EVENTS CALENDARMarch 7 SBCS Science Festival March 9 Star Party SBMNH 8-10 PM March 10-12 Moon bypasses Mars March 11-17 Brain Awareness Week March 20 SPRING EQUINOX and FULL SUPERMOON!! March 26 Moon near Saturn and Jupiter in Predawn Sky SCIENCE AT CHARTERDon't miss the display of student science projects at the annual SBCS Science Festival this Wednesday, March 6 from 6:00PM - 7:30 PM ASK A SCIENCE TEACHER: If your child is having some last minute difficulty with their science festival project please feel free to email or call me for help. [email protected] 619-993-4339. This project should be a fun learning experience - let me help keep the stress out. THE NIGHT SKY THIS MONTHThis month the moon gives us many exciting shows. It will visit several planets in the morning and will make a pretty picture with Mars on the evenings of March 10 - 12. Furthermore, this month features another Supermoon and it falls on the SPRING EQUINOX!!!! So be sure to see the spring moon this month. LOW TIDESDue to the Full Supermoon there will be some good low tides this month. However, you may notice that they are not as low as they were in January and February. A few factors are causing this: 1. The earth was at perihelion -it's closest point to the sun- on January 3rd, so the sun had a stronger gravitational pull at that time. 2. The moon's closest point was last month (so that was its strongest gravitational pull). So even though this month is also a Supermoon, it is not quite as close as last month. Still, these low tides should provide plenty of intertidal zone to explore. PLUS, watching the moonrise from the beach on Tuesday and Wednesday should be lovely. I encourage you to go to the beach on one of those afternoons or early evenings (even if you can't make the peak low tide times listed below it does take many hours for the tide to come back up). Moonrise is 4:41 PM on Tuesday the 19th and 5:52 PM on Wednesday the 20th. Sunday, March 17, 2019 low tide 2:16pm (-0.99ft) Monday, March 18, 2019 low tide 2:57pm (-1.12ft) Tuesday, March 19, 2019 low tide 3:36pm (-1.03ft) Wednesday, March 20, 2019. low tide 4:14pm (-0.76ft) www.tides.net/california/2398/ TRY THIS AT HOMEBRAIN AWARENESS WEEK ACTIVITIES Brain Awareness Week is March 11-17. The Dana Foundation has many fun activities to help kids learn about the brain. You can find their downloadable puzzles for all ages here: www.dana.org/publications/puzzles/ ACTIVITIES TO CELEBRATE THE SPRING EQUINOX Go on a backyard nature hunt. Use the new app SEEK by iNaturalist which was specifically made for kids. "The app identifies common animals and plants from photographs taken by the user. The information is location specific but does not keep location information on the users, so it's safe for young users. There's a version for adults called iNaturalist, too." - from Encouraging Young Scientists IN THE NEWSSCIENTISTS SCRAMBLE TO KEEP UP WITH EARTH'S MAGNETIC NORTH POLE
The Earth's magnetic north pole affects everything from our compasses to the effects of solar flares. This article talks about why it is changing and how that affects us. www.dogonews.com/2019/2/27/scientists-scramble-to-keep-up-with-fast-moving-north-magnetic-pole
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Events CalendarFeb 9 8-10 PM Star Party at SBMNH Palmer Observatory Feb 9-11 Moon, Mars, Uranus in evening sky Feb 18 Venus and Saturn in conjunction in the pre-dawn sky Feb 19 Year's biggest Super-moon Feb 26 Moon, Venus, Saturn and Jupiter line up in pre-dawn sky Feb 16-20 Low and high Tides THE NIGHT SKY THIS MONTHIt is worth getting up early on the morning of February 18 to see Venus and Saturn with only about 1 degree of separation. You can also see them lined up later in the month with the Moon and Jupiter in the predawn sky. Don't forget to look to the horizon at dusk on February 19th as that day has the year's biggest Super-moon. The moon always looks bigger on the horizon and the Super-moon looks even bigger and brighter than usual. If it is not cloudy it should be spectacular. LOW TIDESKING TIDE VERSUS LOW TIDE JANUARY 20 2019 FEBRUARY LOW TIDES Presidents day weekend should be a great time to go to the beach. Though not quite as extreme as last month (Last month we were at our closest to the sun for the year and it was a Super-moon), the low tides near the full moon will be lower than -1 foot in part due to the Super-moon (The moon is closest to the earth at this time). Saturday, February 16, 2019. low tide 1:42pm (-1.16ft) Sunday, February 17, 2019 low tide 2:24pm (-1.48ft) Monday, February 18, 2019. low tide 3:05pm (-1.58ft) Tuesday, February 19, 2019. low tide 3:46pm (-1.47ft) Wednesday, February 20, 2019. low tide 4:26pm (-1.14ft) www.tides.net/california/2398/ TRY THIS AT HOME: SCIENCE FESTIVAL PROJECTStudents should select a science question that they are interested in exploring in preparation for the science festival on March 7th. Students may make a model, invent something, conduct an experiment, or perform a demonstration. Students should ask a question, research the question, make a claim, and give evidence for that claim. Their display should include the information shown below. One of my favorite sites for fun science explorations is the Exploratorium. www.exploratorium.edu/snacks IN THE NEWSThis article presents an interesting idea for a science project. The author asked the question does a tissue stop snot from escaping when you sneeze?
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Leise Thomason-BA Biology Brown University Categories |