Tuesday, February 24, 2009

S.S. Blog State News

In the following article I have read about the stimulus plan of Corzine. It said that he plans in spending more than one billion dollars on this stimulus package. I think it's about time that something happened that will hopefully fix our economy. I also hope that this does not take money out of peoples pay checks that need the money and if anything, is taken from the people that do not need all the money that they are making. It seems that this money will be going to tax relief and to hopefully help out the unemployed. This money will also soften the damage we have created. Hopefully these cuts do no take away any ones jobs because that would defeat the purpose of helping the unemployed. I think the idea of creating jobs such as repairs and expansion of state highways, bridges, rail lines and seaports, as well as transit capital projects such as rail and bus stations is a very smart idea and will hopefully be successful. These repairs are needed for safe transportation so they are helping people economically and by securing their safety.
http://www.nj.com/news/ledger/jersey/index.ssf?/base/news-12/123545318436320.xml&coll=1

Sunday, February 22, 2009

New Rat Species

In the following article, I have read about this new rat species that has been found in the mountains of the Philippines. They are called the Hamiguitan batomys. They are golden brown with a long fuzzy tail. The rat weighs 6.2 ounces. I think that it is wonderful that they have found this animal and that they continue to find other animals. These rats seem very interesting and different from the rats I have heard of. The rats that I know of are normally a gray color and live in highly human populated areas where they can access garbage. I thought that it was interesting that the Philippines had one of the largest amounts of unique species of mammals of any place in the world. I personally don't know much about rats but do find this discovery interesting and would like to hear more about it. I find new discoveries of animal species very interesting and I find it even more interesting that the species has gone so long not being discovered or unnoticed. I wonder if they were seen before and were not known to be a new species and I wonder how long they have been around for.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090218/sc_afp/philippineswildliferodent;_ylt=Anfjy6dhWyKWe3mTs.Sao794hMgF

Thursday, February 5, 2009

Roller coasters

In science we are working on a roller coaster project. We had to earn "Omega Money" so we could "buy" the supplies for our project. Some of the supplies that we could buy are toliet paper rolls, empty milk cartons, empty soda bottles, large toilet paper rolls, tape and some other items that were made of cardboard. My group has a very small amount of money so we had to be sure not to waste any of it and use what we have wisely. So far me have just been using toliet paper rolls and masking tape. We have to have three hills on our roller coaster which we are having a bit of a hard time to built because you need just enough energy to get the marble up a hill and yet the structure still needs to be realistic. We have tried many different ways of making hills and some ways have suceded and some have not. I think we have learned that to get a marble up a hill, there should be a steep, longer hill coming down to it so that the marble has a lot of energy. I feel this project is fun and interesting because it shows us how cool energy and force are. Force is shown in this expreiment because the different angles and materials have different speeds and ablilitys which forces the marble to move throughout the roller coaster.. This project is a wonderful way to show force and really get you thinking. It is amazing how some of these roller coasters work and how they sometimes does not work. All in all, I have learned a lot from this project so far and it has been enjoyable.

Sunday, February 1, 2009

S.S. Current Event # 2

In the following article i read about the Food Pantry of Monmouth Junction and how they are struggling now more than ever to get donations. This is because of the bad economy. Families are struggling to put food on their own tables and therefore cannot afford to purchase food for the people who have none. Also, because of this economy, the price of food is up. The amount of people who go to the food pantry as there food source is increasing as well. More and more people are loosing their jobs and can use every penny they get and cannot afford to donate because they are barley affording there own food. It is important that people that can afford to donate know about the food pantry and do donate and hopefully more people are employed and the economy gets better and this crisis can be over. I believe that this is a very unfortunate problem. Many people are loosing there job which causes upset families who cannot afford food and really need this food and it is so sad to know that they cannot get the food they need. I think that there are many people that could donate and it does not have to be a lot but there are people who can donate that do not know how needy the food pantry is and if they did know would hopefully be willing to help and would help. All in all, this is very unfortunate and hopefully the economic crisis will be solved and the food pantry will receive more donations.
http://www.centraljersey.com/articles/2009/02/04/south_brunswick_post/news/doc4980d43f719eb599088632.txt