Bart gets a Z

2102_Bart_Gets_a_Z

Victorias earliest GEOLOGICAL maps drawn in Castlemaine

When gold was first discovered in Mt Alexander in 1851, Victoria’s Governor quickly realized a surveyor was needed to understand the land formations. Governor Hoddle wrote to the office of the Colony in London requesting someone with appropriate qualifications and expertise.

In May 1852, Victorias first Geological Mapmaker Alfred Selwyn (pictured right)arrived .

In 1856, Selwyn and his team commenced a systematic program of surveying – beginning with Central Victoria/ Castlemaine area and the country around Melbourne – which would result in the map series known as the quarter sheets.

This was map-making from scratch. Since no reliable topographic maps existed, Selwyn’s geologists had to create their own, precisely surveying every gully and hill before they could overlay the geological details.

Of the four years (1858-62) it took Ulrich and Aplin to complete the Castlemaine quarter sheets, three were spent in mapping the topography.

To figure out what lay under the ground, field geologists relied on clues exposed in outcrops, road cuttings, quarries – and mines. In the course of their Castlemaine mapping, Aplin and Ulrich climbed into 3,000 diggers’ holes and dug 81 of their own, each about 3 metres deep. They not only ‘read’ the strata exposed in these holes, but prospected for gold, so as to gauge the extent of the goldfields.



Alfred Selwyn declared the Castlemaine quarter sheets ‘a perfect specimen of what the goldfields’ geological maps ought to be’. To read more of the escapades of these early journeymen read here.

Oh, and the first person to leave a comment might just get a prize!

Geological Survey camp tent, ca.1865

SEPERATING MIXTURES

You have a task to design a machine to clean up an oil-spill and help save those cute little penguins at Phillip Island.
Have a look at this link to see some different ways to seperate mixtures. Click on each diagram for an animation on how each seperating method works. The methods shown are: FILTRATION, CHROMATOGRAPHY, EVAPORATION, SIMPLE DISTILLATION, & FRACTIONAL DISTILLATION.

If you want to get an idea how devasting oil spills are in the world, click GOOGLE NEWS and type in 'oil spills': you'll be as shocked as I was!

On-Line Hearing Test.

Here is a site well-worth a look. It has a simple on-line hearing test and a neat little animation how your ear works. Try it out.

Australian Maths Competition- WARM-UP's

The Australian Maths Competition is looming. I will hand out some practice examples, but if you want MORE.....visit their website to really get some practice in. For those who havent signed up.....GIVE IT A GO!!! It wont hurt and more often than not people get a pleasant surprise!!!

How is sound MADE? (Part2)

Once we have vibrations making waves.......what happens when they go inside your ears???. See if you find the answer here

How is sound MADE (Part1)?

There are two parts of this question. Firstly we know sound is made by vibrations. Follow this link and you can learn something about waves. If you really 'get into it', follow the links and see where you end up!
This link might be helpful for your investigation.

Conducting an investigation about SOUND

Year 7's have recently spent two sessions designing a series of questions that will form their investigation around SOUND. Students worked in groups of 2-3 and looked at developing WHO, WHEN,
WHERE, WHY, WHAT, & HOW questions about sound. They had to listen to each others questions and try to 'make the questions better'.
Students will get 3 chances to improve their questions.
Have look at the questions and see if you can make any questions 'better' by adding a comment. Any websites or on-line resources anyone finds can be added to this blog for students to use. The questions were:

7A
ASH, EVEE & JAZZ
Who discovered sound?
How does sound get made?
When did sound get discovered?
Where does sound end?
Why is there sound?
What is sound?

CHRIS & STEVEN
How do bats and dolphins use echolocation?
Who invented SONAR?
Why do some animals use echolocation to find their food?
Where was the first place SONAR was used?
When was echolocation discovered?
What does SONAR stand for?

NATALIE, LOUISA, EMILY
How do ears work?
Why does helium, when inhaled, change the tone of your voice?
Who invented the vibrating voice machine?
Where does thunder come from and why is it so loud?
When do unborn babies develop sound?
What happens when you break the sound barrier?

DECLAN, OSCAR, JORDAN
How do we pick up more than one sound frequency at a time?
Who discovered sound waves?
Why is the speed of light faster than the speed of sound?
Where is the loudest place on earth?
When was the first music invented?
What are the different types of sound frequencies

JAIME & LOUISE
How come dogs can hear better than humans?
Who proved dogs can hear sounds that we cant?
Why do dogs need good hearing?
Where is the dogs hearing sense?
When dogs bark is the sound like talking is to humans?
What dogs hear the best?

GEORGIA & CHAISE
How does sound echo in tunnels and empty rooms?
Who decided to call sound sound?
Why do people from different countries have different accents?
Where do thunder and lightning start?
What makes the sound when you blow over a bottle
When does a storm start?

NICK, JAMES & DOUGLAS
How can sound travel through a non-continuous object?
Who was the first person to discover ecolocation?
Why do we hear sound?
Where was sound first used as a weapon?
When was the first time a man-made object went into supersonic speed?
What part of an amplifying object transmits sound?

GEORGIA & PHEOBE
How was sound invented and why?
Who invented talking?
Why does sound echo in a large area?
Where was sound invented?
When was sound invented?
What does sound sound like?

EMILY,& SHANAE
How is sound made?
Who invented sound?
Why does peoples voice sound different to others?
Where does sound go after it has been heard?
When was sound and radar discovered?
What is sound?

JOSH, JACK, MICHEAL......

7B
Najib & Zander
How is sound generated?
Who made up the word sound?
Why is sound sent out in vibrations?
Where is the noisiest place in the world?
When does sound go to high pitch for us to hear

Gemma & Erin
How fast does sound travel?
Who found out that sound is made by vibrartions?
Why is sound so compatible with air?
Where does sound echo the most?
When was sound fist discovered, and a theory developed?
What makes your ear emit sound as well as absorb it?

Nathan & Kurt
How is sound made?
What is it?
When was it found?
Why does it exist?
Where does it come from?

Andrew & Joe
How is sound generated?
Who made up the word sound?
Where is the noisiest place in the world?
When does sound become to a high pitch to hear?
What is the speed of sound?

Lauren, Lisa, Cathy
How fast can sound travel?
Who gave sound the name sound?
Why do our ears only hear to a certain extent?
Where does sound end after travelling a certain distance?
When was sound found?

Sarah & Ash
How do we hear sound?
Who made up the word sound?
Why does sound travel?
Where can't you hear sound?
When was sound first heard?
What does 'sound' sound like?

Rose, Laura & Demi
How do dolphins make sound?
Who is the leader of the dolphins?
Why do dolphins make sound?
Where does the sound come from on a dolphin?
When did someone find out the dolphins make sounds?
What can dolphins hear?

Remedy and Tayla
How do you make sound?
Who discovered sound?
Why does sound come through our ears?
Where does sound come from?
When was sound discovered?
What does sound mean?

Dylan & Jackson
How is sound 'loud'
Who uses sound?
Why does sound travel through air?
Where does sound come from?
When does sound become so high that we cant hear it?
What makes sound?

Connor and Tyson
How does sound travel?
Who found out that sounds make tiny vibrations?
Why do you hear sound?
Where was sound found?
When was sound found?
What are sound waves?

Are you COLOUR BLIND??

Follow this link and test yourself for being colourblind. Click on the COMMENT section and tell us your results!

BIG & SMALL- why powers of 10 are important!

View the Milky Way at 10 million light years from the Earth. Then move through space towards the Earth in successive orders of magnitude until you reach a tall oak tree just outside the buildings of the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory in Tallahassee, Florida.
After that, begin to move from the actual size of a leaf into a microscopic world that reveals leaf cell walls, the cell nucleus, chromatin, DNA and finally, into the subatomic universe of electrons and protons.
Have a look at it here

The MAX-Factor

Some people in 7B have met Max Lessor,the guy with the red coat and hat, who drives a, you guessed it, a red double-decker bus. Max runs a Foundation called "The Golden Hope" Foundation that initiates activities to address issues around youth depression. One of Max's programs, POLYGON PAT, has a cool website with some nice downloads based around DESIGN & GEOMETRY.


Max has bought a few of these buses so they can became youth hang-out spaces. As part of their BIG DAY IN project Danielle, Tayla, Rose & Ashika from 7B are going to try and organsie some concerts and go out to primary schools to perform. Good Luck!