The 4th installment of Howtoons nourishes out minds with engineering concepts to make the mind tingle with potential and fun. Some of the science is covered in how these projects work are covered in the book, which is great. For a better understanding of these we need to look more closely into biology, physics and chemistry. Comment below on how you think these objects work! |
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Image presents Howtoons #2 Van Lente (w) Fowler (a) I cannot emphasize enough the admiration I have for this book. They have taken science and made it into an adventure that can be read and understood for all ages. This is a great way to digest some good science AND they have engineering projects! Like building a go-kart. Amazing ideas and amazing work. Look at the clip to your left, it's full of god science. It shows you how much energy is in one peanut and then gives that every relevance to the real world. My hat is off to them. Also, if you look below, there is a clip of a 2-page spread on all the difference types of energy that culminated to make the peanut to give a wholistic energy picture of how it all transforms. As a bonus, there are instructions on how to make a go-kart! great stuff. I highly recommend this book! Image's Howtoons #1 is FANTASTIC! This comic is the ultimate S.T.E.M. (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) project. There are multiple topics conversed upon. There are so many things kids (and adults) can learn from this book. The comic starts with talking about energy and how we get energy from the sun and how some of that energy is absorbed into the atmosphere and once it reaches the surface it is stored in a variety of ways. However, we are using all that stored energy from centuries ago to light out houses by burning coal. They show how to make 2 cool contraptions, a marshmallow blower and a flash light. They give the instructions and go into a little of the science of it working. Below is a gallery of clips from the book, then further is my normal Q&A for science snapshots. The story of the comic was focused on trying to solve global warming and people had decided that the best way would be to us nuclear bombs to set off volcanos to try to cool with world. QUESTIONS: 1.) How do volcanoes effect global warming? 2.) How would this negatively effect the planet? ANSWERS: 1.) Volcanoes can effect climate in a couple of ways. When erupted volcanoes produce a lot of CO2, which is a greenhouse gas and helps insulate the Earth by retaining the heat that has already passed through the atmosphere. Also, an eruption produces a great particulate clouds than can reach into the troposphere and stratosphere. These particulates along with sulfate aerosols reflect the Sun's rays, which keeps the Earth cool. If there is a large enough eruption the effect can cool the average temperature approximately half a degree. (Keep in mind that during the ice age our average temperature was on 5 degrees cooler). 2.) There are several adverse effects of volcanoes erupting. The lava oozing out destroying the land, ash blanketing the sky and eventually covering everything and some of the chemicals released produce acid rain in other areas, which can destroy crops. Also, in the comic atomic bombs were used to set the volcano off, which has its own set of devastating problems, which are much more harmful. Having some volcanoes erupt here and there would be a good thing for climate change, overall. However, it will bring about a lot of devastation and it would only be a temporary solution as we produce 10,000 times more CO2 than an eruption. We must change our ways to produce MUCH less CO2 soon and hope that Earth can fix herself. If we do not, then we are going to have to play around with weather, which always has unintended consequences Resource: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-do-volcanoes-affect-w/
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