This week we have been out of school! sounds nice but we had quite a bit of homework. But on the other hand, we didn’t have to wake up early! We had homework in almost every class. A lot of it wasn’t due until Friday or Sunday though. That was the only thing keeping my sanity in check. These last couple of days I think that I’ve lost my motivation to do anything. Working on homework most of the day every day is a little boring. Some of the homework was fun though.

Shane assigned an at-home experiment. It was making no-bake cookies and answering questions about the scientific side of baking. It was very fun making these cookies! I got the ingredients out and started making it. Then while I was stirring the mixture on the stove my mom did the other parts of the recipe. Like measuring the peanut butter and oats. When the mixture on the stove started to boil, I was very surprised. I didn’t know that sugar, milk, cocoa, salt, and butter could boil!

1. I wonder if we had more zoom classes and less homework, would it be better?
2. How many times could I make these cookies before running out of the ingredients at my house?
3. Where did Shane find this recipe? Or did she make it herself?

This summer I’m going to one of my favorite places on earth. It’s called Interlochen Center for the Arts. Last year I went for two weeks and studied general arts. In general arts you get to pick your electives that you will be doing for the next couple of weeks. I studied Arts & Crafts, Environmental Education, Modern Dance, LUNCH, Ceramics and Instrument Exploration. This year I am attending for audio engineering and production. I think it will be very fun!!! No I shall explain sound!!!

Basically sound waves are vibrations. The speaker vibrates, it moves the air. The air then bounces of of each other, until it reaches your ear. That’s why it’s called a sound wave. But if your ear is out of range for those vibrations to keep going to reach you, your ear won’t be able to hear the sound. In your throat you have vocal cords. Your vocal cords vibrate, making sound. Did you know that your vocal cords vibrate multiple times per second??? Or that there is no sound in space? This happens because there are no molecules there. Here on earth we have air molecules for the sound to travel through.

I wonder if I’ll have fun at Interlochen?

I wonder how far sound can travel through water?

If sound can travel through air, what other gasses can it travel through?

In science class today we did a lab. The lab was about matter, volume and density. We used bubble gum for our dependent variable. The time chewed was our independent variable. Lizzie and I were partners for this lab. She chewed the gum while I timed it. We chose to chew the gum for two minutes, other groups chose three minutes, or two minutes, just like us!

To find the matter you have to weigh it on a scale. Matter is the amount of mass something has. To find the amount of volume something has you have to put that something in a marked cylinder and see how much that object displaces the water. Volume is how much space something takes up when in a controlled area. To find the density of an object you divide the mass with the volume. Density is the degree of compactness of an object. This was a very fun lab! Thank you Shane!

1. How good was the bubble gum?

2. Does saliva break down sugars?

3. What year was bubble gum invented?