Science Reports: Bees, Hurricanes, and Tornadoes

Back in first grade, I had to write a report about birds. This "report" was really only four sentences long, but I remember having a terrible time with it. I remember getting frustrated, writing my facts, erasing until the paper was worn through, and rewriting new facts until I decided that the report held the most significant information about birds. Mind you, that is difficult to do in four sentences! Birds have different bills to survive in different environments. Birds have lightweight bones and wings to help them fly. Birds evolved from dinosaurs. Birds chew their food for their babies. I'm sure that's what I wrote.

I decided that I will continue these short science "reports" that I had to write in my early career as a scientist. Here are my first two "reports."

Bees
There is so much information about bees. Here are my four sentences.

Bees are a special type of wasp. Bees feed on nectar and pollen. All bees have two sets of wings (a larger and smaller pair), but some bees still cannot fly. Bees are in a state of decline, which is bad news for the diversity and abundance of wildflowers.

Twister, Hurricane or Tornado?
Tornadoes and twisters are the same thing -- "a violently rotating column of air over land associated with a severe thunderstorm. Tornadoes range in diameter from metres [less than one straight-way of an outdoor 400m track] to hundreds of metres [once around the track is 400 metres, just for reference] and generally last from a few seconds
up to half an hour."

Hurricanes (USA), typhoons (Asia), and tropical cyclones (Australia) are all the same thing too. "Cyclones form over warm tropical waters where the sea's surface temperature is above 26° Celsius [78.8° Fahrenheit]. They are typically hundreds of kilometres [remember a 5k is 3.125 miles, so 100k is 62.5miles, so "hundreds of 62.5 miles" is one way to think of it] in diameter and can last for many days, with maximum winds greater than 62 km/h [38.5 mph], or for severe cyclones, greater than 116 km/h [62.6 mph]. Strong winds, heavy rain, flooding
and storm surges can cause major damage."

Four sentence report version:
We have two categories of storms of interest: tornadoes and hurricanes. Tornadoes happen over land. Hurricanes happen over water. Hurricanes are monsters.

Reference:
Bureau of Meterology (Australia)
http://www.bom.gov.au/social/2011/07/tropical-cyclone-tornado-hurricane/