Patterns

I can observe patterns in the natural and human designed world, use them to describe phenomena, and as evidence. 5 GC

In a desert biome cacti that have longer thorns tend to grow bigger than others. This leads me to believe that they are less prone to predation by large creatures. The pattern of thorn growth can be considered evidence of adaptations that have allowed  cacti to be successful in the desert biome.

01/15/15

I can explain how macroscopic patterns are related to the nature of microscopic and atomic-level structure. 100 GC

When you look at salt carefully, under a magnifying glass you can see that the shape of the individual grains is somewhat cubic, and that although they can vary in size, the cubic arrangement remains basically the same.

In class we learned that salt is made up of alternating positive and negative ions. This is an ionic bond. It does not matter how many individual molecules of salt you add, the magnetic forces between the positive and negative ions will actually "force" the crystal to be formed with a cubic shape. As you see in this picture, when salt crystals are allowed to grow, they will continue to form the cubic arrangement!

     

You can think of the ionic bond as a house made out of legos. The legos are cubes, and as much as you may wish to arrange them to form a circle, you will not be able to do it. At the "microscopic" level, each individual lego is a cube (or rectangular prism), you can build it up into bigger cubes, but you cannot change its basic shape.

06/23/15