Science! It was a little different from class to class, but overall we reviewed the idea that as air warms, it tends to expand and become less dense as the molecules speed up. This leads to that mass of air being buoyant, and rising in the atmosphere. This has two major effects that we can be aware of: one is on air pressure, and the other is on winds. In our practice problems for barometers that measure air pressure, we applied this idea of the relationship between air pressure and temperature (heavy, dense air is usually cooler, and lighter less dense air is normally warmer.) As such, when air pressure is decreasing, temperature is usually increasing. As air pressure decreases, air temperature decreases.
We also looked at the effect of rising warm air on winds. The general short hand is that as warm air rises, cool air moves in to replace it. This means that winds tend to move from cool areas towards warm areas. (This is of course complicated by the cycles of heating and cooling from day to night, as well as how land and water heat and cool at different rates.)
There is a delightful online simulator that shows how gases (like in the atmosphere!) behave as they heat and cool. In specific, if you play with this, look at what happens with volume and density as temperature changes.
In social studies, we reviewed the responses to the "War Ends" text, and then introduced the newest text, "The 1st Presidency" which will be due on Wednesday...yes, we will have time to work on those tomorrow.
And with that, an incredible amount of work seems to be calling my name, so: ta!
the_first_presidency.docx |