7 th Grade Milestones Practice: Week 1

Transcription

1 7 th Grade Milestones Practice: Week 1 Monday: Mermaids Fight to Save Florida Roadside Attraction By Kimberly Ayers and Boyd Matson National Geographic News At a west Florida intersection, where the 21st century runs headlong into 1947, is a roadside attraction that must be seen to be believed.... Weeki Wachee Springs attracts tourists from around the world. During its heyday it even attracted celebrities including Elvis Presley. But in recent times the park has fallen into disrepair and is faced with a few financial and political woes. Now the mermaids new and old are fighting to save what they say is a Florida landmark. The mermaids are highly endangered. Fewer than 20 people in the country do this for a living, and all of them are right here at Weeki Wachee. We breathe underwater. That s what mermaids do, said Krista Lewis, a mermaid in training. We re half fish, half human. Weeki Wachee is a throwback to an era when vacations meant the parents packing up the car and heading out for a couple weeks for 3,000 miles of driving around the country. Roadside attractions were the only way to keep kids from having a backseat meltdown. Weeki Wachee is a theater built into a natural spring allowing the audience to walk into an underwater world without getting wet. With today s environmental laws, there will probably never be another place like it in the United States. A Unique Playground Clad in their iridescent Lycra tails, the mermaids perform choreographed routines and stories. Sometimes they are joined by fish, turtles, and manatees creatures that some say inspired the original mermaid legends.... The geology of Florida makes Weeki Wachee a unique playground. The state is a patchwork of springs that discharge fresh water from underground aquifers. Weeki Wachee s springs pump out more than 60 million gallons of water every day that's 740 gallons per second....

2 Manatees and turtles were the only residents of Weeki Wachee until In that year an ex-navy frogman named Newt Perry combined his military experience and a natural inventiveness to create Weeki Wachee s first underwater show. Mermaid Recruits Early performances ranged from feeding fish to drinking from a soda bottle to performing with a submerged circus. It was an underwater novelty designed to bring the crowds in off the highway.... As the performances became more sophisticated, Weeki Wachee s fame grew. And so did the crowds. At its height, during the 1960s, the mermaids performed ten shows a day. Many of the mermaids were first introduced to Weeki Wachee as audience members themselves, just taking a break from the highway. They fell in love with a fantasy on the other side of the glass. When I was three years old, I came to the park for the first time. I can remember coming. I fell in love with the mermaids, the bubbles, the spring, everything. I just loved it, said Amy Fobell. At 16, she signed on as a lifeguard at the water park next door. At 18, she auditioned for the underwater show. Now she s living her dream... Mermaid Alumni To experience the freedom of staying underwater without scuba requires learning how to breathe using an air hose. Without masks, mermaids learn to take gulps of air from the hose, balancing the pressure on their ears and sinuses while being buffeted by a 12-mile-an-hour current. Breathing off the air hose is really, really hard just to keep in mind not to breathe in your nose when you re in the water. But after a couple of times you learn your lesson, mermaid Sativa Smith said. The temptation is to take big gulps of air, but that leads to rising and falling very quickly because air increases

3 buoyancy. The trick, the mermaids say, is to maintain neutral buoyancy so that one can hover in place. Letting go of the air hose is the hardest part. It takes most people months of training before they are ready for the show.... Eventually Weeki Wachee became old news. The novelty wore off, and it no longer attracted headlines, investors, or crowds. Many people at Weeki Wachee are worried that the park will soon shut down, a victim of changing times and local politics. But some former mermaids... have squeezed back into their sequins to breathe life back into the park.... Unfortunately the mermaid fantasy is an incurable disease, according to Susie Pennoyer. Pennoyer is a senior mermaid who started performing monthly alumni shows in 1997 to help revive interest in the park. It just keeps us healthy, it keeps us vitalized. It s a stress relief. Once a mermaid, always a mermaid. 1. Read this sentence from the next-to-last paragraph. Eventually Weeki Wachee became old news. By using the phrase old news, the authors are suggesting that A. the park is no longer interesting. B. news reports about the park are out of date. C. the park's design is old-fashioned. D. the park is famous in history. Read this sentence from the last paragraph. Unfortunately the mermaid fantasy is an incurable disease, according to Susie Pennoyer. Why does Susie Pennoyer think of it as 'an incurable disease'? A. Being a mermaid has never lost its appeal for her. B. Believing in mermaids is a form of mental illness. C. Breathing through an air hose has made her sick. D. Many of the mermaids suffered from an illness.

4 Tuesday: 1. Ms. Parks wrote the expression 4x 5 3 ( x) on the board. 4 PART A What is this expression in simplest form? Show your work. PART B What would happen if -4x was added to the original expression? Explain your answer. Part C If 2x is added to the original expression, what is the value of the new expression when X= 8? Show your work. 2. A teacher wants to buy notebooks for the classroom for the year. The table shows the cost of notebooks. PART A Number of Cost Notebooks 40 $ $ $60.00 What is the unit rate? Show your work or explain your answer. PART B A store is offering a 20% discount for customers who buy 70 or more notebooks. The bought more than 70 notebooks and paid $ How many notebooks did the teacher buy? Show your work. PART C Based on the information in Part B, what is the unit rate for purchases of 70 or more notebooks? Explain your answer. PART D Based on the information in Part B, write an equation that gives the cost, y, of x notebooks when x is 70 or more.

5 3. Which is the value of x in the equation? 2x 5 = 31 A.) 36 B.) 26 C.) 18 D.) Which of the following is equivalent to 5 7 8? A.) 5.7 B.) 5.78 C.) D.) 6

6 Thursday and Friday: Life in the Trenches 1 You probably know a lot about undersea life, but what about life in the deep ocean? It s amazing that any life forms exist in the deepest ocean trenches an inky darkness around a mile below sea level. No surface light hits anything at that depth. Someone compared the water pressure down there as the equivalent of having fifty jumbo jets piled on top of you. It is not a welcoming environment. But if you were to make it down there, here are some of the amazing creatures you might see. 2 The viperfish lives about a mile deep in the ocean. Some viperfish are completely black; others are transparent, which means they have no color at all. Their bulbous eyes are designed to see when there is little or no light. The viperfish create their own light that they can turn on and off through a chemical process called bioluminescence. Their sharp teeth are so large that they cannot fit into their mouths! They use their teeth to spear their victims by swimming toward them at high speeds. During the day they re usually found in deep water (around 5,000 feet), but at night they travel up to depths of less than 2,000 feet, where food is more plentiful. 3 The dragonfish is only six inches long, but don t be fooled by its size! It s a dangerous predator with a mouth full of pointy, fang-like teeth. A light-producing organ called a photospore at the tip of a long slender stringy appendage attached to its chin flashes off and on to lure its prey. These fierce fish live in depths of up to 5,000 feet. 4 Gulper eels, sometimes called umbrella mouth eels, are designed for eating. This small, strangelooking eel has tiny eyes and a long whip-like tail that is sometimes tied in several knots. The end of its tail also is tipped with a photospore. Through bioluminescence the tip glows pink and sometimes flashes red. Its gigantic mouth is wider than its body and can open wide enough to swallow animals larger than itself! Its stomach then stretches to make room for what it has eaten. 5 The vampire squid looks like it flew off the pages of a science fiction novel! This six-inch fish has large, floppy, gelatin-like ears to propel itself through the water and eyes about the size of a large dog. When its photospores are turned off, the vampire squid is invisible and can sneak up on prey. When it turns its light organs on, it can create complex light patterns along its body to lure prey and confuse predators. Instead of ink, however, the vampire squid uses sharp spikes on its arms to capture its prey. 6 In the last ten years, thanks to researchers and new technologies that include submersibles, cameras, and other tools, thousands of new species have been identified in the deep ocean. By far the largest habitat for life on Earth, it is currently the most under-explored and unknown area of the sea.

7 On the basis of what you learned about deep ocean life, what are some things that fish appear to need to survive at these depths? Imagine you are making an oral report. What images would you use in your report? What kind of technology do you think is required to study life at these depths? What are the problems researchers must encounter?