Some Questions About the Exam

in reply to:
----------
> From: A
> To: Tony Mitchell 
> Subject: hurry!
> Date: Tuesday, January 20, 1998 9:29 PM
> 
> MM
> how do you use that chart to get the dewpoint? Or the relative
> humidity...or something. i can't remember.
> 
--------------------

The chart shows the amount of water the air can hold at saturation at
various temperatures. If you know the dewpoint of air, the chart tells you
how much water is in the air. If you know rh and temp, calculate how much
water is in the air by multiplying the decimal equivalent of the rh
percentage times the amount of water that could be in the air at that temp.
This gives you the actual amount of water that is in the air. The chart
then gives you the dewpoint of that air. If you change the temp of the air,
the chart shows you the new max amount of water, then you can use the
actual amount of water to calculate the new rh. 

 

in reply to:
----------
> From: A
> To: Tony Mitchell 
> Subject: again
> Date: Monday, January 19, 1998 8:59 PM
> 
> Mr. M,
> will this be multiple choice? or do we need to diagram stuff like
> cycles or fronts? and are there any other essay questions?
> 
-------------

All of the above - a wide variety of questions: you won't be bored.

Remember HALT!  Get a good nights sleep! Don't worry! You know this stuff!
Relax!

-- Mr. M.

in reply to:
----------
> From: A
> To: Tony Mitchell 
> Subject: last questions, i promise
> Date: Monday, January 19, 1998 3:34 PM
> 
> Mr. M (again)
> i'll kill 4 birds w/ one stone:
> 1. Is RMIVUXG the order in order of increasing or decreasing frequency
> (unless the letters are all messed up and it's neither)

if that starts with radio and ends with gamma, then that is in order of
decreasing wavelength, and since they travel at the same speed, shorter
distance between waves means that more go by every second, so it is order
of increasing frequency. 

> 2. How does earth compare/contrast w/ other planets (namely Venus)

The purpose of that objective is to make a transition from space section to
atmosphere. There are many differences, mostly obvious, and few
similarities between planets. Venus specifically probably has similar rock
composition, gravity, size, and although it has an atmosphere, it is
thicker and heavier, with more co2 so more heat is trapped. Its orbit is
really wierd too. 

> 3. What were the 3 early atmosphere's of earth.

see Atmos Evo Noteguide: 1 was ch4, nh2 thin and not much good for life 2nd
was same as ours but w/out o2, 3rd was with o2 and ozone.

> 4. How does earth's interior relate to it's formation (or something to
> that effect) THANKS

The cores of the planet are the heavy, metallic, radioactive stuff that
sank to the center when the planet was forming from meteorite impacts. The
surface is made of the lighter elements that floated up at the same time.
This indicates that we are the scum of the Earth.

Have you checked out 

http://www.oocities.org/CapeCanaveral/7639/examques.htm

yet? 

Write back tonight if you need to, I'll check my mail fairly often.

--Mr. M.


in reply to:
----------
> From: J
> To: Mr. Mitchell 
> Subject: hello again!!!!!!!
> Date: Sunday, January 18, 1998 6:03 PM
> 
> Hi Mr. Mitchell! It's me again, J. I just finished your study
> guide and have a whole bunch of questions that I would like your
> explanation for. ok............shall we get started?

> 	1)what in the world is an occluded front????? Did you ever talk about
> that in class? (maybe it was during one of my "duh" days.)

An occluded front is when a cold front catches up to a warm front, so the
warm air between the two fronts is completely lifted off the ground. This
produces the gradually increasing clouds then rain of the warm front then
the heavy downpours and thunderstorms of the cold front. Lots of rain as
every drop of water is squeezed out of the warm air mass as it is lifted.
See p401-403 of the text (Scott, Foresman Earth Science).
  
> 	2)Could you explain what the Big Bang Theory is?? I'm not quite sure.
> Is it how they think that meteors crashed down on earth and killed all
> the early life?

Big Bang is the beginning of our universe. If all distant galaxies really
are travelling away from us (as indicated by their red shift), we can
figure out that the whole unverse started expanding from a central point.
This explosion sent energy out in all directions, which cooled to matter,
which formed stars and galaxies, then after 10 billion years or so our Sun
and Solar System formed. See p535-537 of the text (Scott, Foresman Earth
Science).


> 	3)Another thing that I don't quite understand is this red shift blue
> shift thing.(sounds to me like "1 fish....2 fish....red fish....blue
> fish) sorry..just had to throw that in.

If an object that gives off waves (sound, light, em radiation etc) is
moving toward you, the waves are scrunched together by the motion. This
gives them a shorted wavelength. Because blue has a shorter wavelength than
red, this gets called blue shift, as all wavelengths of all em energy gets
shorter. The opposite happens if the object is movng away: spread out
waves, greater wavelengths, red shift instead of blue. See p529-531 (Scott,
Foresman Earth Science). 


> 	4)how do you relate earth to the atmosphere using an analogy? 

Two armies fight each other, pushing the front lines back and forth across
the battlefield. Where the internal Earth forces are more powerful than the
atmosphere forces, the surface of the Earth (the front line in the battle)
is rising - the Himalayas in India for example. Where the internal
processes are weak or not active, the atmosphere is winning the battle by
slowly wearing the surface down to sea level - here.

> 	5)uuuuuummmm..could you explain how earth's atmosphere developed life?

The changing, developing atmosphere allowed life to evolve by protecting
the primitive life from getting wiped out by harsh conditions. The thick
air of carbon dioxide, nitrogen gas, water vapor and other stuff helped to
protect the surface from meteorites, the cooling of water vapor into oceans
provided liquid water to allow primitive life to evolve below the level
that UV could penetrate, then the oxygen gas released by early
photosynthetic life eventually split into ozone, protecting the surface
from UV. Then life really took off. See p159. 

> 	Whoa!! I think that's it...for now anyway....Ha ha.
> 
> 
> Thank you soooooooo much for your help. 
> 
> 						J  =)

I hope it helped, write back if you need to.

Mr. M.


in reply to:
----------
> From: A
> To: tjamitch@snet.net
> Subject: mid-term
> Date: Thursday, January 15, 1998 2:16 PM
> 
> Hey Mr. Mitchell,
> What's that thing where energy and frequency are related? I looked in
> the book and i couldn't find it...and i tried to get to the mid term
> part of your page, but it wouldn't connect...and i pressed reload.
> maybe it's just my computer.
>              ~A~
>  
--------------

The higher the frequency, the more energy is delivered every second, so the
higher frequency, shorter wavelengths are more damaging.

I'll check out the web site later - maybe I took the info off last year
when I needed the room. 

Mr. M.

A - 

Since my last message, I added last year's objectives and lesson plans to
the web site for the Space section (last year's because I haven't had a
chance to write this year's into html code yet). 

They are at:
http://www.oocities.org/CapeCanaveral/7639/spacplan.htm
and 
http://www.oocities.org/CapeCanaveral/7639/spacless.htm

These may help with your em spectrum question.

-- Mr. M


In reply to:
----------
> From: b
> To: tjamitch@snet.net
> Subject: help- 
> Date: Sunday, January 19, 1997 9:10 PM
> 
> HEy Mr. Mitchell,
> We need some help on Atmosphere.  We need to know, about how the oceans
> formed, and how the second atmosphere evolved.  Also the value of
> measurements compared to observations, and thier relation to inferences.
> Please write back a.s.a.p.!!!!!!!!!!!!   Thanks for your time,
> 
> 				Sincerely, your biggest fans,
> 					C, L, and A

It figures that the only evening this weekend that I don't check my email,
that I get something!

From your Atmosphere evolution noteguide:

    7. Earth's first atmosphere was
replaced by nitrogen N2, water vapor
H2O, and carbon dioxide CO2 from the
widespread volcanic activity that
occurred from around 4 billion to 3.5
billion ybp.

TEXT PAGE:

    8. The thicker, heavier N2/CO2/H2O
air shielded the surface of the planet
from meteorites, most of which were
already cleared from Earth's orbit.

TEXT PAGE:

    9. N2, CO2, H2O vapor do not provide
any protection from ultraviolet
radiation (UV) that disrupts complex
molecules such as those of living
organisms.

TEXT PAGE:

    10. The atmosphere of Venus is a
good model for Earth's second
atmosphere, where high levels of CO2
keep surface temperatures extremely
high.

TEXT PAGE:

    11. As the meteorite bombardment
lessened, the surface of the planet and
the early atmosphere was able to cool
enough for the H2O to condense, and rain
began to fill the low areas to form the
first oceans.

From your How Does Science Work? worksheet:

2.4  Use a dictionary to find the differences between
    subjective knowledge and objective knowledge.   Which is
    produced by observation and which by measurement?



    2.5  Which is "better" knowledge to use for resource
    management: objective or subjective? Explain.


    2.6  Inference means that you decide something is true based on some
previous knowledge or assumption.  Describe how you do this to figure out
room numbers at this school.

Your answers to these, and your notes on our class discussion of these
should include something like this:


5. observation is using the senses to gather information, and our
   powers of observation are improved by instruments.

6. the human brain interprets what it observes based on what it
   already assumes to be true, so knowledge based on observation is
   called subjective knowledge.

7. subjective knowledge from observations is information that can
   be intepreted differently by different people, and so is a weak
   form of knowledge.

8. examples of subjective knowledge from observations.

9. measurement is the comparison of something to a standard.

10.a standard is a unit of measurement that people agree to use
   for measurement.

11. examples of standards for measurement.

12.a measurement is not subject to different interpretations by
   different people if the measurement is done the same way.

13.knowledge based on measurement is objective knowledge, not
   subject to different interpretations.

14.because measurement is objective, it produces better
   knowledge than observation alone.

15.scientific disagreements involving measurement occur because
   of the techniques involved in measuremnent, and so are minor
   disagreements compared to those from differences in interpretation of
observations.

16. inference is coming to a conclusion based on some previous
   knowledge or assumption.

17. if the previous assumption is not true, then the inference is
   not necessarily true.

18. induction and deduction are the two forms of inference.

19. inference produces the weakest scientific knowledge until
   observation or preferably measurement confirms the inference.

These are learning objectives from the Foundations section of the course. 
All the Foundations learning objectives are avalable on the web site
(www.oocities.org/CapeCanaveral/7639/foundobj.htm).

I hope this helps.

--Mr. M.

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