Week 7 Blog Post

I interviewed my grandma that lives in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. She has lived there her entire life. She is retired now and spends a lot of time outdoors with her new puppy that she got when she retired. During the interview she spoke a lot about how much longer the winters have become. She also spoke a lot about how much hotter summers are. We spent a lot of time discussing the flood of 2008 and how much damage Cedar Rapids took from that and is still recovering. Her job at the time was right in the middle of the flood zone, so she spent many weeks out of work. Families lost everything from the flood. Looking back, nobody related this to climate change. The city has rebuilt important businesses right in the middle of the flood zone. The city also has many houses and businesses that are still vacant from the flood. Although we are not familiar with numbers and statistics, it is known that farmers have also been affected by Iowa becoming wetter over time due to climate change.

ROCK CYCLE

My understanding of the rock cycle is best understood by looking a diagram. There are three types of rocks; igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic rocks. Igneous rocks are formed from magma cooling over time. Metamorphic rocks are formed from the rock heating and cooling. Sedimentary rocks are formed from sediments in a river. If the rock was first igneous weathering and erosion will turn the rock into sediments and then the rock will transform to sedimentary by compaction and cementation.

Iowa Assessment

I thought the exam wasn’t entirely too difficult for me however I wouldn’t be comfortable giving it to my students because I think some of the questions were very poorly written. I don’t think every student would have the same opprotunity to get a good test score. I don’t think all students would be interested in this test- it is not relatable and some of the questions are hard to understand. The scenario question was hard to follow and the questions too follow were hard to follow as well. I forgot how different each of the topics are on the Iowa Assessments. This always threw me off because my brain would have to be all over the place. As a kid I also became uninterested in tests very easy. I couldn’t relate to the test questions which made the questions much harder to apply.