These are my thoughts about college counseling, science, and the environment.
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Welcome back to IST and our soon-to-be fun-filled chemistry unit! In this post, I’ve linked to several helpful tools for understanding the way electrons are arranged around the nuclei of atoms, and how those arrangements impact ionic charges as well as bonding patterns among elements. This PDF presentation from DentonISD.org explains the use of Lewis-dot…
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This article from the New York Times is important for a couple of reasons. First, it describes the latest discovery in the long history of evidence supporting the Darwinian theory of evolution by natural selection, which is possibly the most thoroughly researched idea in science. “Baffling 400,000-year-old Clue to Human Origins” The second – and…
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We’re wrapping up the biology sequence this week as you put the finishing touches on your photosynthesis investigations and I grade the unit tests. That means it’s time to roll out the next big thing from our syllabus – the chemistry unit! There are 3 key concepts I want you to master in this new…
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The article linked below outlines the impact of human population growth on global marine fisheries. It has been well-established through scientific research that as people become wealthier, they consume more protein. And as Earth’s human population continues to grow, the pressure on fisheries becomes two-fold: not only are there more people fishing (population growth), but…
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Here’s the last part of revision for the test coming up at the end of this week. I’ve saved the Keynote from class as a PDF, which you can view and download below.
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This article from Scientific American outlines a recent idea sweeping across much of East Africa, including several projects and start-up companies here in Tanzania. The idea is quite simple, actually: Rural families who can’t afford the high costs in setting up a traditional solar electricity system are able to pre-pay for a certain amount of…
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Here’s a little more information about the upcoming unit test. Topics: Cell structure and function Cell Theory Biological molecules Energy flow through ecosystems Nutrient cycles within ecosystems Photosynthesis and respiration Levels of organization Food webs Trophic levels Assessment Criteria (max 6 marks each): B1 – Science Vocabulary B2 – Communicating Effectively C1 – Recalling and…
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Below is the recent test on ESS Topics 1, 7, and 2.1 – 2.3. The original test and the mark scheme are included as a single document and consist of real IB questions from past papers. The red ovals highlight the key words in the questions, and the blue rectangles identify the parts of the…
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We are 1 week from the summative unit test in grade 9 science, which means it’s time to start revising. Here’s a list of the major topics you’re likely to find on the test. Cell structure and function Plant vs animal Biological molecules Energy flow through ecosystems Nutrient cycles within ecosystems Photosynthesis and respiration Food…
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Environmental scientists, national park wardens, reserve managers, and conservation officers are the people making the decisions about Tanzania’s abundant wildlife resources. Many of the choices they make about the areas and organisms they protect are based on political and/or economic considerations, but most of those decisions will have at least some foundation in scientific knowledge.…
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I’ve posted this first article before – from the UN Office on Drugs and Crime – which outlines the links between ivory from east Africa and narcotics in Asia. The embedded version is the short one, and the full version is available to download here: Ivory and Organized Crime in East Africa.PDF The following item is…
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That’s the title of a recent (June 2013) publication from the World Bank, which outlines the probable impacts of continued global climate change. Among the highlights of the article, according to the official press release: This report, part II in a series, looks at likely impacts of 2°C and 4°C warming across three vulnerable regions.…
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Here are a few more links relating to this topic, which seems to be all over the news lately. This first item, from the Wildlife Conservation Society and the IUCN (International Union for the Conservation of Nature, the same organization which just declared the Western Black Rhino officially extinct) is a publication called Pachyderm. In it,…
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A sad day for conservationists, as the International Union for the Conservation of Nature declares the Western Black Rhino officially extinct.
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The University of Washington’s Center for Conservation Biology released this study a few years ago, detailing the impact of poaching on elephant populations in Mikumi and Amboseli. I post this link for several reasons: The topic is clearly relevant to both the grade 9 biology unit, as well as ESS’s Topic 4 – Conservation and…
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While I was at the AMMUN conference in Jordan, IPP media published this article about a recent ivory haul in Mikocheni, just a few blocks from my house in Dar es Salaam. Police uncovered more than 700 pieces of ivory, “representing more than 200 tuskers killed,” according to the newspaper’s sources. I post this link because…
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According to this New York Times article, the UN’s IPCC – the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the largest group of scientists investigating global climate patterns – “rising temperatures will have some beneficial effects on crops in some places, but that globally they will make it harder for crops to thrive”. The report is just…
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We’ve spent the past few lessons working in the garden outside the science building, and you should have collected enough data at this point to reliably determine a correlation – or lack thereof – between 2 different abiotic factors in that space. Below you’ll find a PDF map I created of the garden space. Please…
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One of my favorite things about living in Tanzania is the amazing diversity of ecosystems in this country – the grassy plains of the Serengeti, mist-shrouded slopes of volcanic mountains like Kili and Meru, vibrant coral reefs of Mafia and Mnemba islands, the waterfalls and forests of the southern highlands, and the semi-wooded savanna of…