Lesson 7.5: Science Connection

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Don't Look Up!

One summer, a strange brown goo seemed to be falling from the sky over several towns in Idaho. It fell on buildings, on people, and on the ground. The sticky goo coated everything it fell on.

People splattered by the weird substance couldn't figure out what it was. Finally, the State Department of Environmental Quality identified it.

The strange substance was not coming from outer space. It was actually bee waste! The environmental workers had found a great many beehives around this part of Idaho. This was unusual. When the bees from those hives flew over the communities, they dropped the waste. Because it was such a good year for bees, there was a lot of waste. Luckily, the bee waste was made up mostly of pollen, and so it was harmless.

Word Wise

Cover a surface with a layer of a substance: As the snow fell, it completely coated the ground.

Strange and unusual: A weird purple car with lights along the sides just passed by.

Region in which a group of people live: The library is the largest building in our community.

Yellow powder made by female cells of a flower: When a bee comes to a flower to drink nectar, pollen sticks to its body.

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Words that have the same meaning, or almost the same meaning, are called synonyms. Here are some synonyms of the word community. Working with a partner, copy and complete each sentence with the synonym that fits it best. You may use a dictionary to help you.

Synonyms of "Community"
  • colony
  • neighborhood
  • state
  • turf
  • nation
  1. The U.S. is the                      with the greatest population in North America.
  2. A penguin                      can be made up of hundreds or thousands of penguins.
  3. Texas is one                      that shares a border with Mexico.
  4. I wish that my brother wouldn't put his things on my                     .
  5. The flowers in front of the houses make this the nicest                      in town.

Data Hunt

The kind of bees that make honey were brought to South America from Europe about 300 years ago. Then, in 1956, scientists in South America wanted to raise bees that would produce even more honey. They brought over honeybees from Africa.

The new bees have caused trouble! Most bees will not attack unless they are threatened. But the new bees, unlike others, will attack anybody or anything that gets in their way. This is why they are sometimes called “killer bees.”

Still, there's good news about the killer bees: They make a lot of honey.

A colony of killer bees can produce five times as much honey as a colony of South American honeybees.

Suppose a beekeeper could expect to harvest 47 pounds of honey from one of his South-American beehives. Use the information in the article to help you answer the questions. Write multiplication sentences to help you solve.

  1. How many pounds of honey could the beekeeper expect to harvest from one of his killer bee hives?
  2. Suppose the beekeeper had 32 honeybee hives. How many pounds of honey can he expect to harvest from these?
  3. Suppose the beekeeper had eight killer bee hives. How many pounds of honey can he expect to harvest from the killer bee hives?