Month: June 2020

In the year 2004, Professor Sir Andre Geim and Professor Sir Kostya Novoselov of the University of Manchester discovered and isolated a single atomic layer of carbon for the first time. This is called graphene. The pair received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2010 in recognition of their breakthrough. However, why was the discovery of Graphene so important?

How was Graphene Discovered

Graphene is a fullerene consisting of bonded carbon atoms in sheet form one atom thick. Graphene was discovered using the ‘Scotch Tape method’. The ‘Scotch tape method’ used at Manchester was so simple and effective that this area of science grew extremely quickly, and now hundreds of laboratories around the world deal with different aspects of graphene research. Also known as the micromechanical cleavage technique, the Scotch tape method does not require large investments or complicated equipment, which has helped to broaden the geography of graphene science considerably.

Pros of Graphene

• It  is  the  thinnest  material  known  and  with  that  also  the strongest.
• It  consists   of  a  single  layer  of  carbon  atoms  and  is  both  pliable  and transparent.
• It is a superb conductor of both heat and electricity.
• It  is  used  in  the  production  of  high  speed  electronic  devices  responsible  for  fast  technological  changes.
• Chemical sensors effective at detecting explosives.
• Membranes for more efficient separation of gases. These  membranes  are  made  from  sheets  from  which  Nano scale  pores  have  been created.
• Transistors  that  operate  at  higher  frequency  as  compared  to  others.
• It  has  led  to  the  production  of  lower  costs  of  display  screens  in  mobile  devices  by  replacing  indium-based  electrodes  in  organic  light  emitting  diodes(OLED)  which  also  lower  power  consumption.
• Used in the production of lithium-ion batteries that recharge faster. These batteries use graphene on the anode surface.
• Storing Hydrogen for fuel cell powered cars.
• Low  cost  water  desalination  by  using  graphene-with  holes  the  size  of  a  nanometer  to  remove  ions  from  water.

Cons of Graphene

• Being  a  great  conductor  of  electricity, although it  doesn’t  have  a  band  gap (can’t  be  switched  off). Scientists are working on rectifying this.
• The  main  disadvantage  of  graphene  as  a  catalyst  is  its  susceptibility  to  oxidative  environments.
• Research has proven that graphene exhibits some toxic qualities. Scientists  discovered  that  graphene  features  jagged  edges  that  can  easily  pierce  cell  membranes,  allowing  it  to  enter  into  the  cell  and  disrupt  normal  functions.
• It is a long process to make Graphene based products
• Costly

Graphene based Products

• Ultra-fast charging of batteries.
• Collection of radioactive waste for easier clean-up.
• Faster flash memory.
• Stronger and better-balanced tools and sporting equipment, such as tennis racquets.
• Ultra-thin touchscreens that can be pasted onto a non-breakable material.
• Graphene-based e-paper that can update with new information.
• Quick and efficient biosensor devices 200, to measure blood glucose, cholesterol, and possibly your DNA
• Headphones with phenomenal frequency response.
• Supercapacitors that essentially make batteries obsolete.
• Novel waterproof coatings.
• Bendable batteries.
• Stronger and lighter aircraft and armor.
• Aiding tissue regeneration.
• Purifying salt water into drinking water.
• Bionic devices that can connect directly to your body’s neurons

Conclusion

Graphene is an incredible element that can change a lot of things. Consisting of the Marketing Industry, Technoogy Industry, Health Industry, and much more. Although there cons to Graphene there are many pros too. Technology is evolving and our knowledge is expanding. In conclusion, Graphene is an important element that can lead too many important and extraordinary products.

(Poem)

From characters engraved on stone

To alphabetical letters of ink

Writing has history, lots and lots

So much you can’t think

But if you believe that writing

Is just a list of meaningless letters

Your wrong, will you listen

Madam or monsieur

Writing is not simply

Some symbols on a sheet

It is the art of beliefs and opinions

It is the music of words; the beat

It is the mother of fascination

Discovery and creativity

It is the base, the root

Of learning and education abilities

It is the practice of language

Culture and stories

It is the perfection of reading

And the record of history

Writing is not only

Many letters, symbols, and signs

It has much more meaning

Not just ridiculous, nonsensical lines

Have you ever taken a reading test at school? The ones that test how fast you read? Well, turns out that reading slowly is actually more helpful than reading quickly. In the Ted Talk “What Reading Slowly Taught me About Writing” by Jacqueline Woodson, my perspective on reading actually took a turn.

Reading slowly can not only allow you to enhance and deepen your understanding and connection to the story, but also helps to diminish your stress level. When you read slower, you can concentrate harder on each word and not think about anything else. And when focus more on the story, you tend to ponder more about it and catch unobtrusive details that may reveal a lot about the plot, or the theme. This also leads to a decrease in stress levels. This happens because once all your focus is on one specific thing, you’ll be absorbed by the book and forget about the things that are stressing you out.

You might be wondering why reading quickly is bad. However, there are always two sides of the problem. Reading quickly may cause you to rush, and whenever you’re in a rush, there are ominous results. For one thing, rushing causes you to panic, which also causes stress. This is one of the biggest lose-lose situations of reading quickly. It takes away the purpose of reading, which could be to calm down, or lower stress levels. One of the good things of reading quickly is being able to read and extensive amount of books in a short period. Allowing you to find books that could be more interesting or finding a genre of books that you find mundane.

However, this does not apply to everyone, since everyone’s brain works a different way. Some people may find that reading quickly allows them to absorb more books, and when they find a book they enjoy throughly, they can take time to slow down and reread it. On the other hand, there are people who like to take things slower and just spend more time on each book than speeding through them. Whichever way you prefer, if you want to understand a book deeply, it requires rereading, mulling, reflecting, and you being able to fathom every part of it.

In the story, Miss Awful, Rodger loves school only because His teacher is nice and plays with his classmates during school time. Later, Rodger’s class have a substitute teacher, Mrs. Orville. Mrs. Orville is really strict and seems mean towards the students, resulting in the students calling her Miss Awful. On her last day of being the substitute teacher, Rodger’s class decides to get revenge on Mrs. Orville by tearing up her plant. Instead of getting angry at the students, Mrs. Orville does not do much other than stating the reasons why coming to school is a lucky thing to be able to do. I think that actually being grateful for the things, whether one likes it or not, is really important because one will understand and acknowledge that how one is quite lucky.

Reading and writing in life is a very good life skill to have. In this TED TALK Jacqueline Woodson talked on how reading led her into writing. After all of her hard work, she has made amazing books and amazing poems. This inspired me to become a better writer and reader.

When Jacqueline Woodson was little she was born to read she would read a lot every day very slowly. Her siblings were different readers from them though. Jacqueline Woodson would read by dragging her finger across the page. But her siblings would read much faster than her. Her reading would always take up most of her time in the day.

Soon after a while Jacqueline Woodson would ready so much she would get shall i say “addicted” to reading. If the fire alarm was on she wouldn’t know because  she was so into the book. If someone was mowing the lawn she would also not get distracted. Soon later she got much better and faster at reading books, but not just books, she also read bibles.

After years and years she had thought about writing about her feelings in the book. She had always thought about this yard as my yard and the angry monster can not come into it. Later when she thought deeply about it she started to write about it and soon started to write amazing books. When she started writing she was also thinking about how thankful she was to be able to have a pencil or pen in her hand. This is because her mom and dad and grandparents weren’t able to get education they weren’t able to learn. 

So when you get an opportunity then use the opportunity to do the best of what you have in yourself. Jacqueline Woodson was a really good Author. She made plenty of books and got a nobel prize. So when she really got to think deeply in her reading, she eventually got to become a very amazing and inspiring author. 

The short story Ms. Awful is about a super loose teacher. Her class messes around a lot but she doesn’t correct them. One day they have a substitute. Their substitute is super strict and basically the opposite of the old teacher. The kids find out that it was actually their old teacher dressed up and everyone gets very angry but later forgive her.

I think the theme of this short story is to not take things for granted. The kids had a nice teacher but they abused this privilege and messed around. The reason she became more strict is because the children need to become more thankful.

Technological advances in the course of history. Early humans used rocks and wood. As people get smarter and smarter the tools that they use started to differ. With the rise of plastic people almost always identified it as the Magic material. It can be put in everywhere, pencil sharpeners, cards, lights, and even books. Now a new type of material has the sickness of an atom and harder than steel is on the rise. Some researchers explain that this type of material might be the next generation of plastic since plastic can be made into graphene. But I personally didn’t think that this type of material is going to replace plastic there are two reasons why. First of all, plastic is cheap and easy to make but this type of material is hard and almost impossible to make. it also takes a lot of effort and the items that it creates are not that much better. The second reason is plastic pollutes our oceans and takes a lot of energy to make. Same with this material it also takes a lot of energy to make and is not necessarily cleaner than plastic. I think people want to remove plastic because of how much waste is produced and how much pollution it does but this material also does that. However, it has the same way of making it similar to plastic but it is way harder. Lastly, I think that the new material is not that helpful, but that is just what I think.

In the short story, we met a class, and 2 teachers. One had went on vacation, so the other came in as a substitute. Miss Orville, the sub, was extremely strict and old fashioned. Miss Wilson, on the contrary, was very whimsical and fun in the classroom. But which teaching method sounds better?

Let us start with the pros and cons of Miss Orville. The pros: during her time, the students made significant academic improvement and made sure to finish their homework. The cons: her students were not used to her style of teaching, and proceeded to coin her “Miss Awful”. They even went to get “Revenge” on her because they were angry at her for her strictness, by horribly mutilating her favorite potted plant. So, we can conclude that although she pushed her students, her personality caused her students to heartily dislike her.

As for Miss Wilson, she couldn’t be more different. The pros: she is very nice and likable to her students, and does not punish them for misbehaving to much. She also likes to have fun in class. The cons: she is a little soft on her students, and as a result they are not very well educated and don’t have very good classroom etiquette. As a result, when Miss Orville showed signs of being strict, the students were all mortified on how she could be this way, when Miss Wilson had always been so carefree. What we get from this is that she has a very whimsical happy personality, causing her class to like her a lot, but she is a little lax on teaching and pushing the kids.

It seems that both teaching styles have their faults. Miss Orville’s is that her students thoroughly dislike her, and Miss Wilson’s is that the students don’t learn much in the classroom. I think the best teaching style is a mixture of both, where you can be nice and fun to be around like Miss Wilson, but still be slightly strict and very serious about education.

In conclusion, I think both teaching styles have good points and bad points, and that neither is superior to the other. I believe that people should form their own ways of teaching so that their students like them but also do good academically.

The short story “Miss Awful”, by Arthur Cavenaugh, is a great story for many people and has themes for the story. One theme for it is that some students get really kind and helpful teachers, and others get strict and mean teachers, but once the students actually get to know the teacher, they will have another opinion on them.

Miss Awful is a nickname that the students gave to their substitute teacher, Miss Orville. She has been very strict with Roger and his classmates. She took Roger’s toy once she saw it sprawled on the floor when Roger fell and his stuff fell out of his backpack. Miss Orville wanted the best out of her students and so she yelled at her students as they had substandard penmanship, writing, vocabulary, and grammar.

Roger has been redoing his homework many times to make it just perfect and complained to his parents because of Miss Orville’s influence. Roger and his classmates had to rewrite ten words ten times. In the end, Roger stayed behind and took his toys and said,” Flower. F-l-o-w-e-r. Castle. C-a-s-t-l-e.” Those two words were asked by Miss Orville but got it wrong.

Miss Orville’s influence on Roger made him want to work harder and do more. Even when Miss Awful is strict and forces her students to work much harder, not everyone is known for their education, but sometimes other things. Education is not everything, but it is the person’s being.

Roger was a kid in first grade,

and he thought that shool was a place to play,

he had a whimsical teacher,

with fun and cool ideas to feature.

One day when Miss Wilson was away,

he thought that the new teacher might be okay.

Miss Orville, or Miss “Awful” he called her,

wasn’t as pleasant as he thought she was.

She made them line up properly and practice marching too,

they can’t run, play or bring toys to school,

Roger wanted to play, but his toys got taken away, he thought the teacher was cruel.

A day after school, just before Miss Wilson was back,

when the substitute started to pack,

he went up to Miss Orville and spelt “castle” and “flower”,

to show that he had the power.