Other Layer B Awards

Best Hand Drawn Infographic

This infographic has tremendous thought and planning behind it.  Not only is it visually stunning with its cubic cleavage, it is organized and laid out so that it is useful for anyone trying to identify any minerals.  When one first encounters a mineral, one visually inspects the mineral first which is why the artist puts visual properties on the left.  The infographic has minimal, well chosen words and aided the explanations with objects allowing the reader to quickly get an idea of what each mineral test entails.  The infographic was pretty exhaustive and informative.  The only issue I have with it is that the artist labelled 'chemical properties' under physically identifying minerals.  

Best App-Aided Infographic

This was an infographic that was done by piktochart.  There was a lot of information found in this infographic and it was also well organized.  It was visually fun to look at but my main comments to the artist was to cut down on the number of words to let your audience flow through the infographic.  Put some effort in summarizing each test so that your reader can get the main idea.  

Best Concept Map

Exhaustive and an all-encompassing concept map.  You want to know how all the key words are connected in the unit?  Look no further than this.  It is well planned,  visually laid out, and many interconnections between different concepts are present.  Absolutely spectacular work.    

Best use of Statistics - Showing what an Infographic Really Should Include (RESEARCH!)

See the full infographic here.  

There should have been some stats that you guys have researched about minerals.  ie:  What % of minerals have a hardness of 1?  What % of minerals are green?  Stats are integral aspect of an infographic - do some research and put it in there if you choose to do an infographic next round.  I encourage you to take look at this infographic and to see the interaction level of this artists' work.  

Math is Used to Explain the Universe...

 Math is always been abstract.  Then, at some point, science catches up and can often utilize that math to describe and predict the happenings of the universe.  For example, the imaginary numbers you learned about in Gr 11 math - I used it to partially describe electricity's behaviour while studying in university.

XKCD, a popular comic, compares math and science based on purity:

Math is a convenient tool to describe the things we can't really understand - like black holes.  In the latest news, the physicist, Mersini-Houghton, has just mathematically proven that black holes do not exist.  She has married two known sides of science - quantum physics with general relativity with her finding, which is a pretty big deal. We'll see if it stands up to the scrutiny of the other scientists.

The Alps, Like Never Presented Before

Hundreds of mountaineers got together for a tremendous photoshoot of the Alps.  The pictures are just breathtaking.

From the Bored Panda

Volcano

A volcano named Ontake San has suddenly erupted in Japan.  Check out this Volcano Cafe for two reasons- 1)  it has amalgamated the latest news and we can certainly learn from it and 2)  the posting would have scored pretty well on the rubric.  Can you spot which parts Volcano Cafe could improve upon?

It's also pleasing to read this quote isn't it?

"The base of the volcano is 17 km2 and the composition is mostly rhyolite but the upper parts also contain pyroxene and andesite. The longest lava flow that had been produced run 17 km."  

Photo Creds:  Gary Wolff

Warp Drive: 17 000 Year Flight Compressed into 5 Months

So, NASA has designed the exterior of the warp-drive space ship.  With this warp drive, we can theoretically travel 10 times faster than the speed of light by 'warping' the space around the vessel and jumping from one space to another, using Einstein's general relativity.

From IXS Enterprise Flickr - 1600 hour concept project

More Earth, Less Space. Did I Hear you Right, Donnie?

An awesome speech by DiCaprio.  He was much more efficient in delivering information that I was in my 45 minute double Powerpoint yesterday.

I issue a challenge to you, the people who lack listening endurance, to listen to DiCaprio for 4 minutes without getting distracted.  

This Probably Won't Work...

I do have people lined up to read your blogs.  I swear.

I'm actually trying to get more people to read your blogs.  However, my latest attempt probably won't be successful as I doubt telling people they're scientifically wrong will actually get them to click on AC's blog.

People just don't know that minerals such as diamonds can't be created by organic matter such as coal.  I guess they didn't take sarth and epace science.

What, can't I shameless plug my students' blogs?