Sunday, September 4, 2011

Scientific Summer Vacation!

This year, I have spent a great deal of my summer at the sea, so I decided to tell you about going diving, as well as swimming, sun-bathing, and other simple but very scientific activities. Firstly, I would like to talk about sun-bathing. The only thing most people know about sun-bathing is that when we stay on the sun for a while (with sun cream on) we could get a tan, or the color of our skin could get darker. However, there is much more science to it then that. The sun rays that we are actually sun-bathing under are actually called UV rays. UV rays are rays that are emitted from the sun, and that are part of the energy that comes from the sun. UV rays can be very helpful, because they contain vitamin D, which is very good for our imune system, as well as for strengthening our bones and teeth. However, if you are too exposed to the sun, you can get really bad sunburn!  When you are over-exposed to UV rays, your skin cells get very damaged. Blood rushes to the part of your body that is burnt, in an attemp to cool it down, and the skin starts peeling away. UV rays can also cause skin cancer, as well as eye damage (cataracts), if you are exposed to them for too long.





Next, I would like to talk about diving, and the things I saw. I didn't go professional scuba diving, but I still saw some pretty interesting creatures and things by diving in the more shallow parts of the sea with my friends :) When I went diving, I saw a quite a few empty plastic bottles around, and for this blog post, I decided to research exactly how much harm does plastic in oceans cause to our planet. Plastic is made out of polyethylene, which is a material that can be quite harmful. Plastic usually takes a very long time to degrade, or cannot degrade at all. This can be quite harmful for the animals in the water, as they can mistake the plastic for food, and poison themselves. After some time, however, plastic can degrade, and then polyethylene could then cause even more harm.

Moving away from the negative things, I would like to talk about one creature I saw, among all the other fish. One creature I saw a lot of was the seas urchin, so I would like to talk about what this creature it, how it lives, etc. :) Sea urchins inhabit all oceans, and they are classified as echinoidea. Even though it might sound strange, sea urchins actually have five pairs of modified tube feet, that surround the mouth. Sea urchins have endoskeletons, which form when the sea urchin is still in the larval stage. The most well-known part of the sea urchin are it's spines. The spines can create a big wound, but are not that dangerous, because they are not toxic. Sea urchins do not have eyes, but they do sense light, touch and chemicals. Sea urchins are omnivores, meaning that they eat both plants and animals. They eat algae, sea cucumbers, as well as mussels and brittle stars. Sea urchins usually have a VERY long life expectancy.



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