Archive for May, 2014

Challenge 4

by CitizenScientist 1 Comment

I am going to be honest this challenge was hard. Between school and my brother getting injured again there was some difficulties. I know that there is no accurate way of telling the weather because everything can just make a u-turn. We did do the challenge and we predicted that the next day it was going to be sunny. We was half right, in the morning it was sunny and warm. We did no expected the rain that was a twist. We used tea and all the bubbles went to one side the right side. We thought that it was going to be sunny. We also don’t drink coffee either co I predictions could have been mess up from that. I believe that if there was another substance that we could have made, I believe that it could have been a better possibly to predict the weather and we didn’t need the weather channel.

Challenge 4 part 2 Ashley Bruno

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The drawing should be below

Cahllenge 4 by Ashley Bruno

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I brewed a cup of coffee this morning. And after pouring the black coffee, I watched as the bubbles moved to the edge of the cup quickly. I added cream and saw the same thing. According to the Instructable, the weather should then be sunny and clear. My prediction is correct because today’s temperature will be high 50’s to mid 60’s with sunny skies and 0% precipitation. Coffee bubble patterns predict weather for the same reason people with sensitive joint pain can. Barometric pressure in the atmosphere affects the movement of gases. High pressure systems result in sunny, clear skies because two air masses come together moving upward away from earth’s surface taking atmospheric moisture (clouds) away. In contrast, low pressure systems result in stormy skies because two air masses converge directly downward on the Earth’s surface creating moisture build-up (clouds). High pressure is like a gas vaccuum on the ground hence the bubbles rush to the first hindrance (in this case, the edge of the cup). Low pressure is like a heavy gaseous blanket that settles on the ground leaving no room to move. This is why the bubbles do not move in the cup and why people with arthritis feel pain on their joints (from the overall weight of the blanket).
Strengths: this method is almost 100% reliable. It’s a simple way of framing a concept as complex as meteorology.
Weaknesses: this prediction method is pointless if you don’t understand how it occurs. Also, you might not get the correct bubble pattern If the centrifugal force from stirring is too strong. Watch the bubbles before you stir. 

Sampling concern by Ashley Bruno

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It was a beautiful day sampling at Sagamore today. The vegetation is lush; there’s barely any litter when I walked the site. The soil maintains the rain’s moisture for the plants much longer than the dirt patches around the city because the roots encourage infiltration. Besides the great progress, I encountered an out-of -the-ordinary observation. While I was checking for vandalism, I opened the data logger and found the battery missing. Because there was no sign of damage to the external lock and seal of the logger, I expect that the Drexel team has removed it. I hope so…

Day At Colfax

by CitizenScientist 1 Comment

When me and my brother went back to the site it was cleaner than last year. Me and my brother couldn’t, wait to start working again. Even though Colfax is a small site we meet some of the neighbors that was there and became really close friends. When we was in stores people stopped and asked us did we worked at the Colfax site. We really gain more knowledge on how we can benefit from this job and now we can’t wait to learn even more.
Joiada & Josiah

Challenge 2 by Ashley Bruno

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Challenge 2
1. A weighing lysimeter is great for determining the amount of evapotranspiration. It is a pot placed outside, positioned over a sensitive scale, that holds plants, soil, and whatever precipitation that falls into it. The pot’s weight is recorded constantly, and the differences in weight are predominantly due to a gain and loss of water through precipitation absorption/infiltration and evapotranspiration.

2. Soil moisture sensors do not function by weighing anything. They measure water content in soils by giving a voltage related to something called the dielectric permittivity of water. I believe this is similar to the electrical conductivity. The sensors probably shoot an electrical current into their surrounding sphere of influence to measure how water reacts.

3. Why do you think there are soil moisture sensors at multiple locations and depths around the site, isn’t one good enough? These sensors are small. They can only sense water within a 2-cm radius, I believe. Multiple sensors can measure the amount of water infiltration at different depths in the soil as well as the change in water content through evaporation and plant uptake.

4. Why is there a flume on your site and why is it so important to keep it clean?* A flume collects and channels water by capitalizing on the natural gravitational course of water flow. Water should be directed into planted soil to allow organic growth, recharge of groundwater storage, natural filtration, and to avoid its accumulation on roadways and sewers. It’s a low-cost, highly beneficial method of stormwater management. If the flume gets clogged with debris, then stormwater doesn’t reach the soil. It gets backed up and runs onto the street.

5. What is evapotranspiration, anyway? A combined loss of water molecules into the air from the processes of evaporation and transpiration. Water evaporation is the process where water is vaporized into a gas from the surface of condensed liquid (on objects and in soil) because of heat, wind, and other environmental conditions. Transpiration is the process where water moves up through a plant and is released as a gas through the stomata (cells that open to gather CO2 for photosynthesis). Water escapes from these cells indirectly but benefits the plant overall.

Challenge 2 by Josiah and Joiada

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1. a lysimeter is great for weighing certain objects
2. soil moisture sensors do not weigh anything
3. no one soil moisture sensor is not good enough because the ground is not leveled evenly and two parts of the site can have different measurements so more than one is better than one
4. we need a flume so that we can see what type of water and how much water comes into the site and so dirt and other chemicals do not get into the water. That’s why we keep it clean
5. It is when plants release water vapor into the atmosphere

Challenge 2

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1. a lysimeter is great for weighing certain objects
2. soil moisture sensors do not weigh anything
3.

Challenge 2

by CitizenScientist No Comments

1. a lysimeter is great for weighing certain objects
2. soil moisture sensors do not weigh anything
3.

Challenge 2

by CitizenScientist No Comments

1. a lysimeter is great for weighing certain objects
2. soil moisture sensors do not weigh anything
3.