Compasses for Professor Lidenbrock

Fortunately, we have compasses to give to professor Lidenbrock. You have made some compasses, so the journey is going on. Here you have one picture with some of your compasses. You can see that all of them work correctly, all of them point to the North.
By the way! What have you learn about magnetism? How does a compass work? Why is there a magnetic field in the Earth?
Don't worry!!! These are difficult questions for students of the first course of ESO. But that the study of magnetism has been very important to know the inner Earth structure. Try to answer them. You know... extra points to travel to the centre of the Earth.

A compass to travel to the centre of the Earth

Axel, Hans and Professor Lidenbrock have begun the Journey. Now they have climbed down the crater and they are 2.000 meters from the top of Snaeffels. In this morning, after breakfast, professor Lidenbrock looks for his compass to continue the travel but.... he has lost it. So, you have to help him and you are going to make your own compass.

Basically, a compass is a magnetic needle that points to the North. But how a needle becomes magnetised? It is very easy. Take a sewing needle and a magnet. Rub the magnet against the sewing needle at least forty times always in the same direction. The needle should be magnetized.

Cut a circle of craft foam, cork or EVA foam. Take a glass of water. Place the needle on the circle and place it on top of water, just in the centre of the glass. If every thing is correct, the needle will begin to slowly turn around and finally the needle will point North and South.

Make this experiment at home and take your compass to our class. If your compass points to North  our heroes will continue the journey and you will win points.

How many stars can you see from your house?

We are learning about the atmosphere in class. As you can read in our book, air pollution is the presence of various substances or types of energy in the atmosphere in quantities that are harmful to living beings and the environment. Gases, solid particles.... perhaps these are the most known pollutants. But there are more. Noise, for example, is a type of energy that causes important effects on living beings. And light? Can light pollute our cities?

In my opinion we are lucky because some of you live in the city and some in villages surrounding Granada. I want to propose you an experiment. I want you to look at the sky at night. Take a sheet of paper and cut a frame of 3 cm each side. Through this window look at the sky to the area with the highest number of stars. Count them!!! We will discuse your results in the classroom.

Please, write comments with your conclusions!!

(Marc Imhoff/NASA GSFC, Christopher Elvidge/NOAA NGDC; Image: Craig Mayhew and Robert Simmon/NASA GSFC)

An experience listening to music from your mp3 player

Are you fond of listening to music from a mp3 player? Do you always listen to music at the same level? Probably not; why? There is a lot of noise surrounding us. Cars, motorbikes, advertisements... every time is more and more difficult to hear to sounds we want to listen. I mean, our voices, conversations... This is what we know as noise pollution. And it is harmful to living beings. Humans can develop cardiovascular diseases due to noise pollution; in animals, reproduction or navigation can be altered. All of them will have hearing loss.

I propose you a simple experiment. You are going to listen to music in different situations. At night, when everything is silent; in a noisy environment (street with lot of cars and motorbikes, shopping malls...) and in an intermediate situation. Adapt the volume to the minimun you can hear and write down the number you read on the screen of your device. We will calculate in the classroom the average values. 

What are your conclusions of our experiments? Write them as comments. Try to do in English. I will pay special atention to your solutions for noise pollution!

About volcanoes

This is amazing!!! Our heroes are going to travel to the centre of the Earth. They have discovered the entrance in the Snaeffels volcano. But we have read other messages with other volcanoes to begin our journey. But we have a little problem: we know the name of the volcanoes but we don't know where they are. 

If you want to go to the centre of the Earth you will have to discover where these volcanoes are: Mounts Etna, Apoyeque, Barva, Krakatoa, Kilimanjaro, Vesubio, Fujiyama and Mauna Loa. 

And I have found a postcard in an old book with a message that says that we can begin our journey from Spain. This is the picture. And I could only read a name: Santa Margarita. Where is that volcano? Are there other volcanoes in Spain? The answers as comments, please. You will win points!

And finally... If we want to begin our journey from a volcano, we must know how a volcano is.  Professor Lidenbrock is a geologist and of course he knows. But do you know how a volcano is? Please draw a volcano, locate all their parts and give it to me. I will put in this blog the best drawings, with extra points.

 

Iris's volcano 

 Claudia's volcano

Maxi's volcano

Pablo's volcano

 Rosa's volcano

 Ana's volcano

Lucia's volcano

And there are more volcanoes in this link.

Professor Lidenbrock, Axel and Hans arrive to Snaeffels

When Professor Lidenbrock and Axel arrive to the top of Scartaris, it is midnight but they can see the light of the sun in the sky. Probably the same image that you can see in the picture below. How it is possible to see the Sun in the midnight? What happens if you go to the Snaefflels volcano just in Christmas? Write your answers as a comment. You will win points to reach the centre of the Earth.

View from the Snaeffels on the summer solstice by Anjali Kiggal - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, (https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=41288276)

The indecipherable messages

We had lot of messages. In my opinion there are several volcanoes to begin our journey. But two of them couldn`t be translated and I think that they are very important. Here you have those two texts. You will have extra point to your Journey to the centre of the Earth if you are able to read them. Please write the translated messages as comments.

 Ana's secret message

Pablo's secret message