Room+14B

Taylor and Meagan

May 3rd, 2012 Today our adventure to theGrand Canyon begins! When we arrived to our destination, we took a hike on the South Kaibab Trail. It was beautiful! As we hiked we learned a lot about theGrand Canyon and how it was formed. We also learned about its history. Native Americans have lived here for 12,000 years in 11 different tribes.The Native Americans found the plants in the Canyon very useful, like the Pihon Tree which produced pine nuts to trade amongst the Indians. There are also many more plants that are useful, overall there are about 1700 different plant species. Over 300 of them are invasive which means that they are not native to the Canyon. The rock in the Canyon is very beautiful. There are two main ways to classify a rock. It either is soft rock or hard rock. Soft rock erodes away leaving the hard rock to cave in. Erosion can be caused by wind, water, and even the roots of plants! Erosion helped us see the layers of the rock wall and also fossils. There are many oceanic fossils in the rock like sea sponges and sea shells. Along time ago theGrand Canyon was once under water, and then one plate collided with another plate and pushed the plate up 7000 feet to form theGrand Canyon. TheColorado River cut through the Canyon to make the center gorge. In the inner gorge there is a small stream that is connected to a lake. Also you can find schist and granite in the center gorge. We learned so much about theGrand Canyon! It was such a fun hike!







May 4th, 2012 Today we are going on a boat ride through Glen Canyon. John Wesley Powell named this canyon Glen Canyon, because where he was from, Scotland, they used the term “Glen” which means a green area.Glen Canyon was very green indeed. An invasive species called Tamarisks grew wildly in the canyon after the plant was brought on the back of a mule. Tamarisk roots were soaking too much water causing the other native plants to die off. Tamarisk beetles were brought in to the canyon to control the growing of tamarisk. Now scientists are trying to grow more native species in the canyon. There are also a lot of birds in the canyon. One of them is called a Blue Herring HERON. They usually are close to the shore. The water from theColorado River is freezing! Its temperature is usually 48° F. The water used to be warm until the Glen Canyon Dam was built. A lot of the fish died after the dam was built because they were used to the warm water, scientists brought in a cold water fish called Rainbow Trout. There are a lot of rapids on the river ranging from 1-10. 1 being the least dangerous and 10 being extremely dangerous. Usually the scale is 1-6 for other rivers but theColorado is not just an ordinary river! Rapids occur by erosion/break in the rocks under water. When rocks fall from the canyon wall it is called spalling. Sometimes when a rock falls it leaves an arch called an alcove. The rock walls have water seeping out of it or they can have cracks that cause a waterfall. We learned a lot on the boat ride and it was very enjoyable!













May 4th, 2012

Also today we will be discovering all about WupatkiNational Monument. This place is over 900 years old. There are over 100 rooms there completed with a gathering place, blowhole and ceremonial ballcourt. Some Indians had to enter their rooms with ladders on the roof. For me to see this house, we talked about how hard would it be to live with people that weren’t your family and to see them every day and h air conditioning in the hot, hot sun. When we got to the blowhole we put our hands over it to see if it would blow. When we were in the ballcourt we made up a very fun game. We also got to explore the trash room in the house. Half of the houses wall tumbled a while back and all we could say was all that hard work fell down. This is a great place to learn a lot of history. We hope to visit again one day.

















May 4th, 2012 Today is the day we see Sunset Crater. Sunset Crater is a cindercone volcano that erupted last in 1000-1100 A.D. The eruption happened by the Colorado Pateu moved around the northern American plate. When the ash fell from the eruption, it fertilized the ground and helped store water. Even though the eruption wiped out all the trees in the way of the lava path, but still stored the water. Soon enough one day the climary succession happened. New rock was brought in which had little organisms called lichen or pioneer species. Lichen releases acid and eats the minerals from the rock that was melted. The lichen soon gets poisoned and killed from that mineral that it ate. Also at the Sunset Crater, there are Pine Rosa PONDEROSA Pines. Pine Rosa Pines are trees that smell like out of this world smells. The smells I smelt was vanilla, wood, butterscotch, and chocolate smells. Under this tree grew a mushroom that the Tassle-eared Squirrel loved to eat. The mushroom stored water for the Pine Rosa Pines roots to drink. But with the Tassle-eared squirrel eating the mushrooms the Pine Rosa Pines might die. This volcano is breathe taking and a sight to see. From a scale from 1 to 10, I give it a 10 because of its amazing history and view of how if it set up. When we first arrived at this sight, I really wanted to hike this beautiful volcano. To see all the black ashes up to a red piece of land made me feel lucky to have beautiful nature growing. When we were really here, we learned about the history about Sunset Crater and how amazing it is. We will miss this place very much and can’t wait to visit again one day.