Shasta Dam

By: 

Ramyasree Kaja

Hi everyone, this week I went to Shasta Dam.  The view was very beautiful.  Before I came to this dam I thought dams were just used for blocking floods and stuff.  Then I found out that the dam is also used for creating electricity!  The shasta Dam is 602 ft tall.  It is the second highest and largest(by mass) dam in the world.  Second largest has got to be great!  The Shasta Dam is 3000 ft in crest length.  This was all constructed between 1938-1945.  Oh, and also the shasta dam creates the shasta lake.  I saw the Shasta Lake too.  Anyways, overall Shasta Dam was really neat.  I recommend this place to anyone who's interested.  Thanks.

                                         

Plastic Pollution Speech

Speech

Hello Everyone! My name is Ramya and my concern about the community is plastic wasting. We use plastic just about every day. Plastic bags, plastic containers, plastic ziploc bags. Do you know what happens to this plastic that we use. We usually throw it in the garbage than rather recycle it. That plastic gets dumped in the garbage truck, and that garbage gets dumped into the ocean. Why do we waste plastic so much?

One day I was walking down a beach and I saw a duck in the water trying to wade out. I came closer to see and I saw that it was wrapped up in a plastic net. It was trying to get out and I thought who would be so thoughtless and dump plastic or trash into the ocean without realizing it can hurt animals. I realized that piece of plastic, was littered by someone from the beach. Whenever we use some sort of plastic we almost always throw it into the garbage bin instead of the recycling bin. All the plastic bottles in the community used for a year can be equal to just one water bottle we can use everyday. Usually when plastic is wasted it gets dumped into the ocean. There are always sea animals living under the ocean so they either get caught on the plastic or they eat the plastic. Think about how animals get hurt by the habitat they live in. When sea animals fiddle around with plastic they can really get hurt. 

Plastic is not biodegradable which means it is not made from nature like brown bags. Brown bags are made from paper which come from trees, they are biodegradable. Anyways, plastic is not biodegradable, which means it’s not always good. So if its not made from nature, what is it made of? Mostly plastic is made of chemicals and natural gas.

Before I moved here I lived in Cupertino and one day when I went with my dad to the local stores I saw that they banned plastic bags. They replaced them with biodegradable brown bags. In the south bay, the plastic use became much less. 

If we don't do that to our community we will have to suffer the guiltiness of wasting plastic when we can recycle it and reuse. So first, what we should do is recycle plastic instead of throwing it away. Next, we could make a program that saves plastic than rather doing it the other way around. We should also give out notices that this is our community and that we shouldn't ruin it, but take care of it. Our community is our home.  

If you’re thinking about how not to use plastic don’t, because some types of plastics are biodegradable and good for you to use. Just be careful though on what you choose. Remember though you’re not thinking about just yourself. Think about the environment too, like animals and nature. Plastic abuse almost everyone unless you’re the person who knows what you're doing. So good luck. 

STATE REPORT

State Report

By:

Ramya Kaja

    If I were to choose one state to live in between Louisiana and Hawaii, I would choose Hawaii. I would choose Hawaii because it has better education, weather, attractions, and entertainment. These are just a few examples why I think so.

       

First of all, I think Hawaii gets loads of good weather. It gets a few tornadoes and hurricanes, but they’re not nearly as bad as the ones Louisiana gets. Louisiana has gotten a F3 on the tornado scale. I would have liked Hawaii’s tornadoes better, because they have never done any major damage to the islands before. The most destructive kind of tornado Hawaii has gotten before is a F2 tornado on the tornado scale. Almost everyday it is sunny but cloudy in Hawaii. Sometimes there are a few light showers then and now. Rarely do they ever get thunderstorms. They get hurricanes usually between June & November. The weather is much more tropical in Hawaii how I like it.    

Secondly, I think Hawaii has better education than Louisiana, because Louisiana got a ranking of #48 between all the states in the U.S. Which means Louisiana is the third worst state in education in the U.S! Hawaii on the other hand isn’t that great either. Hawaii got a ranking of #37 which is better than Louisiana though. One of the best universities in Hawaii is the University of Hawaii at Manoa in Honolulu. This is a doctor university and there are many more universities too. If I were to live there I’d clearly get better education than Louisiana.

Fortunately, Hawaii has one of my favorite things of all. Entertainment! Hawaii has so many things you can do when you’re bored or looking for fun. You can go surfing, watch hula dancers or fire dancers, listen to musical programs which tell about the “Aloha” spirit, or even go see dormant volcanoes! All these are fun and you can go do these right after school every single day. Louisiana has one festival that comes once a year before Easter called Mardi Gras. Just one really big festival. There are many entertainment programs where you can just relax and see hula dancing, which is the traditional dance in Hawaii. As you can see, there are many relaxing, adventure-taking, wild things to do at Hawaii.

To conclude, I think Hawaii would be the right place for my family and I. Hawaii has really good weather, education, and lots of entertainment for us to enjoy. Of course these are just a few examples of fortunate things for living in Hawaii.

               

Snow man

Snow Man

“Pass the ball, Rebbeca” shouted Mistal she was waving her hands to show she was open. As Rebbeca tossed the ball over the volleyball net  Mistal held her hands high waiting for the ball.

“Got ya” yelled a boy grabbing the ball right before it reached Mistal’s hands.

“Give it back” replied Mistal as she started chasing the boy, Mark, across the beach. “We have to finish our volleyball game.”

Suddenly the ball deflated as Rebbeca came over panting and pointing to Mark.

“You are going to be in so much trouble” said Rebbeca panting heavily. Mistal and Rebbeca  walked to the end of the beach looking for Mark’s parents to tell the disaster he made.

As they walked along the beach they could hear the waves crashing. Their toes prickled as the freezing cold water crashed over their feet. The sun beat down on them glaring at their eyes.

“What’s over there?” asked Mistal. She was pointing to the far end of the beach. At the end of the beach only one and single beach chair was their. And on that chair was-

“Is that a snowman !”continued Mistal. “I think we should go back.” gasped Rebbeca.

“At the beach!”

“Oh come on.It’ll be fun” reassured Rebbeca.

Together Mistal and Rebbeca. walked over to the snowman. They stopped about five feet away away from the snowman and stared in awe.

“Hello there child. I’m Sinny the Snowman” beamed the snowman.

“Arre yyyou a sssnowmman in summer?!” trembled Mistal.

“Yes indeed I am.” claimed the snowman. “In fact it all a long story. You see I am a snowman that can only survive in summer not winter. And I am alive because some weird guy named, Mark I believe, sprinkled some sand on me because he was scared. Oh, and could you do me a favor by helping me a find a way through winter, ...please? You’re the only ones I’ve spoke to all day.” He pleaded with a commanding smile.

There was a long silence.

“Sure....” hesitated Rebbeca breaking the silence.

Rebbeca and Mistal took Sinny to their house. They all agreed it would be best to hide in their backyard until they found a solution for Sinny.

The backyard was huge and gorgeous. The grass was greener than ever and nicely cut. There was even a swing set with uneven bars.

They all sat down on the lawn and began staring at each other,thinking.

“Wait a minute how did you become a snowman in the first place in summer?”wondered Mistal.

“I told you someone named, Mark I think, sprinkled some sand on me by accident because he was scared” reminded Sinny.

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking” asked Rebbeca as a smile spread across her face.

“Well I don’t know are thinking about cheese pizza?” questioned Mistal.

Rebbeca slapped her forehead. “No, I was thinking if some sand made made Sinny alive in summer maybe some more sand will make him alive in winter again. And then when summer approaches again we could sprinkle some more sand on him to make Sinny alive in Summer again!”

“That’s a great idea!” agreed Sinny the snowman.

“Okay, Mistal go get a bucket of sand, while I talk with Sinny. Got it?”

“I dunno if its really gonna work,” stated Mistal. She let out a sigh. “Well let’s see.”

Rebbeca said she and Mistal were quickly going to sprinkle some sand on Sinny. If it worked he would start melting. If he did start melting, Rebbeca would sprinkle some more sand on him to get him back to normal.

When Mistal came back they tried it and it worked. So every time a new season came they would sprinkle some more sand on him. And as long as Sinny stayed with Rebbeca and Mistal he would be fine. As long as they stayed near the beach, but that was years later to worry about. Anyway he just needed some special sand....

Seismic Engineering Workshop

Seismic Engineering workshop @ The Tech Museum of Innovation - Ramya Kaja 

TECH challenge:

At the Seismic Engineering workshop 02/07/2015, we had to make popsicle houses that withstands an 3.0 earthquake.

Materials:

We had a few things to make it. About 20 popsicle sticks, a rubber band, a hot glue gun with 2 glue sticks, and rubber pie pan.  We weren’t allowed to have any extra popsicle sticks or glue sticks.

Structure Design and Testing :

We were group of 4 team members and our initial design was cube with a pyramid on top of it. We also had to have a second floor to hold a visitor, Grandma Betty. It was a small little doll that was supposed to stay on the designed building and withstand the earthquake. After we built ours we had to test it. We tested it by putting it into the rubber pie pan and the Tech Challenge helper put all the pans on a big machine. She turned on the machine and it made a big earthquake to the pans, then we were allowed to improve them to test it again.

Learnings:

Our mistake was that we put too much weight on the second floor to make sure Grandma Betty wouldn’t come off and the whole building fell down. So we learned never to put too much weight on the top floor especially because that could cause a major disaster in real life too.