Fossils B/C

[DragonTownEpic]

Astarte is more pointed than Nucula and the ridges are spaced further apart.

[twig]

How do you do absolute dating?
My partner and I always screw up it because we never remember how to calculate the absolute age.

[DragonTownEpic]

First, find out how much of the parent isotope remains in the rock. This can be found with the following formula:
p = amount of parent isotope
d = amount of daughter isotope
p/(d+p)
Hopefully, the denominator of the resulting fraction should be a power of 2. Find out how many 2s would be needed to multiplied to get the denominator and that is how many half-lives the rock has gone through. Multiply this value by the half-life to find the absolute age.

If the fraction is not a negative power of 2, you'll need a log function. To do logarithms on a capable calculator, press the "log" button then type 2 afterwards. The number 2 should appear in subscript. Then, input your fraction in the paranthesis. If your calculator does not allow you to put a number in subscript, then you will have to make a reasonable guess. Find the general range of the rock with the previous paragraph and guess.

[anandymous]

First, find out how much of the parent isotope remains in the rock. This can be found with the following formula:
p = amount of parent isotope
d = amount of daughter isotope
p/(d+p)
Hopefully, the denominator of the resulting fraction should be a power of 2. Find out how many 2s would be needed to multiplied to get the denominator and that is how many half-lives the rock has gone through. Multiply this value by the half-life to find the absolute age.

If the fraction is not a negative power of 2, you'll need a log function. To do logarithms on a capable calculator, press the "log" button then type 2 afterwards. The number 2 should appear in subscript. Then, input your fraction in the paranthesis. If your calculator does not allow you to put a number in subscript, then you will have to make a reasonable guess. Find the general range of the rock with the previous paragraph and guess.

During an actual competition, you won't be able to use a calculator, but if you're just practicing, there is a way to do log base x of y if your calculator doesn't give subscripts for logs (like mine). Just do log y divided by log x (or ln y divided by ln x). It will give you the same result based off some property of logarithms.

[anandymous]

About anatomy....
How would you create anatomy of certain phyla or orders?
(cause right now, I think that our anatomy is not that good)

My partner and I have a section at the back of our binder with lots of labelled diagrams, typically for each genus, though

I don't really know about specific orders/phlya, but tests we've taken have had questions about the anatomy of arthropods (trilobites especially), crinoids, echinoids, star fish, blastoids, and shells (as far as I can remember).

Granted, our anatomy is not superb, but I think we're decent enough

[ChimpLopez]

About anatomy....
How would you create anatomy of certain phyla or orders?
(cause right now, I think that our anatomy is not that good)

My partner and I have a section at the back of our binder with lots of labelled diagrams, typically for each genus, though

I don't really know about specific orders/phlya, but tests we've taken have had questions about the anatomy of arthropods (trilobites especially), crinoids, echinoids, star fish, blastoids, and shells (as far as I can remember).

Granted, our anatomy is not superb, but I think we're decent enough

The way I have my binder set up is by phylum. We separate our binder into the phyla on the list for organization purposes(if if is a big phylum then we go with sub-phylum or order). At the beginning of each section, we have anatomy pages for the phylum. On the pages we include a lot of labeled diagrams, and brief descriptions of the structures, and their purposes. Other ways we have tried to organize anatomy in the past is one large section with anatomy pages for the entire list(which was a nightmare to organize), and putting anatomy pages with each of our info pages for the specimens respectively, which was admittedly more organized, but made the binder a bit larger than our 2 inch limit.

[ChimpLopez]

Speaking of the 2 inch binder limit according to the rules, how much do event supervisors actually care? My partner and I downsized our binder A LOT to fit this new limit this year, and we have yet to run into an event supervisor who cares about the limit. Like I have seen some teams walk in with MASSIVE binders, clearly over the limit, but the supervisors seem to be all good with it. Have you guys experienced this too? just me?

[twig]

Speaking of the 2 inch binder limit according to the rules, how much do event supervisors actually care? My partner and I downsized our binder A LOT to fit this new limit this year, and we have yet to run into an event supervisor who cares about the limit. Like I have seen some teams walk in with MASSIVE binders, clearly over the limit, but the supervisors seem to be all good with it. Have you guys experienced this too? just me?

The first invitational that we went to, the girl proctor told everyone in the class that they were going to measure each team's binder by the spine. However, the Jeffrey Trail team said that "According to the rules, the binder must be measured by the interior diameter of the rings (2 in)." Then she came and checked us at the end of the test. The binder that my partner and I have is 3 in, with a 2 in diameter. It's better to keep in mind that some proctors may check or remind you that at regional and state, they need to fit the limits
The second invitational that we went to yesterday, they did not check the binders, but they warned us about the limit. No team (as I recall) had a binder over the limit.

I would technically say, it depends...
Also, the girl hated us, and the proctors from yesterday did not.
I am very thankful for the suggestions that you gave me too (for anatomy)! We'll fix our binder so that we can get the third place from Mesa to a 1st place at Jeffrey Trail.

[ChimpLopez]

Speaking of the 2 inch binder limit according to the rules, how much do event supervisors actually care? My partner and I downsized our binder A LOT to fit this new limit this year, and we have yet to run into an event supervisor who cares about the limit. Like I have seen some teams walk in with MASSIVE binders, clearly over the limit, but the supervisors seem to be all good with it. Have you guys experienced this too? just me?

The first invitational that we went to, the girl proctor told everyone in the class that they were going to measure each team's binder by the spine. However, the Jeffrey Trail team said that "According to the rules, the binder must be measured by the interior diameter of the rings (2 in)." Then she came and checked us at the end of the test. The binder that my partner and I have is 3 in, with a 2 in diameter. It's better to keep in mind that some proctors may check or remind you that at regional and state, they need to fit the limits
The second invitational that we went to yesterday, they did not check the binders, but they warned us about the limit. No team (as I recall) had a binder over the limit.

I would technically say, it depends...
Also, the girl hated us, and the proctors from yesterday did not.
I am very thankful for the suggestions that you gave me too (for anatomy)! We'll fix our binder so that we can get the third place from Mesa to a 1st place at Jeffrey Trail.

Oof I hope they measure our rings at regionals/states. Our binder's spine is also larger than 2 inches but the rings are 2 inches. We worked so hard to slim our binder down at I hope it pays off. We have d-slant rings instead of the standard run of the mill circular rings. I think they flip the pages smoother and are able to fit more pages. I might just be reading too much into the shape of the rings lol

And no problem for the anatomy suggestions

[Havocgamer49]

Speaking of the 2 inch binder limit according to the rules, how much do event supervisors actually care? My partner and I downsized our binder A LOT to fit this new limit this year, and we have yet to run into an event supervisor who cares about the limit. Like I have seen some teams walk in with MASSIVE binders, clearly over the limit, but the supervisors seem to be all good with it. Have you guys experienced this too? just me?

The first invitational that we went to, the girl proctor told everyone in the class that they were going to measure each team's binder by the spine. However, the Jeffrey Trail team said that "According to the rules, the binder must be measured by the interior diameter of the rings (2 in)." Then she came and checked us at the end of the test. The binder that my partner and I have is 3 in, with a 2 in diameter. It's better to keep in mind that some proctors may check or remind you that at regional and state, they need to fit the limits
The second invitational that we went to yesterday, they did not check the binders, but they warned us about the limit. No team (as I recall) had a binder over the limit.

I would technically say, it depends...
Also, the girl hated us, and the proctors from yesterday did not.
I am very thankful for the suggestions that you gave me too (for anatomy)! We'll fix our binder so that we can get the third place from Mesa to a 1st place at Jeffrey Trail.

Oof I hope they measure our rings at regionals/states. Our binder's spine is also larger than 2 inches but the rings are 2 inches. We worked so hard to slim our binder down at I hope it pays off. We have d-slant rings instead of the standard run of the mill circular rings. I think they flip the pages smoother and are able to fit more pages. I might just be reading too much into the shape of the rings lol

And no problem for the anatomy suggestions

At Piedmont Invitational they also measured our binder size, but they did so from the exterior stem, and our binder was measured at 2.5 inches. However they really did not care and let us compete. Our school's other team's binder came in at 3 inches, but it is actually 2 if you measure the rings. This is the first time someone has ever measured our binder in 2 year and I was pretty surprised. How likely is it that they do this at Regionals?