Jumat, 28 Oktober 2016

A Colorful Idea

               On the first Friday in January 1991, Vanessa Hess sat in her seventh-grade science classroom at Stonybrook Junior High and heard her teacher, Mrs. Maurice Marchani, announce that each kid had to do a new project. They had to invent something. “There are only two ways you can avoid this,” Mrs. Marchani said. “You can die, or you can move.” As Mrs. Marchani continued, she made it clear that this was not a science-fair type project. “I never want to see another papier-mache volcano,” she said.
                Mrs. Marchani wanted to see original inventions. There must be any number of school across the United State where science teachers encourage students to be creative by saying, “Maybe someday you will grow up to be a famous inventor.” To Vanessa’s dismay, Mrs. Marchani had different advice. Why not try to become a famous inventor right now?
                In the Indianapolis area, Maurine Marchani has made a name for herself by inspiring her kids to become inventors. One of her students, Steve Prater, has been featured in national magazines. Twice, he won prizes in competition for his inventions. One invention was something called a Hand Stabilizer. A device that enabled a friend of his with cerebral palsy to hold a pencil and write responses on true or false or multiple-choice tests. It worked so well patented, the Hand Stabilizer and began developing it commercially. In his honor, the mayor of Indianapolis proclaimed August 23, 1989, Steve Prater Day.
                “But me?” Vanessa asked herself. Once, Mrs. Marchani had instructed her students to figure out ways to drop an egg from the school roof without the egg breaking as it landed. When the teacher, dressed in a bunny suit, tried Vanessa’s idea, the result weren’t so great. “Mine crushed,” says Vanessa.
                In spite of her doubts, however, this hesitant inventor had her idea after only a few weeks. In the classroom, Mrs. Marchani had said that when inventors hit upon a great idea, they sometimes shout a loud and victorious “Ah-hah!” But Vanessa? Her idea came as a soft “Hmmm…” It all started on the last weekend in January, when spring-like weather visited Indianapolis. The warm sunny day found Vanessa and her dad in the driveway, washing and waxing the family car.
                The maroon Old gleamed as if new. But Vanessa noticed that each scratch in the paint showed up as a white mark, the white being wax left in the scratch. “You ought to cover these scratches,” she said. “Don’t know how to,” her father replied. “Unless I go to an auto parts store and get some touch-up paint. And even then, it may not match.”
“There ought to be a wax with color in it.”
“There isn’t one.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know.”
                And she had her idea. She stored it away inside her head and kept hoping a better one would come along. For a while, she thought of developing something to keep apples from turning brown after paring. But every Friday afternoon when Mrs. Marchani checked on her students’ progress, Vanessa shrugged and didn’t say much.
                As the February due date drew near, Vanessa realized she was running out of time. A few calls to auto-supply stores and a quick check through an auto magazine indicated that no one else seemed to have produced a colored car wax. So far, so good. Vanessa bought a blue Matchbox car and added blue food coloring to some car wax. She scratched up the toy car, then waxed the thing- and it worked!
                That Thursday night, with some encouragement from her mother, Vanessa printed up a poster board and readied her display. “It wasn’t real nice,” she admits, “just a quick job.” The next day in the classroom she started uneasily at more attractive presentations. But, Mrs. Marchani, moving from student to student, had an eye for true ingenuity. When she poked her face over Vanessa’s shoulder, she started at the display for a moment, taking it in. then in a level tone she prophesied, “You are going to make money from this.”
                Vanessa’s colored car wax won first place in her classroom, and then swept the field in competition against inventions from other classes at Stony brook. A panel of judges picked Vanessa’s project to represent Stony brook in the annual contest sponsored by Invent America!, a  national organization that works with school to encourage young people to invent. Her display won that summer at the state level.
                That October, a newspaper article about Vanessa resulted in a phone call to the Hess home. An auto-products company had already been developing colored car wax with an industrial chemist-by coincidence, it was an Indianapolis firm.
                The annals of invention are strewn with better disputes between inventors claiming the same product. But this story has a happy ending. The owners of the auto-products company, two brothers named Dan and Don Huffman, were charmed by Vanessa’s story and decided to ask her to appear in an “infomercial” for Magic Shine, their colored car wax. Contracts were signed, and Vanessa and her mom were well paid to fly to California to help make a Magic Shine promotional movie that was later broadcast on TV all over the country.
                How did the young inventor like movie-making? Vanessa ponders the days in Hollywood rehearsing and shooting and taking instructions from the British director. “It was kind a nice,” is all she says.
                The success of Vanessa Hess also belongs to her teacher. Maurine Marchani seems to provide classroom experiences that lead to creative thinking. In fact, entering Mrs. Marchani’s classroom is itself an experience. Visitor must find their way past a whole zoo of floppy sculptures that dangle from the wall. A live rabbit hops up and down the rows between the desks. A rabbit? “If you don’t pet her,” says Mrs. Marchani, “she eats your shoelaces.”
                The science teacher has a theory that junior high school kids need more physical attention than they admit. A kid who enters the school from a stressed-out home may need to have a rabbit on his lap the whole period. And she also believes that this is just the kind of place that encourage kids to risk having original thoughts. “In a setting that’s offbeat, its OK to make a mistake,” says Mrs. Marchani. “Kids are afraid of being foolish. If the teacher is sort of silly, then its OK for them. Its OK to risk.”
                She also notes that the students with the highest grade-point averages aren’t always the best inventors. “I find that kids who do not do well on paper-and-pencil tests do wonderful things with ideas.” Some people view kid inventions as flukes. But, Maurine Marchani disagrees. “Nobody’s told seventh-graders they aren’t creative yet,” she says. To her mind, when it comes to inventing, twelve is the perfect age.

Rabu, 26 Oktober 2016

A Giant Panda

Hello everyone!!!....
This time for this post, I will tell you about an animal. This animal has a white and black fur with a big body. Can you guess it??
Yeah, it is a giant panda!!! Well, I'm sure that you know about it. But there are things you don't know yes about giant panda. Now, I'm going to tell you about that things. Please enjoy it!

 The Classification

  • Kingdom : Animalia 
  • Phylum : Chordata
  • Clade : Mammalia 
  • Order : Carnivore 
  • Suborder : Caniformia
  • Family : Ursidae
  • Genus : Ailuropoda  
  • Species : A. Melanoleuca


 The Description


The giant panda has luxuriant black and white fur. Adult measure around 1.2 to 1.9 m long, including a tail of about 10-15 cm and 60-90 cm tall at the shoulder. Males can weigh up to 160 kg. Females can weigh as little as 70 kg, but can also weigh up to 125 kg. Average adult weight is 100 to 115 kg.

The giant panda has a body shape typical of bears. It has black fur on its ears, eye patches, muzzle, legs, arms and shoulders. The rest of the animal's coat is white.The giant panda's paw has a "thumb" and five fingers; the "thumb" – actually a modified sesamoid bone – helps it to hold bamboo while eating. The giant panda's tail, measuring 10 to 15 cm (4 to 6 in), is the second-longest in the bear family. The longest belongs to the sloth bear. The giant panda typically lives around 20 years in the wild and up to 30 years in captivity.


 Behavior




The giant panda is a terrestrial animal and primarily spends its life roaming and feeding in the bamboo forests of the Qinling Mountains and in the hilly Sichuan Province. Giant pandas are generally solitary and each adult has a defined territory. 

Pandas communicate through vocalization and scent marking such as clawing trees or spraying urine. They are able to climb and take shelter in hollow trees or rock crevices, but do not establish permanent dens. For this reason, pandas do not hibernate, which is similar to other subtropical mammals, and will instead move to elevations with warmer temperatures. Pandas rely primarily on spatial memory rather than visual memory.

Though the panda is often assumed to be docile, it has been known to attack humans, presumably out of irritation rather than aggression.


 Reproduction


When mating, the female is in a crouching, head-down position as the male mounts her from behind. Copulation time is short, ranging from 30 seconds to five minutes, but the male may mount her repeatedly to ensure successful fertilization. The gestation period ranges from 95 ti 160 days.

Giant pandas give birth to twins in about half of pregnancies. If twins are born, usually only one survives in the wild. The mother will select the stronger of the cubs, and the weaker will die. The mother is thought to be unable to produce enough milk for two cubs, since she does not store fat. The father has no part in helping raise the cub.

When the cub is first born, it is pink, blind, and toothless,weighing only 90 to 130 grams (3.2 to 4.6 ounces), or about 1/800th of the mother's weight, proportionally the smallest baby of any placental mammal. One to two weeks after birth, the cub's skin turns gray where its hair will eventually become black.


 Conservation




In 2006, scientists reported that the number of pandas living in the wild may have been under estimated at about 1,000. Previous population surveys had used conventional methods to estimate the size of the wild panda population, but using a new method that analyzes DNA from panda droppings, scientists believe the wild population may be as large as 3,000. In 2006, there were 40 panda reserves in China, compared to just 13 reserves two decades ago. As the species has been reclassified to "vulnerable" since 2016, the conservation efforts are thought to be working. 

Furthermore, in response to this reclassification, the State Forestry Administration of China announced that they would not accordingly lower the conservation level for panda, and would instead reinforce the conservation efforts. 

The giant panda is among the world's most adored and protected rare animals, and is one of the few in the world whose natural inhabitant status was able to gain a UNESCO World Heritage Site designation. The Sichuan Giant Panda Sanctuaries, located in the southwest Sichuan province and covering seven natural reserves, were inscribed onto the World Heritage List in 2006.


 Uses



In contemporary times many people who do business with the subject panda. One way to make a zoo or wildlife refuges.

In japan or china area now many animals panda targeted hunt. Therefore, these animals should preserved to avoid extinction or discharged. One way to make a zoo or nature reserve. Especially in Indonesia is now just a few animals panda in the zoo particular. Therefore we should be able to take advantage of these conditions to do business these animals. Because these animals have the advantage.  
 
A few minutes before the massive earthquake struck central china earlier this week, a number of giant pandas living in zoos looked nervous. It may be evidence that the panda has the ability to detect earthquakes. 



Based of the writing above, I have any question for you. 
Please answer the question!


       1. What is the name species of giant panda?
a.     U. maritimus
b.      A. melanoleuca
c.      H. malayanus
d.      Struthio camelus

       2. What is the function of giant panda’s fingers?
a.      Help panda to hold a bamboo while eating
b.      To make a bamboo
c.       Help panda to plant a bamboo
d.      To make a handcraft from bamboo

       3. Where are giant pandas spending their time?
a.       Fuji Mountain
b.      Java Province
c.       Qinling Mountain
d.      Kapuas River

            4. Why if twins of giant pandas were born, only one who can survive?
a.      Because the father can’t feed for two cubs
b.      Because one of them is weak
c.      Because the mother is thought to be unable to produce enough milk for two cubs
d.        Because they are cannibals

        5. What is the advantage of giant panda?
a.      Has the ability to detect earthquakes
b.      Has a delicious meat
c.      Has a good feature
            d.      Has the ability to avoid earthquakes