Thursday, January 28, 2010

Global warming provides many problems for the earth. It also provides mathmatical statistics that predict what will happen or what has happened. For instance, in the next 100 years the average temperature is predicted to go up 1.8-10.8 degrees fahrenheit. Also global warming causes more powerful hurricanes to form. In the past hurricanes such as Katrina caused130 billion dollars in repairs. Last, ny the year 2010 many major cities are predicted to be underwater due to flooding. This is how global warming connects to math.

Monday, January 18, 2010


In class we are learning about cnidarians and sponges. There are two organisms classified as cnidarians: polyps and Medusa. Medusa are jellyfish while polyps are like sea anemones. If you have seen the movie "Finding Nemo", Marlin and Nemo lived in a polyp. Polyps and Medusa share characteristics such as stinging cells to catch pray and an internal cavity to hold and digest foods. Cnidarians reproduce asexually and sexually. Polyps reproduce asexually by shedding there top rings to create tiny Medusa. Medusa reproduce sexually to create polyps. Polyps can create humongous coral reefs by anchoring there body on a hard surface and creating a hard exoskeleton that will remain there even after they die. These coral reefs are home to the most underwater animals and provide shelter and food to fish. Sponges are barrel like organisms that hardly move. When they are born they swim around to find a nice place to settle and anchor there bodies where they can grow up into adult life. Sponges feed and get there oxygen from water that passes through there bodies. They have a network of needles that go through there body that is like a skeleton for the sponge. these needles also help keep away predators. Sponges do not have separate genders so they produce both sperm and egg cells. when the time is right their instinct tell them to release sperm and eggs into the water where they will join and become a new sponge.