Mammals R Us If Your A Human...

   Hey everybody who is reading this awesome blog to today. If you don't know what a mammal is, it is basically you. You are a mammal. See, not all mammals are animals. So lets get back to the blog
This Is What We Are Going To Learn...

• 5  characteristics of all mammals
• How mammals characteristics help them survive in different environments
• How birds and mammals are similar
• The difference between marsupials, monotremes, and placental mammals
• Similarities between placental mammal, marsupial, and monotreme babies
• An awesome mammal and interesting facts about it

     Before we start learning about mammals here are the groups of mammals.

     On the left are the placental mammals and on the right are the marsupials.

 Monotremes

     5 Characteristics of All Mammals

    

 So, right now I am going to name 5 characteristics of all mammals. All mammals are warm-blooded. That means their body temperature stays the same no matter what the weather is. All mammals have hair or fur.

 hair  fur

     All mammals give milk to their young. Some give milk through nipples and some sweat milk. All mammals have mammary glands. Mammary glands help mammals feed the young. All mammals have lungs. Lungs help the mammals breathe air. Without lungs you can't breathe and would die unless you have gills and live in water, but that is a different story.

Click here to learn more about their characteristics... http://animals.about.com/od/mammals/a/mammals-characteristics.htm

 How Mammals Characteristics Help Them Adapt To Their Environment

     One of the adaptations that some mammals have like the lion is sharp teeth. The sharp teeth helps the lion eat meat. If the lion didn't have sharp teeth it couldn't chew it's food and will choke.


  Another adaptation is that they have fur or hair. The fur or hair keep them warm. Seals that live in Antartica have hair or fur to keep them warm in the cold.



     Another adaption is they are warm-blooded. Being warm-blooded helps them. How you ask? Well, I'm going to tell you. It would be harder to stay warm or cold. If it was a really hot day you would want to go into the shade. Animals that are cold-blooded feel more hot because their blood temperature changes too.    

     To learn more about the adaptations click these links http://www.zoosociety.org/pdf/GuidedTours/AnimalAdap.pdf
http://animals.about.com/od/mammals/a/mammals-characteristics.htm

How Birds and Mammals are Similar
     Now we are going to talk about how birds and mammals are similar. Some people mistake birds as mammals, but birds have feathers not hair or fur. They are both warm blooded. You know what warm blooded means right? I told you not to long ago.  They are both vertebrates which mean they have backbones. Both have 4 chambers in the heart. They both have 2 atriums and ventricles.

The Difference Between Placental Mammals, Monotremes, and Marsupials
      Since you have already seen a picture of all of them lets talk about them. Okay these are things that none of the other groups have. Marsupials have pouches like kangaroos.The babies are not fully developed when they are born, the babies go into the mom's pouch and develop. Monotremes like platypuses lay eggs. Placental mammals give birth to fully developed live young. Those are the facts that only that group has. No other group of mammals has those characteristics.

Similarities Between The Group of Mammal Babies
    Now, I am going to talk about the similarities of the babies.  Well, all mammal babies drink milk from their mom. All babies depend on their mom when they are born. That means all mammals babies need their mom when they are born.

My Special Mammal
    This is what you guys have been waiting for. My special mammal is the platypus. What inspired me to pick this mammal is Perry the platypus.


     We are not going to talk about how awesome Perry is, we are going to talk about the facts of the platypus. To make it easier I'm going to put it in bullet points.

• Lays eggs
• Has a duck bill and a racoon tail (so awkward)
• Eats meat (carnivore)
• 20 inches from head to tail
• 3 lbs.
• The male platypus has stingers on his rear feet for defense
• Have webbed feet in the front
• Hunt in water

To learn more about platypus click here http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/platypus/

Here is a video to end it off about mammals.

   I hoped yhat you learn something today about mammals. BYE!!

Social Studies?????????

 

Hi everybody. It is Black History Month.

 I know this is a science blog and all, but today I'm going to talk about The Civil Rights Movement. To get more specific I'm going to talk about Nat Turner and what he did in the Civil Rights Movement. I'm talking about all of this because February is Black History Month. It is also the month of love, but that is totally different.
      Totally different      
This is Nat Turner.....

     Nat Turner was born on October 2, 1800 as a slave in Southampton, Virginia. Nat was a very religious man. He wanted to know what the world was like not being a slave. He was worried that his grandmother and mom would get sold and he would be alone because he loved them so much.
  Then, in 1821 Nat ran away for 30 days because a vision that the Spirit told him to "return to the service of your earthly master". If I ran away I will stay away from my master, not go to him.
      A year later his owner Samuel Turner died and he was sold to Thomas Moore.


    Three years later Nat had another vision. He saw lights in the sky and prayed to find out what it meant. Then when he was working on the field he saw blood on the corn like it was dew from the heavens. On May 12, 1828,  Nat had a third vision. Nat heard a loud noise from the heavens, and the Spirit appeared to him and said the Serpent was loosened. It was a sign that Nat should arise, prepare himself, and slay his enemies with their own weapons.
    On 1830 Nat was moved to Joseph Travis. Nat said that Joseph was nice and had no complaints.
      On February of 1831 Nat took 4 men he trusted the most and made a plan to kill all slave owners. On August 22 the group marched to Jerusalem, Virginia and killed at least 50 white slave owners including wives and children. The catch is is that every owner he killed he took the slaves to help Nat fight slavery. The group of slaves got stopped when they got confronted by a group of white militia. Nat's force got disorganized. The rest of the force met the state and federal troop. In the end 55 white people died.
    Nat hid in many different places, but got found by Benjamin Philips. He got accused of murder and was hanged. The result of this rebellion was that close to 200  black people who had nothing to do with this were murdered by white mobs because white people were scared that the black people would rebel.
I don't think Nat helped because he just made more black people die and white people more angry.

Hope you learned about Nat Turner today. BYE!!!!


Bibliography
http://afgen.com/nat.jpg
http://images.sodahead.com/polls/002166579/011949562_hey_whale_answer_3_xlarge.jpeg
http://i660.photobucket.com/albums/uu326/mp3music-pk/bye-scraps/bye-scraps19.gif
http://readywriterz.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/black-history-month.gif
http://cdn1.newsone.com/files/2010/02/blackhis4.jpg
http://www.vine2victory.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Love_11.jpg
http://www.botticellisvision.com/images/Portrait_of_Sir_Thomas_Moore.jpg
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part3/3p1518.html

Talkin' 'Bout Birds



Hey everybody who is reading my blog. Today we are going to learn about birds. Birds are our feathered friends.
What we are going to learn...

• 4 characteristics shared by ALL birds
• The difference between contour and down feathers
• How are bird's feathers, air sacs, and skeleton are adapted to flying
• Interesting facts about a special bird
• What is Georgia's state bird

Before I start here is a bird, a bald eagle which is the national bird of the U.S.


Characteristics
First, I'm going to tell you guys about 4 characteristics that all birds have. One of them is is that they all are endothermic. Endothermic means that the blood temperature stays the same no matter what. If they are in fire their body temperature stays the same. If it they are in ice it stays the same. The next characteristic is that all birds either have a beak or a bill. A bill is something that ducks use to eat. It isn't a bill that you pay.

        obviously different             

A beak is this..........
 They are both used for eating.
The next characteristic is that all birds have wings. You can't be a bird without wings. Even though some birds can't fly they still have wings.


The last characteristic is that birds have feathers. If you don't have a feather you're not a bird.If you don't know what a feather is, here's a pic of one...


To explain our feathered friends here is a video from L.L Bloo Jay. Get it blue jay, it is a bird. Okay back to the video.

Feathers

Now we are going to talk about feathers. There are 2 different types of feathers, contour and down. Before I start teaching you about those feathers here they are...



 contour feather

This is the down feather...



Time to tell you the information. A contour feather is on the covering of a bird. It keeps the bird warm and dry. It also gives the bird color. Down feathers are feathers that insulate the body and cushions the bird. That is why they are so fluffy.

Flying
Do you wonder how birds fly? Bird's skelotens and wings are adapted to flying. How you ask? Well, I'm going to tell you. Birds wings are adapted to flying because their wings are curved. Scientist thought since birds wings are curved and they can fly they made the wings on an airplane curved.
 Almost the same see?

Okay, we know you need a curved wing to fly, and every bird has a curved wing. Why can't some fly, like the ostrich? Well you have to be light weight also. Birds that can fly like the hawk have light bones. Birds like the turkey have heavy bones. So to fly you need a curved wing and a light skeleton. Another thing that you need are air sacs. Birds have air sacs connected to their lungs that help them take out more oxygen than other animals can. Birds need that extra oxygen to release large amounts of energy into their flight.

My Special Bird
If I could pick any bird in the world in the world it would be the angry bird.


Since I can't do that and there is no information about I am choosing the chicken.
 Whoops wrong picture, but still looks good.
 Here it is

I chose the chicken because it is tasty, but I am not going to talk about how good it tastes. I'm going to talk about the facts. I'll put it in bullet points so it is easier to understand.

• Chickens that are domestic can't fly for a long distance
• Wild chickens eat lizards and mice
• Special breed hens, female chickens, lay up to 300 eggs a year
• Chickens take 21 days to hatch
• Can run up to 9 mph
• Hawks, bobcats, snakes, skunks and owls eat chickens

That is the chicken.

The Georgia State Bird
The Georgia state bird is the brown thrasher.


Hope you had a googd time reading my blog about birds. BYE!!!!

Reptiles

Hey everybody who is reading my awesome blog. Today we are going to learn about reptiles. Hope you enjoy and have some FUN!!!!!!

What We Are Going To Learn Today

• What characteristics do all reptiles have in common
• How are they different from amphibians
• The different groups of reptile (Wait And I will tell you later)
• I'm going to describe each group's characteristics
• An example animal from each group

Before we start here are some reptiles.

First I am going to talk about the characteristics of all reptiles. Well all reptiles have vertebrates. If you haven't read my blog before vertebrates are living things that have backbones. They all have lungs which means they can breathe air like us humans. So that means they live in on land, but some can live in water because they can hold their breath and come up for air. All reptiles are cold-blooded. It doesn't mean they have cold blood. It means that their body temperature change according to the surroundings. All reptiles have scales. Scales are thin flat pointy plates that cover an animal.

Second, we are going to talk about the differences between reptiles and amphibians. Amphibians start out with gills and then lungs. Reptiles have lungs for their whole life. Reptiles look like mini adults when they’re babies, amphibians go through metamorphosis and look completely different after metamorphosis. 

     It is the adult then the kid.

Amphibian eggs are jellylike and reptile eggs are hard.

Next we are going to talk abut the different groups of reptiles. First, let me start by saying this, the groups of reptiles are: Crocodilians which are Crocodiles and Alligators, Turtles and Tortoises, and Lizards. 

                                                                          Crocodilian (American Crocodile)

                                                                          Hawksbill Sea Turtle

                                                                                           Snake (Anaconda)

                                                                                      Lizard (Angel Head) 

Now we are going to talk about the characteristics of each type of reptile.

The first reptile we are going to talk about are the crocodilians. Crocodilians are the largest reptiles in the WORLD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Crocodiles can grow up to 23 feet long. Alligators can grow up to 13 feet. Crocodilians eat rats, snakes, fish, and turtles. They do not use their teeth to eat, so they swallow their preys in big chunks. A male crocodile can weight up to 1,984 lbs. A male alligator can weigh up to 800 lbs. A crocodile can stay under water from 3 to 5 minutes. My favorite crocodilian is the American Crocodile because it is American.  

  


Here is another cool alligator that I like.

Next we are going to talk about the lizard. There are 3,000 lizard species in the world. Some lizards may grow up to 10 feet, but some lizards can be as small as the index finger. When a lizard is being attacked it can break off part of his tail. They do this because it distracts the predators.  Most lizards are active during the day. My favorite lizard is the komodo dragon, because it is one of the largest lizards.

 Lizard

The next reptile is the snake. Snakes are carnivores which are meat eaters. There are over 2,700 species of them. They can't survive in cold places, because they are cold blooded. Snakes don't have eye lids.They are weirdos. Snakes smell with their tongue, that is why they stick their tongue out. My favorite snake is the King Cobra, because its vicious. 

  

The last reptile we are going to talk about is the turtle/tortoise. They eat plants, jellyfish, clams, and shrimp.  Some adult turtles can weigh up to 200 lbs. Those are some heavy turtles! Tortoises can weigh up to 600 lbs. They can't breathe in water, but sea turtles can hold their breath for up to 5 months. Turtles can live up to 150 years. Tortoises can live to about 165 years. My favorite turtle is the TMNT.
 Just Kidding
It is giant tortoise because it is bigger than ever.

I hope you learned something about reptiles today Bye! Don't forget to comment.