7th-8th Grade: Week of March 9-13

Hello,
We will spend a few days experimenting with magnets as part of our Electricity and Magnetism Unit. I am anxious to finish up this unit so we can start the Physics Unit. We will spend the remainder of this week finishing up the film Longitude and adding to our Mystery Class graphs. So the homework schedule is as follows:

Wednesday, March 11: Go to the website http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth's_magnetic_field and find the section titled "Magnetic field reversals". Read the section and answer the following questions:

1. How often, on average, do the Earth's magnetic poles reverse? When was the last time this happened?
2. Although nobody know for sure, what is a leading theory as to why the poles reverse?
3. If the Earth's magnetic poles reversed tomorrow, what would the effect be upon a compass?

Friday, March 13: Go to the Solar Folklore page at http://solar-center.stanford.edu/folklore/#mesopotamia. Various cultures explained the sun and seasons in (what appeared to them) logical ways. Pick one of the these cultures (Indigenous American · Indigenous Australian · Mesopotamia · Judeo-Christian · Other Cultures) and read about how they explained the sun. Summarize your reading into a 5+ sentence paragraph.

Have a great week and Spring Break! Don't forget to balance a raw egg on the Equinox (March 20),
-Mr. Pfiester