Nature and Nature’s laws lay hid in the night,
God said, let Newton be! and all was light.

This was a pretty sweet poem made in honor of yep, you guessed it Sir Isaac newton. Now everyone knows that this amazing man was a scientist but do you know exactly what some of the things are that he did. have you heard of Newtons laws of motion, or gravity, as well as some laws the pertain to the movement of the planets not only in our solar system but that apply to everything in the universe.

His three laws state the (1) all objects will move in a strait line forever until acted upon by and outside force, also known as the law of inertia. The second of these three laws is that force equals mass time acceleration (f=ma). This just states that the rate of change in motion of an object is a result of the forces acting upon it, like gravity or you. The third and final of these laws is that every action has and equal and opposite reaction. I doubt these seem like very important findings but if you look at it as that before this time everyone was just oblivious to the existence or reasons for these things you will see that this one man opened the door to many other scientist.

He also “discovered” gravity, by proving its existence. he showed that no matter what the weight of an object or its mass all objects on earth fall at the same rate of speed because the Earth is pulling them with the same amount of force. Up until this discovery people were just under the impression that it worked this way because God had intended it to. Also threw the same thinking he discovered that the planets move around the sun for the same reason, because a bigger bodies will always produce a lager pull on everything around it so the sun pulls the planets and the planets pull on the moon which is why everything runs in such a smooth working order.

So I hope I have been effective in showing you just why Sir Issac Newton, this English born scientist goes down in history as one of the most influential men who ever lived. I see him as being an amazing scientist, who deserves alot of respect, and he fully deserves of the attention we give him these days in school.

Here is a crazy little video i found on Newton, I got a kick out of it and it was actually really factual you should check it out. ; )

J.J. “Mad Scientist”. common.wikimedia.org 02/25/08. 03/31/06 http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Mad_scientist.svg

How many times in the years you were sitting in a science class did your teacher tell you what science is. If you say yes then you got lucky but if you are like most people then you haven’t. Teachers probably said what a branch of science is like zoology is the study of animals or that biology is the study of life but never what exactly science is. In my searching I have found that everyone seems to have a slightly different definition like the” Webster Dictionary” which says “knowledge or a system of knowledge covering general truths or the operation of general laws especially as obtained and tested through scientific method b: such knowledge or such a system of knowledge concerned with the physical world and its phenomena” and the Essential Biology version which states that Science is a way of knowing, one that is based in inquiry. The people on this site have their own beliefs on what science really means.

It is probably easier to say what science is not. Science is not perfect, or can’t be one hundred percent proven. Also Science can not be used to answer every question because not every question is science. For one example you can not use science to answer things that can not be measured or tested. Things that might fall under this category are like religion. Also science is not used to prove anything on the contrary it is to disprove questions brought about by an observation.

Science can be followed in two main approaches, discovery science and hypothesis-driven science, and most modern scientists use a combination of both. Discovery science looks for a natural cause for every natural phenomenon. This though limits scientists to the study of things that can be observed and measured either by the naked eye of with the help of tools that extend the human senses. This type of science uses inductive reasoning which is used to generalize a large group of observations like, “All organisms a made of cells.”
sci
Hypothesis-driven science this deals with inquiring minds to develop question and seek the answers. The scientific method is most likely used in this type of investigation. This method is not however the only way to go about science, most scientists goes about their investigation in which ever manor most suits their investigation. Most modern scientific investigations fall into this category. This type uses deductive reasoning which unlike inductive uses observation to go from general to a specific statement like, “All organisms are made of cell, humans are organisms, and ergo humans are mad of cells.” A hypothosis is an educated guess that is based in many observations to answer a question, before the tests are conducted.

The best way to tell the difference between good and bad science is that good science is based in fact, where bad has a way of leaning more to a biased opinion. So when you begin to hear I believe, or I think then you can usually assume that it is not good science. But if you get things like the data shows that, or the data supports then you can assume that you have good science. This though is not a full proof plan but it can help to decide relatively quickly. Another good way is to check which site it is posted on, because if it is on the Nation Geographic site then you have a creditable site, but if you get Jimbobs house of used appliances then you might want to try again. There are other ways of checking like Googling the authors name or asking someone you trust to know the subject the check the validity of the information presented. All of these are good ways to at least get an idea if it is good or bad science.

There are many fishing practices out there that have a way of destroying the very environment they use to harvest their catch. Those practices can even be found in America, in a place where the government has many agencies that have the sole purpose to stop these practices. So what do you think happens to the areas where the government doesn’t care, or don’t have the recourses it takes to stop this? There are many types of destructive fishing practices; there is blast fishing, and cyanide fishing just to name a few.

Blast fishing, it’s exactly what it sound like, you toss in a couple pieces of dynamite, BOOM! and up floats all the fish you need. Sounds like a good way to get what you’re after right? Wrong this kind of fishing is horrible for everything around you when the BOOM happens. It kills everything in the area including the stuff you don’t want, like coral and other sessile organisms, as well as killing all the other fish that might not be what you are after. Not only is it bad for the environment but it is also a very dangerous proactive I mean what if you blow off a hand, or maybe don’t see the people jumping in when you throw the bomb. So stick to a fishing pole and leave the BOOM at home.

Cyanide fishing is the practice of putting a harmful chemical into the water, cyanide, and knocking out the fish in the area so that you can catch them in a net to be sold at pet stores. This process is also used to catch bigger fish to eat but originated as a practice to catch wild reef fish. So when you walk into the fish store, and see all the pretty fish in the tanks you should at least wonder how many other creatures died in order for that one to end up in your Midwestern town.

This stuff is highly poisonous to every living organism in the area, but it is especially dangerous to those animals that are filter feeders, like sponges. Sponges are like a canary in a mine, because when a poisonous substance is introduced into the environment the sponges are the first to die off. This is because they filter the water threw their bodies giving it quicker access to kill it; this is like a canary which respires quicker than humans so takes in more poisonous gas in the mine to tell everyone to get out.

So again we are not here to tell you not to buy sea food or anything just watch where and how it was obtained.

Welcome people to my first blog, guaranteed to keep you coming back for more. OK so maybe not, but you are still reading which is a good sign, right? I’m a student at Benton High School, in St. Joe Missouri where we are now the “technology school”. Our school is becoming the technology center in our city and that is probably the main reason why I have started this blog. At Benton I have been given the opportunity to do my work online in several of my classes, most of which are taught by Sean Nash, who also has a nice little blog on edublogs that discusses the tech school thing along with many other topics.

You can see some of the work that I have personally done as well as the work of my classmates on the Principles of Biology site and on the Marine Biology site. I really recommend both sites but just to give you a little push the Principle of Biology site has been nominated for an edublog award for best use of a social networking site in education. So if you like what you see, vote. These sites were the first places where I was ever given a chance to blog or do discussions of this kind and it was something that I enjoyed doing, so here we are. Being able to put down your ideas over the last class at a time convenient to you, after you have been able to think on the information is realy the best way to do your work because, most people do there best work in a more relaxed enviroment.

Principles of Biology is the Ning set up for my DC Biology class, to discuss our lessons and projects, as well as giving us a space where we could post our findings and get some good public feedback. You should find some solid info there as well as a good laugh. The Marine Biology site was pretty much set up for the same type of work, with the difference that it is not only the work of Benton students found there but of students from all over the high schools here in St. Joe. This was a huge benefit for me, because even though everyone in my classes might not be my best friend I have at least talked to them a few times in the last three years here at Benton, so the Marine biology web site gave me a chance to discuss with people I had never met before.

I don’t have a specific topic that I plan to write about or anything like that, but if you are interested in seeing the “tech school” from the view of a student, or just notice that one of my scattered blogs is interesting, please stop in and leave me your opinion. I hope you come back soon because it shouldn’t be too long before my first real post is ready for it’s debut. I guess this is it, at least until I peak your curiosity again.