Vocabulary
Seasons/季节 - Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter
Direct Sunlight/阳光直射 - When the sunlight hits Earth at a straight line.
Indirect Sunlight/阳光斜射 -When the sunlight hits Earth at an angle
Equator/赤道 - An imaginary line that equally divides Earth into half.
Axis/轴 - The imaginary line that goes through the middle of Earth
Tilt/倾斜 - Not straight; sloping
Elliptical/椭圆 - The shape of an orbit.
Orbit/轨道 - The path Earth takes around the Sun.
Hemisphere/半球 - Half of Earth


Summary
Seasons are the divisions of the year. There are 4 seasons in each year -- Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter. Seasons happen because of the Earth's axis, and the axis is tilted to the 23.5 degree angle, pointing straightly to the Northern Star -- Polaris. Seasons were also caused by the revolution of Earth around the Sun on an elliptical orbit. On Earth's orbit, there are two different equinoxes and solstices, and thus, they create 4 different kinds of climates. On the other hand, Earth is divided into two hemispheres by the equator. One receives the direct sunlight when the other one receives the indirect sunlight, and that's why the two hemispheres have opposite seasons.

Video

Critical Thinking Question
How is earth affected by movement (revolution)?
Earth is affected by the movement, or known as the revolution, of itself because its movement around the Sun caused the four different seasons -- Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter -- to happen. Earth has different seasons because Earth reaches different equinoxes or solstices as it revolves around the Sun. Each season has its own special weather conditions and qualities depending on whether the hemisphere receives direct sunlight or indirect sunlight in the mean time.

 Reflection
1. What did you enjoy the most about this project and why?
The thing I enjoyed the most about this project is editing and perfecting the video because I got to learn more about using iMovie and editing and cutting clips, and I also enjoyed being creative when I edit it by exploring new editing techniques and make use of them when editing the video.

2. What was most challenging for you during this project and why?
The most challenging thing for me during this project is that I was not given too much time to edit my video. I felt that I didn't have enough time to add more exciting stuffs and improve the video even more, and I had to complete the whole editing in a small amount of time. In fact, I still feel like the video could've been a lot better.

3. What new skills did you enjoy learn from doing this project?
Through this project, I've learned many new iMovie skills I've never learned before, such as cutting the screen, putting the subtitles. I also got to experience iMovie a lot more than before, and I now find it a very handy and easy application to edit the videos.

4. Is there anything that you could have done to improve any of your work? Explain.
There are definitely a lot of things I could've add to the video to improve the quality of the video. If I had more time provided, I would adjust the volume of the background music a little more, make Roger dub the clips to increase the quality of the voice, and definitely make the transitions a little smoother.

Description
The Permian Period was the last period of the Paleozoic Era, and it's known for the great extinctions of many organisms existed during that time. The main kind of animals that extinct during that timme was the marine ones. The extinction of these animals led to the chances for other organisms to dominate. During the Permian Period, the huge single continent Pangea was formed; therefore, the ocean water could not benefit the massive land, and it cause Pangea to get extremely dry.

Video

Glog

Reflection
1. What did you enjoy most about this project?
I enjoyed the most about this project when we were researching the pictures of the organisms living during Permian Period because it's fun to discover these ancient organisms that were once alive in this world. It's crazy to think about how much the organisms on Earth had evolved since then.

2. What was most challenging about this project? Why?
The most challenging part of this project was that we had to make sure we included every sources that we had used because we could miss a single source because of the carelessness and get a zero for the whole reference assignment. Also, it's hard to collaborate on research since each of us had a different idea. Fortunately, Albana was so helpful, and working with her was pretty fun and fast.

3. What would you change about this project and why?


4. What are 3 things that you learned from this project?

Planet Order: 4th from the Sun
Distance From the Sun: 227.9 millions km
Mass: 6.42 x 10^23 kg
Diameter: 6,792 km
Rotation: 1 day, 39 minutes, and 35 seconds
Revolution: 686.98 days
# of Moons: 2 (Phobos and Deimos)
Type of Planet: Terrestrial

What is Mars like?
    Mars is a planet with similar features compared to Earth, including clouds in the atmosphere, seasonal weather changes, volcanos. However, the land and sky on Mars are different from the ones on Earth; they are both in a color that's close to red and pink. Also, there are two moons on Mars, and they are called Phobos and Deimos. The average temperature on Mars is -81° F, which is very cold for human to live on.

2 Interesting Facts You Should Know About Mars!

• Mars is named after the Roman god of wars, Mars.
• Mars has the largest volcanos out of all the terrestrial planets.

Planet Order: 2nd from the Sun
Distance From the Sun: 108.2 millions km
Mass: 4.868 x 10^24 kg
Diameter: 12,104 km
Rotation: 243 days
Revolution: 224.7 days
# of Moons: 0 (None!)
Type of Planet: Terrestrial

What is Venus like?
    Venus is a burning hot planet with the surface temperature up to about 854°F. The rain on this planet is always acid, and it often evaporates by the heat before it hits the ground. Also, the gravity force on Venus is much stronger than Earth that it can crush a person straightly.

2 Interesting Facts You Should Know About Venus!

• Venus is named after the Roman goddess of love and beauty called Venus.
• On Venus, a day (243 Earth days) lasts even longer than a year (224.7 Earth days.)

1. What time of the year do hurricanes occur? Why do they only happen during that time?
Hurricanes occur often during the summer. They only happen during that time because the temperature is warm, and the Hurricanes survive with the warm ocean water and get their power from it.

2. How can the timing of the tides (high and low) effect the devastation of a hurricane?
The timing of the tides effects the devastation of a hurricane, because the hurricane would be devastated when there's a low tide, which is when the sea level goes down. Therefore, there wouldn't be much water for hurricane to able to continue when there's a low tide.


3. If an area is fully saturated, will a hurricane have more or less impact on an area?
The hurricane will still most likely even have more impact on a fully saturated area. Because when the land is already fully saturated, the water brought by the hurricane would have no more spaces to saturate the soil and the groundwater. The water that does not have anywhere to saturate would eventually go on to the ground and cause the flood.

4. How does groundwater saturation affect rivers and streams?
The saturation of the groundwater affects rivers and streams connected to the groundwater. When the area of groundwater is already fully saturated, the rest of the water will pass to those rivers and streams. And sometimes it causes run-offs from the mountain, too. Because they are also connected to the zone of saturation.

1. What is something that you liked about this Mini-Project?
This Mini-Project helped me to further understand the ideas and the information about the topics around hurricane such as groundwater, flood, water cycle, etc. And I also liked how we are sharing and teaching each others what we learned in a table, it was fun and I received a lot of useful knowledge on the other topics that other students had researched on.

2. What was difficult for you on this project?
The difficult part I found that was quite confusing to me was when I had to look for the causes and effects for the groundwater. I was trying really hard to brainstorm as many reasons as I could, but eventually I only thought of 3 ideas for each. However, we decided to share our clues with each others as a groundwater project group. Finally, along with Ms. Kara's help, we came up with 5 causes and 5 effects, and we were another step closer to finishing the project.

3. What would you change about your work on this project?
If there's something I could change about my work on this project, I would want to be add in some more useful vocabularies that are related to the groundwater, as I only included 5 basic words on my worksheet on groundwater.

4. How did this project help you learn about Hurricane Irene?
Doing this project and making a worksheet about the topic helped me to sort all the causes and effects of different topics that are related to Hurricane Irene. Now I understand the different reasons how Hurricane Irene would start and the effects it would have on the Earth much better than before.