Field Trip to Vulcan Quarry

A couple weeks ago, I went to the Vulcan Materials Company for a field trip. Vulcan is a granite quarry. We went there for our geology study of igneous rock.

When we got there, we waited around until everyone showed up. Then we went into a building where we watched a video that was about the quarry's history, how the machines in the quarry work, and about rocks. Inside the building are display cases with fossils, rock types, and facts in them. We were really waiting for the workers to finish blasting the granite. Near the end of the movie, a huge blast shook the building we were in. It felt a little like an earthquake. After the video was completely over, we went out to some huge rock piles and collected a few rock samples. A few of the granite rocks were mixed with green, gold, and pink minerals. Then, we went to see the actual quarry. We had to drive around in our cars for safety reasons. We looked at the machines and the giant pit where the rock was dug up.

The pit is 1 1/2 miles long and 1/2 mile wide and 600 yards deep. It was beautiful. Next we drove to a observation platform the quarry had set up that over-looked the pit. There was a lot of water in the bottom, due to the recent flooding issues Georgia has been having. It was a bright aqua blue because there was a lot of magnesium in the water.

After taking a bunch of pictures, we left. This field trip was fairly interesting and I learned some stuff. I am glad I went.

My Field Trip to Warm Springs

This past Labor Day weekend, we went to visit Me-maw, my Grandma. While we were there it so happened that the springs at Warm Springs, Ga was open to the public. It may not seem like much, but we had just finished studying hot springs, fumaroles, geysers in our Geology block. Warm Springs only opens the springs one time per year on Labor Day weekend to the public, so we signed up. Since it was only 6 years and up, Polly, Lucy, King Peter and Reepicheep couldn't come. King Peter could have come, but he wasn't studying Geology and he needed to stay home and help Me-Maw. It took us about 1 hr. to get there. We had to leave early for our 10:00 am session; Polly woke up before we left, so we ended up taking her with us. When we got there we signed in and took our pictures around the water. We swam in a pool where the warm waters from the spring were pumped in.

The pools were really close to Franklin Roosevelt's Little White House. In fact, the 32nd president actually went to and used the springs for therapy for his polio in 1921. He believed that the springs helped him recover use of his legs and muscles. He made the springs into a rehabilitating area for other people inflicted with polio.

They had painted the walls of the pool white which made the water a beautiful color blue. The reason it was blue was because of all the magnesium and minerals in it. When they finally let us swim (we only had an hour and thirty minutes session) I expected the water to be hot so I was quite surprised when the water actually felt cold! It was supposed to be '89 degrees’; I thought the thermometer was going mental when it read 80 degrees. The people explained that it was cold because the water had been in the pool for a while and had cooled down. There was an area next to where the spring waters were pumped in that you could feel the warmer temperatures. The rangers and lifeguards said that the people always cluster in those area and they were right. Since Polly couldn't swim we all had to take turns staying out of the pool. After a while I got out and watched Polly for my Mom, while she got in. She didn't like it so I went back in and it was warmer the second time.

We swam a little longer before I got out and bought a bottle to collect some of the spring waters. We plan on doing some tests during our Chemistry block later this year. I then got back into the pools and played with Aravis. While playing around in the water we felt very energetic but when we got out we felt really tired. All of us found, that after we had dried off, our skin was really really soft.

Before our session was over we decided to go through the Museum. It went through the history of the pools, how the springs were formed, when and how they were used in the therapeutic center there at Warm Springs, FDR's involvement with the pools, and how patients were treated. It was pretty interesting. After that we went home. This trip was really cool and I am glad we got to go.

Honey Bee Farm Field Trip

We had the opportunity to organize an amazing field trip to a honey bee farm.