Bill's Learning

Last week, we took a benchmark test in Science class.  I scored an 88 on the benchmark. Here's my item analysis: What I noticed about the questions that I got wrong is that two out of the three of them are about the layers of the earth .  I'm not totally surprised that I missed those:  We studied the layers of the earth a long time ago.  But it does mean that I need to go back and check that content out again.  That's worth reviewing for sure.   I think I'm most disappointed in myself for missing question 25.  It asked why the inner core of the earth is a solid ball of iron.  I answered that it was because of extreme temperature.  I should have realized that when I want something -- think snow or sand -- to be "more solid," I don't add heat to it.  Instead, I add pressure to it.  I think that's a question that I could have gotten right if I had thought a little more carefully. What I'm proud of, though, is that I made ...

So easily the grossest thing in the world happened to me this morning .  I was walking through the kitchen before I was totally awake and I stepped in a hairball that my daughter's cat had barfed up: That got me thinking, though:  Why do cats swallow their own hair while they are cleaning themselves?  And does throwing up hairballs cause cats any long term harm? What we've learned in science is that every structure, function and behavior on a plant or an animal is designed to help them survive, thrive and reproduce.  If that's true, that means that barfing up hairballs is actually a good thing for a cat -- or cleaning itself with its own tongue is a good thing. Why is that?  Why wouldn't cats come up with a better way to clean themselves?   #thingsthatmakeyougohmmmnnn

In science class today, we were talking about solar energy and the important role that it can play in fighting back against global warming.   What I learned, though, is that even though enough sunlight lands on the earth every minute to power the entire world for a year, we don’t catch or convert very much of that sunlight into electricity.   That got me thinking that we need to find creative ways to catch as much energy as we can.   One idea that I had was that we should create super durable solar panels that can be driven on and then install those panels into every parking lot.  Think about how cool that would be.  There are parking lots EVERYWHERE -- and most of them are uncovered and hit by sunlight all day long.  If we turned them into drivable solar panels, we’d catch lots of energy.   I want to do some research on solar panels to see how durable they are.