Lesson 1 - Monday, Sep 16
Today in science: We turned out full attention to the topic of Light today. To do this, we examined p. 149 (“Seeing Things”) in Exploring Science 8. For four academic grades, students were asked to answer textbook Questions 1, 2 (abc), & 3 on a single piece of lined (writing) paper. This work was done individually (not with a partner).
Homework: There is no science homework tonight.
Lesson 2 - Tuesday, Sep 17
Today in science: Dr. M was able to return students’ graded classwork from Lesson 1 with four separate grades, one each for Questions 1, 2a, 2b, and 2c (he will grade Question 3 after school today). This not only gave him the opportunity to discuss his special 4-pt. grading scale, but also to go over the expected (correct) answers to each of the questions. He asked students to take notes directly on their paper so that it can be used in the future as a study resource. He also explained how students will be asked these same questions again sometime in the near future, which will give students the ability to replace the scores they earned on their first attempt.
Homework: Students have been asked to complete the science notebook formatting tasks before the start of their next science lesson.
Lesson 3 - Wed, Sep 18 (D) & Thu, Sep 19 (E)
Today in science: Students received their graded Question 3 (How does someone see both a building and water?) from the Lesson 1 graded classwork assignment. Because so many students scored poorly on this exploratory task, as a whole class we devoted significant time to mapping out what light can and can’t do. In D period, students were also asked to diagram the situation we are studying with Pete and the music teacher to see if any of their ideas about light have changed since making our Initial model.
With the remaining class time in D period, students were asked to begin formatting their science notebooks by reserving a page in which to write student information, creating two “Table of Contents” pages, and numbering the pages according to Dr. Merritt’s special instructions. E period students will attend to this task in Lesson 4.
Homework: D period students need to finish trimming and gluing their two TOC pages into their notebooks and number the pages according to the clas instructions.
Lesson 4 - Friday, Sep 20
Today in science: Working together in small teams, students created diagrams to answer two different situations: Situation 2A, which involved a person watching a television and & Situation 2B, which involved a person reading a book with help of a lamp. Both situations were taken from p. 150 in the Exploring Science 8 book. As a whole class activity, we then ‘mock’ graded every team’s diagrams to assess their drawing of the light rays. In this process, students learned not only about how we see objects in the world, but they also learned a bit more about how Dr. M’s 4-pt. grading system works.
E period students were also given time to prepare their Science Notebooks in class. All students were instructed to leave their notebooks with Dr. M for evaluation this weekend.
Homework: There is no science homework this weekend.
Announcements...
The DRIVING QUESTION of our current unit is: Why do we see different things when looking at the same object?
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