Tuesday - test in one week

Today we learned about mitosis and meiosis. Mitosis is when the nucleus of the body cells divide creating two daughter cells exactly like their parent cell. The daughter cells, in humans, have 46 chromosomes. Meiosis is when the nucleus of sex cells divide. But, since they can only have 23 chromosomes, they must divide twice leaving each with 23 chromosomes. To read about this go to pages B58-64.

We also broke open one of the eggs in each class. We could see the membrane and the nucleus.

Please work on knowing the parts of your biomes and cell organelles. These will be on the test.

Monday

The upcoming test will be on Tuesday, November 23rd. It will cover B1-B66.

Today we checked out our eggs. On Thursday we exchanged the corn syrup egg with the salt egg to see what would happen. The salt egg was down to 44 grams from 100 and the corn syrup egg was up to 99 from 38. Tomorrow we will break open one egg in each class just to see what the inside is like.

When we returned to class students began making charts to graph the progress of each egg in color.

Wednesday

We reviewed population, community, ecosystem, living and nonliving things today. Then we check our eggs to see if equilibrium had been attained or if diffusion was still occurring. Last the students took a quiz on the organelles they studied last night.

Tomorrow at 2:30 we will be having a Veteran's day assembly. Please remember this assembly is to honor those that fought to protect our beliefs and our country. We need to behave in the way we have learned to show support and honor to our veterans.

Tuesday

We checked on our eggs today. We have been studying diffusion and we are weighing the shell-less eggs to see if they are losing or gaining liquid. The egg in corn syrup lost almost 40 grams of liquid. The salt water egg gained 6 grams and the green water egg turned green and gained 4 grams. The shelled egg that we put in vinegar has lost its shell and is at 67 grams. We will weigh all the eggs daily and see what happens to them.

Today we discussed that living and dead things have cells, but non-living are things that never lived and so they do not have cells. However, living, dead and non-living things all have elements. We discussed the elements in the human body and the contents of the human cell. (B42-45)

We watched a Youtube on photosynthesis "Photosynthesis" by mediasemantics. Many students understand this concept so it was a review, but for some it was their first time through.

Monday

We went into the lab and started an experiment to learn about osmosis and diffusion. We take shell-less eggs and put them in water, corn syrup and a salt water concentrate. We will record the eggs weights starting and then every day. The students will also put a shelled egg in vinegar water to observe that.

Diffusion is when molecules move from an area of high concentration to lower concentration. Osmosis is the diffusion of water molecules.

We also reviewed the jobs of cell organelles. Students then were asked to write the cells jobs without looking. This will help prepare them for their test.

Thursday

There is no homework tonight. We corrected our homework, nearly every student got it done. That is good news. Then I handed out cards to each team. The cards had a cell's organelle listed on it. Each team had to figure out how to act out the function of the organelle and then we played charades. Some of the students were very good at this. Last we reviewed the parts of the organelles on Plato activities.

The student fixed tests and animal papers are corrected and the students should get those back on Monday. Two animal papers were not corrected as I am still waiting for the rubrics and first paper. The students have been reminded again to get those to me.

Wednesday + Homework

Today we looked at anatomy tissues and saw the differences. Then we went to Plato and learned about the organelles in the cell. If you want to go to your Plato account and review it, I will set it up.

Remember, your Plato name is your first and last name as one word with capitals on the first letter of your first and last name. Your group name is 2017 and your password is your student number. If it asks for the site ID it is 1002 Hope that helps.

There is homework tonight, read B1-B15 and answer the questions on B15 1-5 in complete sentences.

A reminder Plato only works on Internet Explorer.

Tuesday - computer mix-up

I apologize for missing the blog the last few days, apparently I signed in on my personal blog and that is where the updates went. For this I am sorry. I am sure that puzzled those who follow my blog.

Thursday I was gone to meetings in Boise, students watched a movie about reptiles and amphibians. We corrected that on Monday.

On Monday we reviewed the metric system, finished the Biome notes and finished watching the movie on amphibians and reptiles.

Today we are learning about cells. We reviewed the cell system, from cells > tissues > organs > organ systems > organisms. We watched a power point presentation on cells and started to look at tissue slices of hair, blood, and other slides that show the different make-up of our tissues.

Wednesday - tests may be fixed tonight

The tests were returned today. All students have the opportunity to fix their test. However, the test must be rewritten on a separate piece of paper. The paper must be stapled to the original test. ALL ANSWERS (even the matching) MUST BE IN COMPLETE SENTENCES or it will not be graded. The students know all of this.

Tonight at 7 p.m. there will be a fighting drug meeting at the school. The speaker talked to the students today and it was excellent. Please come tonight and bring your student with you. There will be prizes, but more importantly you will learn what is happening in Bear Lake. Please come.

In class today we practiced measuring using metrics.

All fixed tests are due at the beginning of class tomorrow. None will be accepted late unless the student is ill.

Tuesday

Today we took and corrected the tests in class. Students will receive the tests back tomorrow and will be allowed to correct their errors using ONLY complete sentences. Any answers not written in complete sentences will not be given any credit. The students will receive half credit for every corrected question.

There is no homework tonight. Tomorrow students are asked to wear school colors for drug free week. Thursday is costume day, no masks please.

Picture retakes will be November 2nd.

Monday test tomorrow

We played a game to review for the test tomorrow. Each table in the lab had cards on it to match. Each student was supposed to match the words to make certain they knew which invertebrate was a platyhelminthesis and that platyhemintheses are flatworms, planaria and tapeworms and that their main characteristic is that they are very very flat.
When we went back to the classroom we reviewed the words on the wall-paper. The students have prepared well for this test.

This is drug prevention red ribbon week. Today all students were allowed to wear hats to "Put a lid on drugs." Tomorrow to help them, "Live up to their dreams," students are allowed to wear sweats or pajamas that cover them. On Wednesday students will wear school colors to support the idea that, "our school is drug free." On Thursday they may dress in Halloween costumes that are school appropriate - no masks please. The theme on Thursdays is "Mash out drugs," and there will be a monster mash at the end of the day.

Thursday

Students gave their animal oral reports today, turned in posters and finished final draft. All who gave their report did very well, even though some were pretty nervous about the experience.

Monday we will begin reviewing for our test and Tuesday will be the test.

Monday starts red ribbon week to remind our students to stay away from drugs. On Monday students will be allowed to wear hats to school. On Tuesday sweats or modest pajamas are the accepted clothing. Wednesday students are to wear school colors and on Thursday students may dress in appropriate Halloween costumes with no masks. Classes will be cut by 4 minutes each and that will be added to our study hall time for either a dance or an activity.

Wednesday parent teacher conf/ Final draft tomorrow

Today we did a little reviewing for our test. We discussed the invertebrates, their classes, an animal that belonged in that class and the characteristics of the animal. Then we returned to the class and students began working on drawing the eight biomes.

Parent-teacher conferences are tonight from 4:30-7:30. Please invite your parents to attend.

The final animal report and poster are due tomorrow. We will spend the day doing oral reports.

Tuesday Final draft Thursday

We are learning about biomes so we went to the Youtube on biomes and using a chart we made in class, we listed all of the biomes and any information it had. Then we got ready to draw the biomes. The students also have biome information in their books B20-B29. Remember test on Tuesday of next week, final draft of the animal report is due Thursday Oct 21st. Please include your rough draft and your rubric.

Monday

The students were handed back their rough drafts today so they can have the final copy finished on Thursday when they will turn in their final report and poster. On Thursday the students will give oral reports of between 1-2 minutes.

We learned about cells today. We looked at onion skin and tomato skin through the microscope. We saw models of nerve cells, blood cells and muscle cells. Then we drew an animal and plant cell as seen in the book on pg B-39.

Remember

Thursday rough drafts in final due Oct 21

Today students are turning in their rough draft. If it is not in today students will lose half of their points. Any student that has plagiarized will lose all of their points. Hopefully they will do well on their final report and be able to bring their grade up. The final copy and poster are due on October 21st at the start of class.

We covered birds and mammals today. We watched a Lyre bird copy all sorts of sounds and a platypus swimming. Youtube can be a great learning tool if you are careful and screen everything first!

Next we covered metamorphosis. Students drew pictures of the stages of metamorphosis in a frog's life and that of a ladybug.

October 25th we will be studying for our test and October 26th we will take it. It will cover A36-A80.

Wednesday- rough draft due tomorrow

We took a little side turn today to watch the Chilean miners being saved after 69 days underground. We discussed the science necessary to drill down to the miners and build a working escape capsule. We also practiced note-taking again to avoid plagiarism on the reports. We have done this before, but after correcting some reports I decided we should practice a little more.

We discussed life spans and life expectancy and learned the difference. We learned that house flies live can live for 79 days while human's life span is 122 years while their life expectancy in the United States is 84 years.

The rough draft is due tomorrow. It will be returned on Monday and the final report will be due that Thursday, the 21st of October.

Tuesday

Hope you all enjoyed your day off yesterday!

Today we began working on characteristics of vertebrates. Teams used a handout and filled out the information they were sure of. Then we watched a few youtube short videos which showed different vertebrates in their natural habitat. We will finish this tomorrow.

Parent teacher conferences will be on Wednesday, October 20th. Please plan on having your parents attend.

Thursday - no school on Monday

Our topic today was endangered species. We discussed that people are really stewards of the earth. We need to take care of what we have without hurting mankind. We discussed the main reasons animals go extinct is predators, poaching, pollution, and disease. It is our responsibility to make sure that animals do not go extinct. Each team was given an animal that is in danger of extinction. They read about the animal and then came up with how we could take care that these animals are protected while being reasonable about it. We discussed that as stewards we must be wise in our decisions. We also discussed the story of the golden goose. Killing off any species might harm other species so we must learn all we can to help protect our stewardship. Each team then gave a report explaining how their particular animal might be protected.

Rough drafts are being turned in. Please get yours in early!

Parent Teacher conferences have been moved to Wed Oct 20th. Please calendar that.

Wednesday

Today the students practiced how to take notes for their report. I wrote a short paragraph on the board and the students pulled out the important information without copying the paragraph. Then we went to the library so they could find information for their animal report. Any student who has not found enough information must let me know tomorrow so I can help him/her find something.

Rough Draft Thursday Oct 14 or before - handwritten - double spaced - following the requirements on the rubric.

No school on Monday.