| Week of September 14 - 18, 2009 |
| · Science Fair: Status Forms are your way of letting me know what project ideas you are considering for the fair. Please don’t just come up and ask if a project is okay. Use a Status From for each project idea you are considering so that I can read about it and think about it and make notes and ask questions. Most students will end up filling out several Status Forms. Nothing is set in stone at this point, but you cannot move forward until you complete a Status Form to propose you project idea(s). · All students will be re-taking the Variables and Controlled Experiments Web Quiz (hosted on our class website) again this week to see how we have progressed. This quiz should be completed outside of class. Please see Mrs. Flynt ASAP if you have issues accessing the quiz from home. |
| | 6th Grade | 7th Grade | 8th Grade |
| Monday, September 14, 2009 |
| Daily Launch | Science Fair: Turn in Status Forms to folder marked “Science Fair” hanging on the “Discovery” iceberg wall in our classroom. All: Get science Journals from class drawer. | Science Fair: Turn in Status Forms to folder marked “Science Fair” hanging on the “Discovery” iceberg wall in our classroom. Get safety glasses and obtain supplies for today’s lab. | Science Fair: Turn in Status Forms to folder marked “Science Fair” hanging on the “Discovery” iceberg wall in our classroom. Obtain supplies to prepare for Sea Floor Model building. |
| Daily Mission | Create title page in Science Journal and number first 5 pages. Begin first Journal Entry on page 5: Controlled Variables vs. Control Group. Pass back graded Sugar Lab assignment: 1st: Sugar Lab Variables ID 7th: Sugar Lab Data Tables Add assignment to grade sheet and practice calculating grades. | Water Bottle Rocket Lab: Initial Launch. Students will test how volume of water affects the hang time of water bottle rockets. Post-lab follow-up includes analysis of experimental design, testing procedures, data collection methods, and ability to designate and fulfill roles when working in a group. | Review common ocean floor features. With project partner, begin planning which ocean features you intend to include in your bathymetry model and what supplies you will need. Begin constructing your model of the ocean floor. Review history of sea floor exploration and discuss oddity of thin sediment layers. |
| Handouts | | | Mapping the Ocean Floor Classnotes |
| Homework | Retake Variables and Controlled Experiments Web Quiz (on class website). | No homework, unless you didn’t take your web quiz over the weekend! | Science Fair: Research your topic. Non Science Fair: Work on quake plotting for 9/11, 9/12, and 9/13. First FCAT Explorer Report due Friday! |
| Tuesday, September 15, 2009 |
| Daily Launch | Read and highlight first section of What is Science packet. | Pass back papers in OUTBOX and calculate grades. | Pass back papers in OUTBOX and calculate grades. |
| Daily Mission | Glue Table of Contents into Science Journal and add yesterday’s journal entry to TOC. Organize first three assignments in Portfolio section of science binder and fill out Portfolio TOC. Discuss origin of the word “science” and what science involves: asking questions and researching and investigating questions to find answers. Discuss research and informational sources. | Discuss what we observed and what we measured in yesterday’s lab. Topics: air pressure; particle motion and spacing in solids, liquids, and gasses (students will kinesthetically demonstrate); pressure and surface area (using visual diagram of bottle rockets), compression of a gas and how compression affects air pressure (crowding students into a room analogy); metric vs. English units of measurement. | Read and highlight Ocean Bathymetry Classnotes. Continue with yesterday’s discussion of origin and depth of ocean floor sediments. Identify profile of continental shelf, shelf break, continental slope, and continental rise. Discuss and show 3D topo map illustrating width of continental shelf along different continental margins. Discuss thick layers of turbidites along continental rise. |
| Handouts | What Is Science Packet | | Ocean Bathymetry Classnotes |
| Homework | Read/highlight What is Science Packet up to “Observations and Inferences” section (DO NOT READ FURTHER). | No homework unless you STILL haven’t retaken your web quiz!!! | Quake Plotters: Catch up on all quakes from 9/5 to 9/13. ALL: Retake the Web Quiz called Variables and Controlled Experiments. |
| Wednesday, September 16, 2009 |
| Daily Launch | Read/highlight I Was Absent: What Did I Miss? handout. Discuss how to obtain work when you are absent. |
| Daily Mission | Continue discussion of What Is Science Packet. Differentiate between casual scientific inquiry vs. formal scientific investigations using the scientific method. Examine the difference between facts and opinions, and how they relate to observations and inferences. Discuss why scientists must carefully craft a measurable hypotheses, and how a poorly worded hypothesis can lead to misuse of data. | Review particle motion and spacing in solids, liquids, and gasses. Physics of Water Bottle Rocket Classnotes: Introduce unbalanced forces and the interaction between thrust and gravity in rocket propulsion. Discuss how we created thrust in our water bottle rockets by disrupting equilibrium and creating abnormally high air pressure inside the water bottle. | Students will continue constructing bathymetric model of ocean floor features. Mrs. Flynt will check progress on Quake Maps (students should have around 65 quakes plotted by now) and scan for misplaced epicenters. |
| Handouts | Absent: What Did I Miss?, What Is Science Packet. | Absent: What Did I Miss? | Absent: What Did I Miss? SpongeBob's Sci Method WS: Controls and Variables Part 1 |
| Homework | No homework. | Draw a diagram with a descriptive caption showing particle motion and particle spacing in each of the three main phases of matter: solid, liquid, gas. Then write a brief explanation of why a can be compressed more easily that a solid or a liquid. | Sci Method Review: Complete SpongeBob’s Controls and Variables Part I. Click here for list of students exempt from this assignment. Quake Plotters: Plot quakes from 9/14 and 9/15. |
| Thursday, September 17, 2009 |
| Daily Launch | Read/highlight first two paragraphs in Inferences and Observations section of What Is Science Packet. | Turn in homework to INBOX. Read section 295 in ScienceSaurus. | Turn in SpongeBob's Sci Method WS: Controls and Variables Part 1 to INBOX. |
| Daily Mission | Inferences and Observations: Students will examine the picture in their packet and record their observations. Class will discuss student examples and decide if they are truly observations or involve making an inference. Students will then list inferences about the picture based on their observations and their background knowledge. Class will then examine several crazy scenarios based on the same picture and decide whether these scenarios can be considered “acceptable” inferences. | Continue with Physics of Water Bottle Rockets classnotes. Topics covered today include action/reaction force pairs and Newton’s 3rd Law of Motion, density of liquids vs. gasses, ability of fluids to flow, definition of equilibrium, tendency of air to flow from high to low (areas of high air pressure to areas of low air pressure), symbols and units that can be used with air pressure, creation of conditional potential energy by disrupting equilibrium, other types of potential energy (gravitational/positional PE, elastic PE). | Students will continue constructing their bathymetric model of ocean floor features. Today students will create 3 profile lines on box tops and a create profile graph for each line. These graphs will be the answer key for their box. Mrs. Flynt will check progress on Quake Maps (she did not get to everyone yesterday) and scan for misplaced epicenters. |
| Handouts | What Is Science Packet | | |
| Homework | Meet in computer lab 109 tomorrow. Finish reading/highlighting What Is Science Packet. | Meet in computer lab 109 tomorrow. | Meet in computer lab 109 tomorrow. Quake Plotters: Plot data for 9/16. |
| Friday, September 18, 2009 Computer Lab Day |
| Daily Launch | Visit the Web Quizzes section of our class website and review your quiz results. Remember that these 2 quizzes are to monitor your progress—they are not for a grade. Don’t freak out about your scores! The first score was low for most students because you took it BEFORE you reviewed or learned anything new. Look for progress between the first and second quiz. Write down any questions you are still struggling with. We can go over questions when we’re back in the classroom next week. If no one asks questions next week in class, I will assume you are ready for the final evaluation. The final test will NOT be this exact quiz, but WILL test similar concepts. |
| Daily Mission | Science Fair Students: Meet with Mrs. Flynt. Get handouts for logbook, research, and ISEF science fair handbook. Log in to NoodleTools and practice citing a source. Begin research on your science fair topic. |
| ALL OTHER 6th and 7th Graders: Ammonia Factory Assignment Instructions | ALL OTHER 8th Graders: Interactives: Dynamic Earth Assignment |
| Handouts | | |
| Homework | Science Fair: Attempt to document one additional source using NoodleBib. Remember to share your NoodleBib list with Mrs. Flynt (Flynt Science Fair). All: Have a terrific weekend! |
