First Gustav, now Ike!

We have had a very busy couple of weeks weather wise at Ridgway Christian. Below is the projected path of Hurriane Ike as it moves its way from the Gulf of Mexico. We are just below Little Rock. 'This picture represents the last few hours. The red represents a tornado watch. We are projected to get 2-4 inches of rain and gusts of 50 mph. Here is a picture of Hurricane Ike as it made its way to landfall. My son Daniel (and a graduate of Three Rivers Christian-Cornerstone Campus-2005!) had to hole up in the cafeteria of his dorm with 130 other students last night while Hurricane Ike roared its way through Houston. Luckily they still have power (unlike 3 million other Houston residents) but they do not have water and do not know when they will. He described the sound of the wind and rain as 'deafening' as it came though.

Below is a picture I snapped in the front of my house today just as our tornado warning siren went off. It missed my subdivision but touched down 2 miles north of where I live.

Here are my students as the rain and wind from Tropical Storm Gustav buffet us early last week. We ended up with 6+ inches of rain in 12 hours. Which explains the pictures below.

Here are my students having class in the library. My room ended up being flooded by the sheer amount of rain we got.

Yes, this is my flooded room. Luckily, we only spent one day in the library!

Hurricane Gustav

We welcomed the new school year to another hurricane season.

The picture above is Hurricane Gustav and tropical storm Hannah.

To the right is a picture of hurricane Gustav barreling down on the Florida coast and headed into the Gulf of Mexico. Right now it is a catorgy 3 hurricane and predictions are that it could reach a catagory 5 by the middle of the Gulf.

We at Ridgway have been doing some sleuthing into why we have to be concerned about hurricanes and Three Rivers Christian does not. Is it in the air? In the water? Is it all about latitudes and longitudes, mountains and valleys?

We would like Three Rivers to do some sleuthing of their own. Why do we worry about Hurricanes and you about Tsunamis? Why is it we have so many hurricanes at this time of the year and you rarely see any during your peak time? Why does your season start in May and ours in September? Why is it the hurricanes almost always 'turn' north and east when heading through the gulf, pummeting poor New Orleans? Why is it that the hurricane always weakens once it hits land? Definitely a series of mysteries for you to solve! Let us know what you find out!

THANKS FOR SHARING

I had a great visit with "Miss Diedre" while she was here in Washington during her spring break. It was wonderful to see my friend again. (Thank you for the Ridgway t-shirt!!)
As I left the school building yesterday to begin our spring break, I was greeted by heavy snowfall. Snowfall! We get very little snow each winter and we NEVER get snow at the end of March. This would have been a surprise to me except that my 8th graders have been recording weather conditions each day. As we checked the internet Friday for weather information, there was a Snow Advisory for our area...wow. This morning I woke to about 2 inches of snow and could not believe my eyes. Weirdness is afoot in the weather!

Pacific Science Center Field Trip

The Pacific Science Center (PSC) is right next to the Space Needle in Seattle. We took a trip up there to check out the work being presented by the University of Washington's Polar Science Center.
The setup was great...we picked up passports and cruised the stations talking to scientists and learning interesting stuff about research technology, sea ice, polar environments and climates.

TRCS 8th graders at the PSC.

Here's a cartoon I found just before our field trip. _________________________

Here we are -- the two studliest 8th graders trying on survival suits. I'm Curt (on the right) and with Kody (on the left, duh) we are Power Rangers! The reason Kody and I are not in the same picture but photo-shopped side by side is that the fear of our insane awesomeness would break the camera!

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I'm Brady in a Coast Guard survival suit. These suits are completely waterproof and have many different features. It has an air pocket in the back to help you stay afloat and to keep your head out of the water. It also has a whistle and a glow-stick.

According to the Coast Guard, in the Antarctic, if you fall into the water without one of these suits, you would last about 2 minutes. With it you could last 1 hour. In the water here, off the coast of Washington, without the suit you may last 15 minutes and with it you could go 24 hours.

Hope you guys are having fun in science this year.

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I'm Jacob and I can dress myself!

I learned that without one of these suits you can only last up to two (2) minutes in the Arctic water.

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I'm Jon (taller guy inside the igloo). This is my group building an igloo. We originally weren't building the igloo but throwing the foam pieces at each other. Then a lady who works at PSC came over and we didn't want to own up to what we were doing so we started building the igloo. Our teacher took this shot to make us look good.

Immediately after we were done, we were feeling all good about ourselves and what we did, and two little girls completely destroyed our igloo.

Frome left to right: Sean, Jon, Brady and Derek.

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I'm Sean (the one pointing) and this is my igloo story.

It takes teamwork and patience to make an igloo. If you put one piece in the wrong place it messes up the whole thing. At first we weren't even trying to build it, but then the PSC attendant came and helped us. After we finished, some little girls destroyed the whole thing.

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This is Sarah!! We had loads of fun and learned a lot. In this picture our class had just pulled together and built an igloo. We learned to work together and listen to each other's ideas. This was more of a "team" project. In this picture there are (left to right) Dawnell, Kody, Curt, Jacob, Emily, Contessa, me, and Shelby. The trip was amazing and I am sure our class wil remember if for a long time.

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While at the Pacific Science Center in Seattle, Sarah, Dawnell and I (Emily) posed for a picture on a snowmobile used in the Arctic. This is near a snow camp display. The snow camp had everything in it that you would use in the Arctic like a cot with a sleeping bag, a desk for working and some machines used for the research work.

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I'm Derek (on the left). Jon and I were watching an IMAX movie called "Shackleton's Antarctic Adventure." I am surprised (as you can see me in this picture) that the crew of the ship got stuck in the middle of the Antarctic for more than a year. All the men got home safely and sadly the dogs were left behind.

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This is a picture on the way to the Pacific Science Center in the back of the bus.

Right = Sarah; Middle = Emily; Left = Shelby

I think the bus ride was the funnest part of the trip along with learning fun facts and meeting new people once we got there.

On the way to Seattle we got to talk about how life is going, sing songs, play games, and have a fun friendship experience.

If we ever go back to PSC, I would love to go. Hanging out with friends God has put in my life and learning about the world He created is amazing!

"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." "God saw all that he had made and it was very good." Genesis 1:1 and 31

~ Shelby :)

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I'm Dawnell and I enjoyed that our parents could come as chaperones. My dad is awesome! This is me standing by my dad.

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Hi, I'm Kody (on the left).

Even though the bus ride up to Seattle was nearly two and a half hours, we still had a good time. Curt and I were just messing around when Mrs. Maldonado happened to take this picture.The field trip proved to be a great learning experience and also a lot of fun.

Winter Storm Warning!

Yes, that is snow you see! Pine Bluff is in the middle of a winter storm warning. We currently have 7 inches of snow and it's still falling! The temperature is supposed to reach 24 degrees tonight so we expect the roads to get pretty messy. On the bright side, Cardinals look beautiful against all the snow.

So....Why the snowfall in March? Well a cooler Gulf of Mexico front and a polar continental front are to blame. Usually we'd get rain when these two fronts meet but with the cooler waters of the Gulf producing cooler moist air, it just couldn't keep it from turning the precipitation to snow.

The good news is it will be all gone by Sunday as our high for Sunday will be 60 degrees.

The Perfect Storm

The picture above shows the large funnel cloud that passed over our school. Tennessee got EF4 tornados out of this cloud. We were blessed, it missed us.

The funnel cloud is on the left (it was starting to dissipate when I took the picture). The light you see is lightning, 4-5 bolts of it.

Here we are having an 'outdoor classroom' session. Notice the short sleeve shirts. It was 75 degrees today, Tuesday February 5th, right before the 'perfect storm' hit our state. As you can see, the weather is looking pretty dark up on top. We had 2 hours of tornado warning sirens this evening and a total of 13 people died in Arkansas because of this storm. Luckily, none of the tornados hit Pine Bluff, but several counties north of us got hit.

SO WHAT HAPPENED??

Arkansas had two fronts come through it. We had a front made of Maritime Tropical air over us and a front of Continental Polar air meet it around Texas. The cold front was moving fast and pushed its way under the warm air. The warm air rose fast-- and the rest is history. We had a squall line go right through Pine Bluff. There was 80 reported sightings of tornados between Arkansas and Tennessee.

Weather like this is unusual for this time of year, but obviously it does happen. Temperature today? 41 degrees.

Our thoughts and prayers go out to the 47 people who died during this storm yesterday.

LET'S COMPARE

What is the weather like in Arkansas this time of year?

In Washington?
...cold and dry?
...cold and wet?
...warm and dry?
...warm and wet?

...or something else altogether?!

Let’s do a little comparing. As we are all in the midst of winter, let’s gather some data and compare the weather in Arkansas and Washington.

In studying weather, we typically talk about five things: temperature, atmospheric pressure, humidity, wind direction and speed, and precipitation. For our project, let’s focus on temperature and precipitation for a month.

Here’s what to do:

1) Record the high temperature for each day in January, 2008, along with the amount of precipitation.
2) Make a line graph showing high temperatures for the month and a separate bar graph showing the amounts of precipitation. (Challenge: produce these using Microsoft Excel.)
3) Post your graphs by Friday, February 8, 2008. Then both classes will have the data to make a comparison.
4) Write a conclusion (one per class) and post by Thursday, February 14.

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Okay, this is totally NOT related, but I want to share with you.

The other chapter when we were studying meteors, and we did a little activity with flour, chocolate, and balls of varying densities.

Students filled a tin with flour and dusted the top with chocolate powder. They then dropped a ball (always from the same height) and then measured the depth and width of the resulting crater. Students also observed the rays left by the flying debris.

It was pretty cool to observe craters left by a marble, a golf ball (below), a squishy earth, and a styrofoam ball. We can imagine something about the meteorites that struck Earth and the moon leaving craters we see today.

A golf ball meteor strikes the surface leaving a sizeable crater.

Measurements are taken of both the depth and width of the impact crater.
Comparison were made and conclusions drawn regarding the density of the meteorite and the size of the resulting impact crater.

Greetings from Planet Earth...

Ni hao! This is Clai from Ridgway! (Hey! That rhymed! =] ) And, I have a questiooon...!

What are the record high and low temperatures for January in Kelso, WA! ^_^


IchiRuki~! U.S.A.!

Hey! How The Weather Up There?

Hey my peoples!!!! My name is Ehvan and I attend Ridgway Christian School in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. I am an eighth grade girl ( yes, a girl : ) lol!) and I have a question for you: what is the average number of cloudy days that you get? Hit me back ASAP!

GO EAGLES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

How Hot???

Hey this is Khadijah Boyd.... Again. I have another question that I like for someone to answer. Okay I'd like to know what is the highest temperature that you'll have ever received in Western Washington. When you find out PLEASE write back!!!

Go Eagles!!!

Let the Flood Gates Open!!

Hey!

It's Jessie once again! I have another question for you guys!

The question is:

What is the largest amount of rain that you have received in an hour?

GO EAGLES!!

O, the weather outside is frightfull!

Hello my name is Tim. What's the most amount of snow that you have gotten up there?

Hey!!!! =]

Hey you guys!

I am Erin. I am an 8th grader at RCS in Arkansas. My science teacher is Mrs. Diedre .

I was just wondering what the average temperature difference between Arkansas and Washington.

Tell me what you think!

Erin

Mooning after the weather....

Here Evhan is checking the relative humidity for the day. We usually get around 45-60 percent. What does the humidity run in Kelso?

I think the students are also checking out how photogenic they can be!

Here we are checking the daily wind speed and direction. Both are a must for these neophyte meteorologists!

What's this? Using the telescope during the day?

Yep, we had fun looking at the moon during the day this week. While there was lots of 'light pollution' we were still able to see craters, marias, rills and the light and shadow of the first quarter moon.