The Spanish-American War

The Spanish-American war is an interesting topic which we are studying for social studies. We watched a 40 minute documentary posted on Youtube, where we got the bulk of our information along with other side websites used for additional information. This war is to me the most interesting topic we have learned about and shows how territory’s and empires expand.

In the early 16^th century the Spanish empire was expanding quickly. The Spanish had over three quarters of the land in the Americas. From the time of the very early 1600s to 1898 the Spanish empire shrunk and withered until their only remaining colonies in the New World were Cuba and Puerto Rico.

In 1895 the people of Cuba wanted to become free from the Spanish. The people of the United States were all supporters of freedom and independence, and wanted to support the Cuban rebels. Thus, the US president William McKinley sent a new, improved, steel ship named the USS Maine to watch the waters of Cuba and protect the American people living there.

This is a picture of the USS Maine before it exploded

Finally, after months on the waters, when the men were itching for battle they got orders on January 25, 1898, to sail into the Cuban waters and stay docked there. Captain Charles Sigsbee took every precaution and made sure nobody got on or off the ship. One night after the crew had gone to bed Sigsbee sat down to write a letter to his wife. Suddenly he heard a crash and a loud boom, their SHIP WAS SINKING! At 9:48 PM on February 15, 1898 their ship blew up for an unknown reason.

Only 94 of the 350 men survived and most were in horrific shape. That was good news for only one group of people, the Americans in Cuba. They believed that if the USS Maine exploded and the Americans blamed it on the Spanish, then the United States would annihilate the Spanish and they would gain freedom. At that same time, the US had intercepted a letter from a Spanish official calling the USA and their president weak and cowardly. The US demanded an apology at once but never received one. The people of the United States felt insulted and demanded war against the Spanish.

  
William McKinley then wrote a private letter to the governor, who set up a panel of judges to inspect the wreck and decide if the Spanish were responsible for the explosion. On March 28 they released the final report, saying that the Spanish were indeed the ones to blame for the wreck of the USS Maine. People of the United States were furious and were ready to go to war with Spain. The next day, Spain set up its own team of judges and concluded that the ship wreck was an accident caused by the crew members. Newspapers soon discredited the conclusion as a ‘’ fish story’’ due to the lack of information to which the Spanish had access, and sensationalized the event and its aftermath.

This is a picture of the USS Maine when it exploded

McKinley was a very respected president, who served in the Civil war and had seen tons of bloodshed as a young boy. He felt very strongly about keeping his people safe and free and wanted to protect his people from dying. The Americans were very ready for war because the newspaper articles exaggerated what happened, which made people enraged.  Finally, the respected president caved and signed an ultimatum demanding freedom for his people in Cuba and declaring war if that did not happen. Spain refused to let the Cuban people become free and in April of 1898 the Spanish-American war commenced.

This map shows the movements of the Spanish army and the United States army during the war against each other.

Teddy Roosevelt, the Assistant Secretary of the Navy, resigned and became the leader of the first group of cavalry that volunteered to fight. They then named themselves “the rough riders” and were made out of diverse group of men who had occupations that had nothing to do with the navy. These men along with many others charged up hills and valleys, demolishing the Spanish in their way. After only three months of battle the Americans had successfully defeated the Spanish army. Along with their triumphant win the Americans successfully expanded their empire and gained Puerto Rico, parts of Cuba, the Philippines, Guam and Guantanamo bay.

                                                                       76 Years Later

In 1974 the American people, using new and improved technology they found out that there was a spontaneous combustion and there was a flaw in the architecture. The architect had organized the ship so that the magazine of the ship was directly next to coal bunkers and therefore, the ship blew up in a fiery explosion.

Over the years many major History organizations have conducted research and panels of people to find out the cause of the mysterious explosion of the USS Maine.  They have concluded that the most plausible explanation to what caused the catastrophe was, indeed, a spontaneous combustion.

                                                           Conclusion

Sometimes people have ideas that they believe in strongly and they sometimes bend or ignore what all the facts are saying. That is exactly what happened in the Spanish-American War. This led the United States to expand its territory, and caused Spain to lose most of its land.

Time Line of events from 1895-1898

1895: The Cuban people revolted against the Spanish rule and wanted independence.

Early 1898: The USS Maine was sent over to Cuba to protect the American people living there

February 9, 1898: William Randolph Hearst, a newspaper reporter, intercepted a letter that was written by the Spanish and insulted the United States and president McKinley

February 15, 1898: The USS Maine exploded

April 11, 1898: The US congress declares war on the Spanish

May, 1898: The Rough Riders win San Juan hill in Puerto Rico

July 3, 1898: The battle of Santiago in Cuba was when the U.S navy decided that they had successfully defeated the Spanish

July 17, 1898: General William Shafter forces the people of Santiago to surrender

August 13,1898: US troops capture Manilla, ending the war

References:

https://prezi.com/ywcmfuxirhi_/what-caused-the-explosion-of-the-uss-maine/

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/the-maine-explodes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N21Ihs8_Uqs  (History Channel documentary, 2015)

http://militaryhistory.about.com/od/navalbattles1800s/p/ussmaine.htm

https://www.loc.gov/rr/news/topics/spanishAmWar.html
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/30/USS_Maine_ACR-1_in_Havana_harbor_before_explosion_1898.jpg 

El Yunque Rainforest

The rainforest is an amazing natural habitat. It is a place of discovery and growth. Tropical rainforests around the world nurture and feed over half of the world’s plants and animals. Over ¼ of all of the natural medicines were found in rainforests. Rainforests are located around the world, but generally are located around the equator, between Tropic of Capricorn and the Tropic of Cancer. Why is that, you ask? Well, the temperature around the equator is much higher than other places farther from the equator. Those higher temperatures then cause accelerated evaporation that makes the water that the clouds are holding to let down sooner than clouds in other places. Places like central and South America, Africa, India, South East Asia, parts of Indonesia and Australia all have rainforests.

Rainforests consist of 4 layers that all have their own systems.

Layer 1: The forest floor; where most of the plants of the rainforest live and some small animals like slugs and some kinds of worms. Also, this layer receives about 2% of the sunlight. This is mostly the layer of dirt and decaying.

 Layer 2: The Understory layer; This layer only gets 2-15 percent of the sunlight, so it's not a very light place. In this layer under 10% of the animals live. This layer is pretty open and contains a lot of rivers, streams and many popular garden plants like impatiens and begonias.

Layer 3: The canopy layer; This layer holds almost all of the rainforest birds and monkeys. The trees in this layer form a tight bundle of canopy, 60-90 feet above the ground. It also contains 90% of all of the animals in the rainforests.

Layer 4: The Emergent layer; The Emergent layer is a small layer of huge trees that must survive in hot and dry air and strong winds. This top layer is home to only a few animals including the Crowned Eagle, the King Columbus monkey and the large flying fox.

About 40 km from San Juan, Puerto Rico, there is a rainforest called El Yunque.  It is the smallest national forest and the only tropical rain forest located in the United States. This rainforest is about 29,000 acres around and contains many species of plants and animals. A long time ago Puerto Rico was formed from an underground volcano. And you might ask, if it used to be an underground volcano, then how are there any animals or plants on this island? Well, there are many native animals on the island including birds, reptiles,and amphibians . When you visit Puerto Rico, one thing that you won’t miss is the coqui frog that likes to live in dark, damp places.  They make a “ko-KEE” noise that gives them their name. The only native mammals to Puerto Rico are 10 species of bats that came to the island by flying. Any other species was either brought over by humans and escaped or flew across the ocean from somewhere else. Also, any plants that now are on the island came by wind carrying their seeds to the island where they then started to grow and reproduce other plants of their kind. On the island there are about 240 native tree species, 26 of which are located only in El Yunque rainforest.

This is some of the mountain peaks that make up El Yunque national forest.  It rains almost every day here.

Last weekend we visited El Yunque National Rainforest in Puerto Rico. The first thing we did after the beautiful drive was hike. The trail was named the La Coca Trail and was supposed to lead to a beautiful waterfall.

The forest had a lot of palm trees in it.

 The trail started with a big decline that snaked around bends. The trail was scattered with bamboo and other debris and needed some maintenance – it was muddy, slippery, wet, and steep.  Since it’s a rain forest, you would have to maintain the trail every day to have it be in good shape. We soon came to a small river crossing that was about 10 feet across and had fairly low water. 

This is one of the interesting plants that we saw in the rainforest.

After crossing the stream we came to a patch where it had most likely been washed out the day before, so it was muddy and slippery. We had to move out of the way of the trail and get out of the mud. We soon came to a good resting spot and me and my dad went to scope out some more of the trail so that we could decide if the juice was really worth the squeeze. We voted to turn around.

This is the bamboo that grows near the top of the La Coca trail.  It was huge, and some of it was falling down.

 After eating lunch and climbing a tower to an amazing view we decided to test our luck on a popular trail that was shorter and paved and was supposed to lead to a section of the same waterfall. 

Our view from the top of the tower.  We can see all the way to the ocean, and where we live is around the corner to the left of the mountain.

The hike was not long and was really interesting and had informative signs along the way. A few trees that we noticed were the Ausubo tree and the Tobonuco tree. We learned that the bats guano fertilizes the soil and carries seeds to plant new trees in the rainforest.  The waterfall was amazingly crowded, probably because it was the perfect day to swim in the rainforest. We spent a good half an hour playing at the waterfall before hiking back and ending our day.

Recently, human activity has been destroying tropical rainforests around the world. People have been doing thing such as burning land in rainforests to make space for cattle and logging the sacred trees in rainforests. Over the years, scientists estimate that slash and burn farming as it is known is 50% of rainforest destruction.  Visiting El Yunque National Forest was a great experience that I would recommend to anybody visiting Puerto Rico.  Our hike gave me an appreciation for all the animals and plants that make up this important ecosystem.

References

http://www.fs.usda.gov/elyunque

http://www.topuertorico.org/coqui.shtml

http://www.rainforestanimals.net/

http://www.savetherainforest.org/savetherainforest_012.htm

http://www.mbgnet.net/sets/rforest/explore/layers.htm

http://www.elboricua.com/BoricuaKids_ElYunque.html

USFS interpretive plaques along the “La Mina Falls” trail

Taino: the first people of Puerto Rico

      For Social Studies we enjoyed learning about the Taino, which were the first people to settle on the Caribbean Islands. In my opinion, the Taino were very sophisticated and had an interesting way of life. In third grade we learned about the Wampenoags and the Pilgrims, and they ended up getting on very well.  But, the Taino and the Spanish did the exact opposite, and obliterated each other. 

      The Taino people came to the Caribbean islands of Cuba, Hispaniola, the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Haiti, Puerto Rico and the Cayman Islands around 3,000 B.C.E. The Taino had a very sophisticated way of life. They were good navigators, fishermen, hunters, canoe makers, and farmers. They had ceremonial ball parks where they played a game similar to baseball. They had ceremonial dances. They had interesting beliefs such as their creation story. They believe that all of humanity came out of two caves: one from which the Taino came and one from which everyone else came. The Taino were divided into three social classes: the workers, the sub-chiefs and noblemen, and the chiefs.

 

This is a Taino woman preparing dinner.  We got it from a museum website.

In 1492, Christopher Columbus, a Spaniard, came to the Caribbean Islands with three ships, the Nina, The Pinta and the Santa Maria looking for a western route to Asia. When he and his men got to the Caribbean they were looking for riches and wanted to establish trade with any people they found the island. But, when they got to the islands and met the Taino, the Taino felt threatened.  

This is an engraved picture of Christopher Columbus, around 1492.

Over about a period of 20 years, the Spanish established a colony. They expected that the Taino would work for Spain and would become Christians. The Taino rebelled against these ideas. The story is that what started their uprising was one Spanish man who took of his clothes to cross the river and when he got to the other side accused a Taino of stealing his clothes. From that point they started to hate each other and fights started to break out which turned into a full on battle. The Spanish had many unfair advantages in that fight like crossbows, cannons and lances but the thing that really killed the Taino the most was disease: things like chickenpox and smallpox. The Taino had no idea that if they just rested and got some food and drink, they might be able to return back to war. For nearly ten years the Spanish were capturing, killing and torturing the Taino and some Taino thought that there lives were so different that they could not cope with the changes so they killed their children and then committed suicide.

 

This picture shows the Spanish settlers conquering the Taino people.

After this time, the battle was over. Spain had won and the Tainos had been decimated. Some estimate that the number of Taino decreased from 20,000-50,000 to about 4000 by the year 1515 and to 60 by 1544.

Even though the Taino essentially disappeared almost 500 years ago, their influence has continued.  Taino names for trees, plants, animals, and places continue to be used in the present.

References:

http://www.topuertorico.org/reference/taino.shtml

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmKporC6PUw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bcv7-ipKErg

http://www.factslides.com/imgs/columbus2.jpg

https://abagond.wordpress.com/2013/09/20/the-taino-genocide/

http://www.elmuseo.org/pc-taino/

Halloween in Puerto Rico

Many places around the world celebrate Halloween. In our neighborhood in Puerto Rico, we celebrated it on Sunday instead of the actual date.

All the parents and kids in the neighborhood planned to come together at 4:30 in the park to have a big party with candy, food, and drink where everyone who attended was expected to bring a treat to share with the neighborhood. Then the kids would use bags that they brought and fill them up with candy before they went trick or treating.  There had been a big rain storm earlier in the afternoon and it finally quit about 20 minutes before the Halloween party started.

There were about 100 kids dressed in costumes. I saw one kid dressed as Zorro and another dressed as Indiana Jones. The kids’ costumes were a lot more creative than the costumes kids wear in our neighborhood at home.  Some examples were kids dressed as a banana or as French fries or as a vending machine. I dressed up as a ghoul that had been in a fight. My sister dressed up as a cat.

A surprising number of kids at the party switched back and forth between speaking in Spanish and English. We asked some parents about this and found that many of the kids go to the school near our house. The parents told us that the kids learn both Spanish and English at school and that some families speak English at home.

 

This is me and a bunch of kids in the neighborhood at the party.

After about an hour of the party, everybody went trick or treating to selected houses in the neighborhood. Our neighborhood is made up of apartment buildings and single family houses. The only places we could trick or treat were single family houses because the apartments are locked. People who wanted kids to trick or treat at their house had to have enough candy for everybody.  That’s a lot of candy!

 

This is some of the creative costumes that people were wearing.

Every time kids got to a trick or treat house, they chanted, “Halloween, tricortri; dame chavos, no mani.” This translates to, “Halloween, trick or treat; Give me money, not peanuts.”

After trick or treating, the party ended at about 6:30 and everyone walked home.

Before I moved to Shrewsbury, I lived in a condo in Chicago. Each year at Halloween, we would have a neighborhood gathering and then go trick or treating. This is very similar to how we went trick or treating in Puerto Rico. In Shrewsbury, the younger kids go trick or treating with their parents and the middle schoolers go with friends in the neighborhood. We visit all the houses in the neighborhood and collect candy at each one.

In my opinion, trick or treating with my friends in Shrewsbury is more exciting because you get to hang out with friends you know and you can collect more candy at more houses.

Staying safe at the beach

Staying safe from a riptide is very important. While tens of thousands of people are rescued from riptides by lifeguards every year, about 100 people die from being caught in the current.

Riptides and Rip currents are very fast moving channels of water that can reach up to 8 Ft per second of flowing water.  Riptides and rip currents are two semi different things. A riptide is a specific type of current that is associated with the fast movement of tidal like water through inlets, estuaries and harbors. The cause of many riptides is changing wave heights or heavy breaking waves. They are often by beach areas, piers and other sections of land that are sticking out.  A rip current, however, is a semi strong current, that flows outward towards the middle of the shallow water where people swim. Also riptides pull you under the water, but rip currents pull you out quite a ways and then force you under.

 

This picture has some safety tips on it, as well as how the water moves and forms a rip current.  I got it from a different website.

Here are some water safety tips I learned:

1.      Only swim at a beach if there’s a lifeguard watching you. If a lifeguard’s watching then you have only a 1 in 18 million chance of drowning.  More than three quarters of all people who drown in the United States drown at unguarded beaches.

2.      If you go to the NOAA website there is a rip current forecast that shows you how high risk your local beach is each day.

3.      Learn how to spot rip currents.

If you ever get caught in a riptide or rip current:

DO NOT PANIC, always stay calm and relaxed and try to keep your feet on the sandy bottom or float on your back. Swim parallel to the beach until you escape the current’s pull, then come in at a very slight angle so that you will eventually reach the shore. If you are not a very advanced swimmer and you find that you are going nowhere when trying to swim out of the channel, then simply tread water or float on your back and try to make a lot of noise.

Recently scientists have been discovering and exploring other ways to escape Riptides. Riptides most likely occur in the hurricane and tornado season between August and October. There are three main types of rips, flash rips that come in one place for a short amount of time and can come in at any time and disperse at any time. Then there is the fixed rip that is formed between sandbars and can stay in the same place for up to a few months and finally there is the permanent rip that stays in one place because of some kind of obstacle in its way.

 

Us at the Coconut Beach.  You can see where the waves crash up against the coral that is protecting the beach.

We have heard that certain beaches in San Juan, which are unguarded by coral reef or rocks, have a higher risk of riptides and rip currents.  We choose beaches that are protected, such as Balneario Escambron, which has a lifeguard, or the small beach by the Avenida Ashford bridge, which is unguarded but heavily protected by rocks.  We call the beach by Balneario Escambron the “Coconut Beach” after all of the coconut trees that shade the beach.   We call the one by the Ashford Bridge the “Shell Beach” because we picked up some shells there, but what’s most interesting is the pelicans that dive into the water for fish just beyond the rocks.

We call this the Coconut Beach because of all the coconut palms that shade the beach.

 

References:

http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/ripcurrent.html

http://www.ripcurrents.noaa.gov/

http://www.usla.org/?page=STATISTICS

http://www.cdc.gov/homeandrecreationalsafety/water-safety/pubs.html

http://www.ripcurrents.noaa.gov/forecasts.shtml

http://www.nws.noaa.gov/training/BreaktheGripoftheRip/player.html

http://www.tybeemarinescience.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/rip-currents.jpg 

Arecibo Observatory

Who would imagine that the biggest telescope in the world is located in the middle of nowhere?  The drive up was quite a haul.  There were winding roads and stray animals all around.  Arecibo is a huge reflector telescope that is located in Puerto Rico.  We visited the Arecibo Observatory and learned a lot about its history, its construction, and how it’s used.

Panoramic photo of Arecibo Observatory.

Arecibo was very precisely placed and there are many factors that led people to construct Arecibo where it is now.  Arecibo was being built by the NSF, NASA, Cornell University, and United States Department of Defense, therefore had to be on U.S soil.  It was going to be constructed on the equator but, they soon found out that they would only be able to see one section of the sky. Puerto Rico is situated 18.5 degrees north, so the astronomers can see a larger portion of the sky.  When they chose Puerto Rico, they found that there was a natural sinkhole that would allow them to construct the reflector more efficiently.

Arecibo was the largest radio space telescope in the world, with a diameter or 305m from its completion in 1963 until a new and more improved telescope was built in China in July of 2016. The reflector is made out of nearly 40,000 perforated aluminum panels. The engineers chose perforated panels because they can drain water if it rains, and they reflect the radio signals better.  If there trees or debris on the reflector, it can mess up their signal.  So, engineers designed special shoes that distribute your weight so that you can walk across the reflector, pick up the debris, and not damage it.  To hold up the sensing equipment that is housed in the Gregorian Dome, they use thirty-six cables each weighing eleven tons.  Those cables suspend the equipment 450 feet above the reflector.

Sensing equipment suspended above the reflector.  The ball on the left is the Gregorian Dome.

The reflector dish that focuses the radio waves to the antenna.  The black stuff on the panels is mold that has accumulated over time.  The mold does not interfere with any signals that Arecibo receives.

Many very important discoveries have been uncovered at Arecibo.  After the construction was finished scientists from all over the world started to pour in, to study all of the data collected at Arecibo.  One of the first things that they explored was the rotation period of Mercury.  They discovered that instead of the estimated 88 day rotation, it was actually only 59 days!  They also got the first image of an asteroid, and they continue to improve on that and track all asteroids that might collide with the Earth.  The main part of space that they conduct research on is the ionosphere, which is an atmospheric layer of space that is located 50 to 600 miles above the Earth’s surface.  So far two movies have been filmed at Arecibo, a James Bond movie and Contact. When they were filming the James Bond movie they found out that the actor was scared of heights, so a stunt double did all of the work.

Arecibo is an amazing observatory that accomplishes a lot of scientific research.  It was a huge accomplishment for engineers, and has led to many amazing discoveries.  If you’re visiting Puerto Rico you should stop down for a few hours in the afternoon and enjoy learning about the telescope!

References:

http://www.space.com/33357-china-largest-radio-telescope-alien-life.html

http://websites.suagm.edu/ao/

http://websites.suagm.edu/ao/radiotelescope_details

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ionosphere

History of the Puerto Rican Flag

One of the first things I saw here was the Puerto Rico flag, so I decided to do some research about it.  Here is what I learned: 

          The beginning of a flag for Puerto Rico is traced back to about 1492 when Christopher Columbus landed on the shore of a new island with a Spain flag, later he named it San Juan Boutista. Later on he wrote that his captains had used two flags each with a “f” and an “Y” for king Ferdinand and Isabella. The first idea of a flag design was mostly based on The flag of the Dominican Republic. The materials were mostly provided by one man named Eduvigis Bueuchamp Sterling and was knit by Mariana Brocett. The flag had the Layton cross, dividing the flag into four different sections, with one half red which is the blood poured by the heroes of the rebellion and the other half blue with a star which stands for liberty and freedom. The flag was soon after the national flag of the Republic of Puerto Rico.

The last and final variation of the flag was exceptionally well crafted and took a lot of time to construct. The “District of Puerto Rico’s flag was first officially used on December 22, 1895. The flag was later used as a rally and a symbol to represent them breaking off from Spain’s rule. It was soon after as a national symbol and in 1898 it became a mark of independence to all U.S citizens. In about 1901 Puerto Rico finally broke off of Spain’s rule and after that was U.S territory. Then 30 years later in was adopted by the nationalists party and 22 years later it officially became the national flag. The new flag had five alternate red and white stripes with a single white, five point star inside a blue triangle. The white star stands for the common wealth of Puerto Rican citizens, while the equilateral triangle stands for the branches of the government. The three white stripes stand for the blood that feeds the government and the two red stripes stand for the rights of man and the freedom in the U.S.A.

Introduction

Hi, my name is James and we are spending 8 weeks in Puerto Rico.  We are getting home schooled here and I would like to share my adventures with you.  Normally, I'm a 5th grader in Massachusetts in Sherwood Middle School.  All of the posts here are things that we have done, places we have visited, and things I have learned about during our trip.