October+discoveries+S.V.B.

10/07/14 Sean Boorum

This weekend I went on a 50 mile bike hike and saw a few wooly bears. Most of them had a big brown or orange middle section. I heard of a legend that says the more orange on a wooly bear the less harsh the winter is. So I decided to look it up. It turns out it is just a folktale. However I found some really neat facts on the wooly bear. The wooly bear lives throughout Mexico, the United States and the southern third of Canada. It becomes a medium size moth with yellowish orange and cream colored wings spotted with black. It turns out that the wooly bear isn't much to look at in the adult form. It’s scientific name is Pyrrharctia isabella and is also known as the Isabella tiger moth. I wondered why wooly bears cross the road because I saw a lot on the bike path. It turns out that we put roads in their way. They are just trying to look for shelter over the winter months.

Sean Boorum/Oct/13/14

I decided to do my science discovery on hydroelectric power. Hydro electric power is generated by water moving through or around some sort of turbine. When the water turns the turbine it spins the generator shaft which creates power. The power is then converted into electricity by the transformer and transferred to where it’s needed.

Sean Boorum 10/20/14

Some grasses can be considered weeds. Others are not. Sometimes types of grass are actually flowers, like fox tail grass. Crabgrass is an annoying weed that will take over lawn. The hardest part is trying to get rid of it without killing the rest of your lawn. I did not realize how many types of grasses there really are until I looked it up.

Sean Boorum10.27.14

Eye color is very confusing. I decided to look it up and countless things confused me. Eye color is very complicated because it deals with genes, also known as DNA. One thing that makes it so confusing is the fact that sometimes eye color doesn’t depend on the parent’s eye color whatsoever. It depends on the genes. Two brown eyed parents can have a blue eyed child but the opposite is rare for blue eyed parents to have a brown eyed child. The reason for this is because the blue eyed parents have less melanin, therefore the child will have less melanin so their eyes will be a lighter color. Also, another known fact is that at birth all babies eyes are blue because the melanocyte stroma cells have not yet started to produce melanin. Melanin is a dark pigment that is in hair, skin and iris in humans and animals. It is also the reason why skin tans when exposed to sunlight. 