Lesson 1 - Monday, Jan 19
Housekeeping: To see how students’ understanding of cellular respiration is coming along, Dr. M asked students to complete the “Cellular Respiration” set of questions in Exam.net. This question set included mostly questions about cellular respiration, but also a couple about the process of photosynthesis.
Homework: There is no science homework tonight.
Lesson 2 - Tuesday, Jan 20
Housekeeping: In preparation for our upcoming (chemistry) topics of study on Substances, Mixtures, Elements, & Compounds, students were asked to complete a set of practice questions on the particle model of the solid, liquid, and gas states. This information will help Dr. M better tailor our upcoming lessons to students’ current understanding(s) of these topics. Despite occurring in the final week of the Fall Semester (FS), Students’ scores on these practice questions will appear as a “Formative Assessment” in the Spring Semester (SS) grade book.
Homework: There is no science homework tonight.
Lesson 3 - Wed, Jan 21 (C, D) & Thu, Jan 22 (E)
Housekeeping: Today we united our recent attention to particles, solids, liquids, and gases to our older topic of human digestion!
Looking briefly at a model of human digestion students did back in December, we began a new model on A3 paper. The first part of our story showed the human silhouette taking in three substances: GAS, LIQUID, SOLID. But to see these substances like scientists do, Dr. M introduced students to the Particle Model and asked them to represent solid and liquid food–but also air breathed in–as particles with particular ‘rules’ of arrangement and movement. To help students see how solids, liquids, and gases can change states, Dr. M introduced students to PhET Colorado’s States of Matter simulation, which allows students to explore particles and state changes.
Homework: There is no science homework tonight.
Lesson 4 - Friday, Jan 23
Housekeeping: We investigated the solid and liquid states of matter today with an activity, “States of Water.” In this activity, students were asked to show that ice is really solid water by changing it into liquid water as quickly as possible. This lesson involved data collection, experimentation, description, and explanation. At the end of the lesson, students submitted a paper called “Lesson Cluster 1 – Activity 1.1 – States of Water,” on which they answered four investigation-related questions for grading.
Homework: As per the TASIS MS school homework policy, there is no weekend science homework (due on Monday).
Announcements...
The DRIVING QUESTION of our current unit is: How do our cells use the food we eat to power every single life process?
C & D period homework collection days: Wednesday & Friday.
E period homework collection days: Tuesday & Thursday.
This is last week of the Fall Semester! Spring Semester begins on Monday, Jan 26.