients.
  Overall, I’m glad I chose this as my last article to write about because it was fun, interesting, and challenging!

• 9    Maniac Leprechaun // May 6, 2007 at 3:48 pm

  Weekly Science Article Report
  My article can be found at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A19661-2005Jan19.html
  First, a brief explanation. The article I have chosen may not seem like a science article at all. I am going to focus on the science of the human mind in my report, mostly the bombers involved in the article.

  Re-Tell: Multiple car bombs explode every day in civilian areas in Baghdad, killing and wounding many innocent civilians, police officers, and troops. Assassinations on US forces are numerous, as well as hostage situations. The violence gets worse everyday, with no regard of the victim’s position, infant, child, adult or senior. Many are killed everyday, and the under-funded hospitals are over-loaded. Terrorist groups believe that their path is the only path, and killing is the only way.

  Response: The bombers in this article are of course, considered ‘evil’ by the majority of people who hear about them. But, the men who are doing it believe that what they are doing is completely right. How is this possible, is what we all wonder. But the minds of these men are hard wired for this kind of stuff. Since birth, most of them have grown up in abusive house-holds, quite usually with no father, and over-worked abusing mothers. Usually, at least one person they know is killed per month, if not per week. It has a brutal effect on the mind of course. Being surrounded by violence during all their lives, the bombers blend right into it. When they reach adult-hood their mind has been completely filled with the thought of getting revenge on those who killed the people they knew as a child. The mind takes in it’s surroundings. We, being raised in America, and even beyond that, in a small out-of-the-way suburb, violence is completely alien to us, unless you want to include recess scuffles. The things that these men do is taken in by our brains, and is almost immediately analyzed as ‘evil’ because the slaughter of innocent people is generally considered an ‘evil’ thing. But, think if you were raised the way the bombers were. Your brain, no matter how it is now, would be subject to all the same things the bomber’s were. Meaning, you take in the violence around you, and analyze it as a way of life. The human brain is a delicate thing, subject to many attacks and changes, mostly dependent on your environment. If the bombers were raised as we are, I seriously doubt they would drive a truck into the middle of town and blow themselves up, taking down at least 15 people with them. After processing all the information in your environment, your brain ‘puts it on file’ and changes your opinions and views to match how you feel about things. So, if news that your brother or father getting shot by a rivaling nation was not to be un-expected, how do you think your mind would change to suit your feelings?

• 10    flyinggecko101 // May 6, 2007 at 4:16 pm

  I decided that to challange my self I would do 2 articals. Because 2 is better than 1.

  As the Climate Changes, Bits of England’s Coast Crumble
  http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/04/world/europe/04erode.html?ref=science
  BY: ELISABETH ROSENTHAL

  This article if probably one of the most motivating articles I’ve read. The east part of Britain in the town of Benacre, a farmer named Roger Middleditch lost 20 out of the 23 acres of farmland he owned from erosion. This is one of the effects of global warming. As the water level increased the land near his farm began to soften causing the land to collapse. All around the area, land is disappearing and the area of East Anglia is disappearing. Every year, 30 square feet of land in Roger Middleditch’s estate disappear. Studies say that in thirty years 2,000 islands in Indonesia will disappear due to rising water. Many farmers are devastated by these statistics and in certain areas they passed laws that will help many desperate farmers all over the world.
  This article is evidence that if we don’t do something soon some major areas in the world that are near the coast will be lost by rising waters. Roger and thousands of other farmers are losing crop fields from things like this happening year round. All over the globe advertising agencies are trying to show how easy it is to change the world but some people just won’t pay attention to these ads. All though this article is focused on erosion, things like arctic species dieing and land animals being pushed from there homes are destroying how human society lives.

  Bones of prehistoric camel found at Wal-Mart site
  http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/science/04/28/prehistoric.camel.ap/index.html

  One morning in Phoenix, Arizona many workers continue to dig an area away for a new Wal-mart when they come across large bones. The bones turn out to be a preserved 10,000 year old camel. Arizona State University museum curator Brad Archer examines the bones and says to a local newspaper “There’s no question that this is a camel; these creatures walked the land here until about 8,000 years ago, when the same event that wiped out a great deal of mammal life took place” Brad also points out that he has seen mammoths and horses but never camels.
  This article seemed really funny to me because the last thing you would think to find prehistoric bones is at a future Wal-mart site. This shows that there can be fossils hidden anywhere. Also prehistoric artifacts always interested me because there are so many different kinds of animals in present time and it is interesting to find out similarities between them.

• 11    gia beth // May 6, 2007 at 7:49 pm

  The article I read was called “Out There” written by Richard Panek. I found it in the New York Times Magazine from 3-11-07.

  A few groups of physicists from around the world are trying to prove that what they call ‘Dark Matter’ and ‘Dark Energy’ really exist. They started researching in the 1960s and are beginning to give up because they are not something we can sense in any way. They have one more test –the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in Europe –that they hope will prove that dark matter and dark energy exist. They’ve spent a lot of time and money on research, and are feeling that this could take 10, 50,100 years, or even forever.
  Dark matter is the kind of matter that doesn’t make up the planets and galaxies or us. It is the kind of matter that takes up the other 96 percent of the universe. Dark energy is the antigravitational force that seems to be speeding up the expansion rate of the universe. They say ‘dark’ as in unknown.

  I think these physicists are spending too much time and money on trying to find dark matter and dark energy. They could, more usefully, be using that time and money to try to help with more important issues like global warming. The world is feeling the effects of global warming now and physicists aren’t exactly sure that dark matter and dark energy actually exist.
  This article was really long and many parts of it were highly confusing.

• 12    mrardito // May 6, 2007 at 8:12 pm

  To the class,
  I noticed that some of you did not include in your reflection anything about what you did to understanding difficult material. Please add this if you have not already done so.

• 13    Maniac Leprechaun // May 7, 2007 at 10:20 am

  What I did to understand the difficult material in my article was to read it a few times through and go over each paragraph in my head. The article itself was not very difficult, but it was hard to turn a social studies article into a science.

• 14    the coolest kid // May 7, 2007 at 11:15 am

  alphebetsoup: I really liked your article. I liked it because I learned that nasa is sending probes to stars and I find that very intresting.

• 15    the coolest kid // May 7, 2007 at 11:25 am

  Darlingpink: I really liked your article. I liked it because it taught me about the mdr1 codes.

• 16    louisk993@optonline.net // May 7, 2007 at 11:32 am

  manic unicorn: I liked your article. I liked your article because it made me feel bad about the people in iraq.

• 17    high school never ends // May 7, 2007 at 11:41 am

  Hundreds of Rare Golden Frog Tadpoles Have Been Hatched
  http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/05/070502160403.htm

  In a hotel at El Valle people are making a new discovery about some gold fish. This experiment is making people think will there be a new Noah arcs. Principal investigator Edgardo Griffith, STRI visiting scientist from Southern Illinois University and research assistant Heidi Ross were surprised at the event “We didn’t expect that the conditions for reproduction were already there.”

  I thought this article was very good it kept the reader wanting more and more until they give you the whole story. The writer is also very informing on the story he gives you.

  It helped me to reflect because it was very hard to understand but I understand it because I learned some things when I was reading the story.

• 18    high school never ends // May 7, 2007 at 11:43 am

  Hundreds of Rare Golden Frog Tadpoles Have Been Hatched
  http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/05/070502160403.htm

  In a hotel at El Valle people are making a new discovery about some gold frogs*. This experiment is making people think will there be a new Noah arcs. Principal investigator Edgardo Griffith, STRI visiting scientist from Southern Illinois University and research assistant Heidi Ross were surprised at the event “We didn’t expect that the conditions for reproduction were already there.”

  I thought this article was very good it kept the reader wanting more and more until they give you the whole story. The writer is also very informing on the story he gives you.

  It helped me to reflect because it was very hard to understand but I understand it because I learned some things when I was reading the story.

  mistake from original *

• 19    Earthchild // May 7, 2007 at 11:48 am

  for coolkid

  umm, like you weren’t supposed to before? theyare suffering from suicide bombings and a war. some of the soldiers in our troops are abusing the civilians and some civilians are being abused by terrorists. Also, they are in a revolution of their government, which is unstable. The country is divided into 3 tribes and each tribe dislikes the other one. The power of each tribe will change rapidly as to who controls the government. The non existant political power of the president is just that.

• 20    january g man // May 7, 2007 at 11:52 am

  I found my article at http://www.firstscience.com/home/articles/origins/the-biggest-extinction-on-earth_18172.html
  This article is about the earth and its past. In the past there have been several extinctions of creatures. The most severe one happened before the dinosaurs even inhabited the earth. It happened in the Permian era, and left nearly no creature alive. Under Siberia, there is over 200 thousand square miles of lava. This is known as the biggest volcanic eruption in the history of the earth. I chose this article because there were words that I didn’t understand and had to look up. I think that this article was the perfect end of the year article

• 21    spygirl93 // May 7, 2007 at 4:08 pm

  My article talks about how the core of mercury isn’t as hard as most scientist thought it was. they said that the planet closest to the sun should have hardened long ago. They did an experiment to find out why it wasn’t hard and found that there was sulfur in it. Sulfur is a much smaller type of medal. Because of all the small particles in it, the hardening of mecury’s core slowed down.

  I found this article to be a little hard. I think some strategies that I used were just to look back at the article if I didn’t get anything. Some of the time I just skip words that I don’t know but I think that asking people is a lot better than just skipping it. I think that the scientists were very smart to actually question things that they were not sure about. I think that that is what everyone has to do in science class.

• 22    PinkButterfly397 // May 7, 2007 at 5:03 pm

  White Ivory– Godd job on saying how it was difficult for you to read it the first time so you had to keep reading it over.

• 23    PinkButterfly397 // May 7, 2007 at 5:05 pm

  volley ball chick 4 life–I like how you said you picked a article that was harder for you but you liked it better. I also liked how you used quotes

• 24    PinkButterfly397 // May 7, 2007 at 5:08 pm

  ManiacLepercon-I found it very clever how u changed the social studies article into a science article.

• 25    White Ivy // May 7, 2007 at 6:05 pm

  This is a continuation of my report from all the way at the top. To understand my article, I had to keep myself in my room with the desk light on and the music off. I always have music on, and my mom has been getting frusturated lately, saying that I won’t get any work done when it’s on. I made sure that everything in my room was quiet, even though my mom was blasting some sort of Reggae-sounding music. I made sure that my desk was organized and clean. I layed out my article which I had printed out, and began to read. Like I said before, I had to read it couple of times to really get it. That’s another thing that helps me to understand. When you read things over, you soak in more information.

• 26    White Ivy // May 7, 2007 at 6:13 pm

  DARLiNGPiNK!- You were lucky to have your mom there to answer some of your questions! I like how you mentioned that you broke down some words to their base words. That’s an interesting and handy technique.

• 27    White Ivy // May 7, 2007 at 6:17 pm

  volleyball chick 4 lifee- I almost never use quotes in my reports. I always get so frusturated when I don’t know how to explain something. Maybe I will start using this tactic!

• 28    Lola // May 7, 2007 at 6:17 pm

  Science Article

  For my science article, I chose an article called “Beautiful Stranger: Saturn’s Mysteries Come to Light.” It was by Bill Douthitt, and I found it in National Geographic.

  Ever since 1656, when the Dutch astronomer Christiaan Huygens recognized what Saturn’s rings were, astronomers have spotted smaller moons, about 56. Now scientists have sent out a 22 feet tall metal cylinder called the Cassini-Huygens. It is a space shuttle developed by NASA, the European Space Agency, and the Italian Space Agency. They released it to Saturn in 1997 and had arrived back on June 30, 2004.

  Saturn can hold more than 700 earths, yet the planet is lighter than water because it is made up of hydrogen. Yet if it were dropped into water, it would float! 4.6 billion years ago particles in outer space began to cling on to a disk shaped cloud of dust and gas. Soon gravity took over and created this gas and particles into lumps of iron and rock. This seed grew into Saturn. Over time, it soon attracted clouds of hydrogen gas which settled around the core enlarging Saturn’s mass even more.

  The main rings of Saturn span about 165, 000 miles, but the thicknesses of these rings are only 150 feet. The Cassini spotted evidence of miniature moons in the outer most layer of rings, called the gauzy A ring. Scientists are trying to discover all of the mysteries of the moons Saturn has. Like what is potato shaped mass 215 miles long?

  The Cassini was able to take about 7,000 pictures of one of Saturn’s moons with the acceptation of losing 350 pictures due to a glitch when it landed. They concluded that titan has much methane below its crust. Some of the methane comes back to the surface and the methane molecules become more complex, therefore creating a toxic sleet. Titan also has dunes of hydrocarbon sand over 300 feet high for hundreds of miles. It is mainly made out of nitrogen, from this fact scientists realized that only certain forms of life may be able to live of titan. Not everything can live there because of the cold, but some life forms are still a step closer into the future.

  This article was challenging for me because before I read this I didn’t even have any general information about Saturn except that it is a planet, has rings, and moons. Reading this at first gave me so much information to sort out in my head that it was confusing. I needed to go slowly and step by step organizing all the news things. It was also about 13 pages long, with words and terms that I had never heard of. This article was definitely not kid-friendly or easy at all means to write a report on.

  I think that this article was really factual and interesting. My mother’s friend is always telling me things about Saturn because she is an astrophysicist. I never really understood what she was talking about until I read this article. To me the coolest part was learning about the rings. Each ring has its own name and probably does something to help out space or the planet. I also liked knowing the fact that some life forms may have the ability to live on Saturn. In the future there will definitely be things that we cannot imagine now. One of them could be life of Saturn.

• 29    Lola // May 7, 2007 at 6:19 pm

  I decided that I would post my article in the right place this time!

• 30    White Ivy // May 7, 2007 at 6:22 pm

  Spygirl93- I agree with you on your opinion of strategies. It is always better to ask someone something instead of pretending it’s not there. I think we might have read the same article, but have different views of it. But we both had to look back in the article to read things over that we didn’t understand!

• 31    Lola // May 7, 2007 at 6:26 pm

  How I learn Difficult Material

  When one of my teachers begins to explain a completely different unit, I am most likely lost and confused. Some ways that I can cope with this feeling are reveiwing independently with my notes, and class games. When I look over my notes from the previous classes, I tend to understand and feel more confident about what I am learning. Class games (review) and stuff really helps too. I think everyone can remember the prblem we had with genetics - HUMANS HAVE 46 CHROMOSOMES - and now I don’t think I could ever forget that. Once I begin to hear the material over and over in class, it becomes easier to understnad and I know it better. When we have to become “experts” on certain things, that works too.

• 32    Lola // May 7, 2007 at 6:30 pm

  This comment is for January g man:

  You’re article sounded really cool and interesting. But it doesn’t really sound like this was the hardest one you have ever done. Maybe if you put a little more information in it it would be better. Good job anyway!

• 33    Maniac Leprechaun // May 7, 2007 at 6:34 pm

  This comment if for lola
  Wow somebody has done their research! You have all of the facts, laid out nice and plain to see, with dates, names and everything! It’s amazing how something as big as Saturn is so light! Don’t you just wish you had a big, god-like playing field, where you could make anything happen? One of the first things I know I’d do is see what happens when an (empty) skyscraper falls from over a mile high (onto a deserted concrete field) That Saturn floating theory could be tested too. End Being Sidetracked. Great job picking a good article. Well done!

• 34    lola // May 7, 2007 at 6:36 pm

  This comment is for Alphabet Soup:

  Heyyy!! My article was about planets and life on saturn as well! How cool is that! Anyway, i thought your article was really well written but you forgot some information. Where you found the article and who wrote it and what the title is. Overall you did a good job.

• 35    Maniac Leprechaun // May 7, 2007 at 6:37 pm

  This comment is for rorofosho
  That’s truly amazing! If someone could be revived from a heart attack, it would be almost god-like. I just hope that something like this causes people to increase their life-spans past what is good for them, and they let it go at the right time. But to save a young person from a heart attack, or someone not so old that it would leave them scarred, would be truly amazing! Well done Mr. RoRo!

• 36    Maniac Leprechaun // May 7, 2007 at 6:40 pm

  This comment is for gia beth
  That’s kind of creepy, how much dark matter there seems to be, and yet it’s still un-proven. I still don’t entirely get what dark matter really is. Is it, gas, or air, or something? It’s very mysterious, and slightly creepy. I hope it’s not bad, because if it is, there’s a ton of it to go around.

• 37    lola // May 7, 2007 at 6:41 pm

  Thia comment is for

• 38    lola // May 7, 2007 at 6:56 pm

  white ivy: heeey!!! we too both wrote about planets. the way your repot was written was perfectly clear and understandable. it was also really interesting to me. great job!

• 39    green // May 7, 2007 at 8:25 pm

  Coral is dying . Can it be reborn?
  Cornelia Dean

  this article is about how coral is starting to die off. People like Mr. Nedimyer have been planting coral under water all over the ocean in an attempt to restore some great reefs that used to exist. Certain types of corals that used to be all over the place in the caribbean have been dying out since the 1990s and were recently put on the endangered species list. There are many reasons for the dying out of these corals. Boats and pollution are some. They even say that coral is killed by sea turtles that bump into them. Global warming has a big effect on these corals in two different ways. Because of the greenhouse effect, there is more carbon dioxide in the air which makes oceans more acidic. The acid makes it harder for coral to grow and sometimes causes the coral to dissolve. The other reason is that global warming makes ocean water warmer which kills off algae and in turn kills off coral because coral lives off of algae. Then there is fishing. Coral depends on fish to keep unwanted algae under control. When too many fish are gone due to over fishing, certain types of algae that are bad for coral will prosper and kill the coral. Also, a lack of fish and other predators will cause organisms that eat coral to over populate and use up all of the coral. Yet another reason for the killing of coral are diseases that we come and go and we often don’t know what they are and how to stop them.

  I feel really bad that all these beautiful reefs are dying. When I first read that the coral is dying off, I figured that there would be one or two causes like pollution and it surprised me to find out how many reasons there are.
  Since this is my last weekly science report and Mr. Ardito told us to try extra hard this time, I really tried to suck the information out of this article. I have to admit, I did kinda slack off at the end of the article because I had been working for a while and I was exhausted, but all in all, this may be the best weekly science report I have ever done. (I hope its not too bad cause that would be really embarrassing)

• 40    volleyball chick 4 life // May 8, 2007 at 6:46 pm

  What I did to understand the material better was to read it over a few times. Sometimes I read things too quickly so my brain didn’t have a chance to absorb what I have read. I also thought it was good to quote the article because I didn’t want to misinterpret the information that was being given. If I didn’t understand something, I just put it in quotes; that way I wasn’t plagiarizing and I didn’t misinform my fellow students in my report.

• 41    DARLiNGPiNK! // May 8, 2007 at 9:18 pm

  This comment is for Maniac Leprechaun.

  I did some of what you did to understand my article. I really found that going paragraph by paragraph was really helpful, even if it took longer.
  Also, good job on the retell and reflection. You always do a fabulous job!

• 42    DARLiNGPiNK! // May 8, 2007 at 9:22 pm

  This comment is for Volleyball chick 4 lifee.

  I think it’s good that you use quotes when you don’t understand something. It’s also helpful for other people too, because then they can interpret it in their own ways. I also tend to read articles too quickly and re-read mine a couple of times to be able to fully understand it.
  P.S. Your article sounds really interesting!!

• 43    DARLiNGPiNK! // May 8, 2007 at 9:24 pm

  This comment is for White Ivy.

  I really understand what you mean when you say you have the music on all the time. My mom gets frustrated too!! I also had to turn my computer off and turn off my music to read the article. It really helped me understand the article more!

• 44    volleyball chick 4 lifee // May 8, 2007 at 11:12 pm

  This comment is for DARLiNGPiNK!

  First of all, you did an outstanding job on your report. You wrote a lot about the article, and included a lot of your own opinions at the end which I enjoyed reading. I like your idea of keeping a dictionary next to you to look up certain words; I think I might want to try that sometime. I also liked how you admitted the article you chose was incredibly difficult for you. Some people do not want to admit that something might be hard for them, but you came right out and said it. Great job!!!!

• 45    volleyball chick 4 lifee // May 8, 2007 at 11:16 pm

  This comment is for high school never ends.

  I like your report, except I was a little disappointed with your reflection at the end. I was hoping you could be slightly more specific with what you could understand and what was hard for you to understand about reading the article. Besides that, nice work!!!!

• 46    volleyball chick 4 lifee // May 8, 2007 at 11:25 pm

  This comment is for january g man.

  I think your report could have been longer and more expressive. You didn’t talk much about your own opinions on the article or what you did to try interpret the article. I also think that in order to organize your report better, you should use paragraphs to separate your summary and your reflection. You article sounds very interesting; you just need to express what you think about it a little more. Good job!!!!

• 47    the cootest kid // May 9, 2007 at 11:17 am

  On Jupiter’s red spot there are 340 mph winds and lightening storms. On Venus the temperature is 890 degrees farinhight. On Neptune there are 900mph winds that make earths hurricanes look dumb.
  The USA has sent probes to Jupiter, Saturn’s moon and Venus. Scientists believe that some day earth will be like other planets.
  I picked this article because it was very hard for me. And it had big words and it hard for me to read the words. And I didn’t know what some of the words ment.

• 48    january g man // May 9, 2007 at 3:58 pm

  this is for green:
  You didn’t tell us if there were any hard words for you to understand and if there were, you didn’t tell us how you got passed them. But coral dying out is sad to hear because it makes the ocean look nice, and is where numerous species of fish make their homes. Good job anyway.

• 49    January g man // May 9, 2007 at 4:06 pm

  This is for White Ivy:
  Your article sounds interesting. You told us every thing that we (the class) needed to know. 1. Was there any hard words for you that you couldn’t understand? And 2. What did you do to overcome these words?
  Well done!

• 50    january g man // May 9, 2007 at 4:16 pm

  This is for Volley Ball Chick 4 Lifee:
  The article that you chose catches my interests a lot. You did what was asked for this assignment and you explained the article very well.
  If scientists find a way to get rid of the reproductive malfunctions, then the discovery of this gene would be very beneficial to human kind.

• 51    gia beth // May 9, 2007 at 5:23 pm

  ManiacLeprechaun - I think that it is coolio how you used a social studies article for your science. And I like how you ended your report with a question; it left me thinking.

• 52    gia beth // May 9, 2007 at 5:27 pm

  White Ivy - I like that you forced yourself to read the whole article. That is something i had to do too when reading my article.

• 53    high school never ends // May 10, 2007 at 10:47 am

  Maniac Leprechaun-I found your Article very Interesting about car bombing it is a very serouis thing i know that things like this happen about every day in Isreal. i thought your reflection was great.(i wish i could right a reflection like you did.) Good JOB

• 54    high School NEVER eNdS // May 10, 2007 at 10:54 am

  DARLiNGPiNK!-Your article was very Interesting on Codon Spell Check i can tell it was very frustrating cause after your post i still doesnt understand the article(i also read the article from your link) i would say you took a really dificult article and turned it into a great reflection about the article. goo job

• 55    high school never ends // May 10, 2007 at 10:59 am

  Rorofosho-your article made you think what part of your body is dead when you have a heart attack it was one of those articles that really made you think outside of that box i would say over all you did a really good job.

• 56    Alphabetsoup // May 10, 2007 at 3:24 pm

  ManiacLeprechaun- i liked how you had more than one subject in your article. Good Job!

• 57    Alphabetsoup // May 10, 2007 at 3:26 pm

  Rorofosho- Your article had alot of information. It was really cool! You wrote it out well also.

• 58    green // May 10, 2007 at 5:55 pm

  spygirl,
  thats cool to know about murcury. I was always very interested in space and planets and stuff and I want to know more

• 59    green // May 10, 2007 at 5:58 pm

  101kid,
  cool we did the same article. I like the way you talked about it; I think you did a better job on it than I did.

• 60    green // May 10, 2007 at 6:01 pm

  for alphabet soup,
  I am extremely interested in your article. I love the idea of other lifeforms on a different planet. that is so cool.

• 61    gia beth // May 10, 2007 at 8:14 pm

  Pinkbutterfly397 - I think it’s cool that the article you read was about something we learned about in class this year.

• 62    gia beth // May 10, 2007 at 8:22 pm

  This is a continuation of my report:
  My article was very long. When I first read it, I wasn’t really focusing too well on what exactly I was reading. After I read the first page I realized that I should’ve been paying closer attention to what the author was saying.
  In the article, the author was talking about many different people all at once and I found it hard to remember who was who and who was doing what experiment.
  To understand this hard material, I had to read through each paragraph more than once, and make sure I was paying full attention - which can be hsrd for me to do.

• 63    rorofosho // May 11, 2007 at 12:43 pm

  mrcoolguy- Your article seemed cool, but your reflection and summary seemed a bit short

• 64    rorofosho // May 11, 2007 at 12:49 pm

  lola- it seemed you put a lot of effort into your report, but i was wondering what techniques you used to help you read you article

• 65    rorofosho // May 11, 2007 at 12:54 pm

  white ivy- I didnt think of re-reading my article. good idea, I wish i thought of that

• 66    Uberpwn // May 23, 2007 at 10:50 am

  I recently read the article “Scientists Isolate Anti-cancer Compounds From Apple Peel” on ScienceNews.com. This article was about a compound that is anti-cancer potent and is only found in apple peels.
  This really put the saying “An apple a day keeps the doctor away” into a new perspective. The fact that simple things like apple peels can help keep cancer at bay really amazes. Cancer is a leading killer in America and if we keep looking for a miracle cure and just worry about how to avoid it and what can help keep it away.
  This is also made me think, where else can this compound be found? AND what else that is as simple as an apple can help prevent. If we can restrict our diet to contain more of these things cancer rate will drop in about 20-30 years.
  Cancer related articles have always interested me because I lost someone to cancer. When it happened i wasn’t young enough to understand what it was. Now that I am older I feel like America could do plenty of things to help stop cancer. The government likes to promote how much they’re trying to fight cancer, yet one of there biggest partners are tobacco companies which produce cigarettes and other forms of tobacco. These cause varietys of cancer and have no beneficial effects.

  My article was semi-difficult to understand, yet i still think I got a good grasp on the subject and what the article was saying. What I did to make the article easier was to have a dictionary infront of me and to ask others for help.
  To be honest I think i could have done a harder article just as easy, because at the end of reading I felt a little unchallenged.

• 67    World News Portal // Nov 26, 2007 at 10:31 pm

  World News Portal…

  I couldn’t understand some parts of this article, but it sounds interesting…

• 68    Sports Illustrated // Nov 27, 2007 at 6:50 am

  Sports Illustrated…

  I couldn’t understand some parts of this article, but it sounds interesting…

• 69    Latest Book Reviews // Nov 27, 2007 at 12:29 pm

  Latest Book Reviews…

  I couldn’t understand some parts of this article, but it sounds interesting…

• 70    World's History at Culture Club // Nov 27, 2007 at 5:30 pm

  World’s History at Culture Club…

  I couldn’t understand some parts of this article, but it sounds interesting…

• 71    Eric // Dec 22, 2007 at 11:22 am

  Eric…

  Man i love reading your blog, interesting posts !…

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