Happy Birthday Teddy Roosevelt

"For the Benefit and the Enjoyment of the People"

This past Saturday would have been Theodore Roosevelt's 160th birthday.  Because I am a national park junkie and I have a passion for conservation, Theodore Roosevelt is definitely my favorite president.  My husband is an APUSH teacher and he agrees with me that TR is pretty awesome.  Using his power as president to protect wildlife and public lands, he created the United States Forest Service and established 150 national forests.  Additionally, he established 4 national game preserves, 5 national parks, 18 national monuments and 51 federal bird reserves.  While he was president, he protected almost 230 million acres of public land.

https://www.nps.gov/thro/learn/historyculture/theodore-roosevelt-and-conservation.htm

https://www.doi.gov/blog/conservation-legacy-theodore-roosevelt

https://www.biography.com/people/theodore-roosevelt-9463424

Clearly, we are far past the ecology unit and conservation really has nothing to do with enzymes and digestion.  However, I couldn't resist the chance to wish my favorite president Happy Birthday.  This week for your assignment, you have some options:

1.  Who is your favorite president and why?     Provide facts, figures and end your blog post with the website where you found your information

2.  What is your favorite national park and why?   Some of you have been to many of our national parks.  Which is your favorite?  What makes it different?  How long has it been a national park?  Please include the website at the end of the blog post that links to this national park.

3.  Legacy, National Monuments and Politics    In 2017, President Trump significantly reduced the amount of land set aside for two national monuments in Utah, Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante.  What do you think?  Is President Trump ruining the legacy set aside by other presidents?  How do Presidents set aside land for National Monuments?  How does this relate to legacy?  What is legacy?  Again, be sure to support your post with facts, figures and a website at the end of your post.

Pick one of the three above and write a scholarly paragraph.  Also please comment on at least one of your peers posts'.

Scary Movies are ...

I can hardly believe that it is already October 20th and I am buying Halloween candy at the grocery store.  In the car today, my husband was listening to a pod cast about the Halloween movie series.  Halloween, Friday the 13th, Saw, The Exorcist, Psycho and all the other favorites of this genre of media were a huge topic of conversation at our house this weekend.

Personally, I do not enjoy horror movies and I tend to avoid them at all costs.  However, I know that I am definitely in the minority and most teenagers love these movies.  So I thought it would be fun to understand how your body and brain reacts to horror movies.

https://psychology-spot.com/horror-movies-affect-brain/

http://time.com/4995896/scary-movies-burn-calories/

https://online.csp.edu/blog/psychology/psychology-of-fear

https://www.ahealthiermichigan.org/2017/10/07/what-happens-to-your-body-when-you-watch-a-scary-movie/

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/carolinekee/horror-movies-heart-rate-body-health

This week I want you to look through these articles and write a scholarly paragraph with your response.  What camp do you belong to?  Do you love horror movies or avoid them?  Have your middle three sentences be about at least three different ways that your body and brain react to horror movies.  Then in your conclusion statement I would like you to give a recommendation about your favorite scary movies.

Nobel Prize Week

As high school science students, I am sure you are closely following the Nobel Prize Announcements.  I am totally kidding of course, but I do think the Nobel Prize announcements are super interesting.  This year the prize for medicine went to two scientists for their discovery of a  cancer treatment using the immune system.  Next, the three scientists that split the award for the prize in chemistry were working with enzymes and peptides.  Perhaps what I find most interesting is that we will study all of these topics this year in biology.

This week I want you to go on the official website of the Nobel Prize and pick one former or current Nobel Prize winner to write about.  Ideally, I would love for there to be no repeats.  Use the website to pick a winner and then give a brief synopsis of that person's life and contribution to society.  You can pick any of the Nobel Prize winners as there are numerous categories.  In a scholarly paragraph, (at the very least five sentences long with proper spelling, capitalization and punctuation) present a biography and a reason why they won the award.  Because of our shortened week this week, you will actually have until October 19th to submit your blog post.

https://www.nobelprize.org/