Lesson 1 - Mon, Feb 10 (C,H) & Tue, Feb 11 (B) (Dr. M absent)
Today in science: Today is a Friday schedule in the middle school due to a special MS weekly schedule.
With a Guest Teacher, and to take a final step toward answering our current focus question, “What is food for seeds?”, students again used stereo microscopes and hand lenses to collect DAY 5 (H period), DAY 6 (C period), or Day 7 (B period) data from their petri dish experiments. Although students are expected to record their observations and results in their science notebooks, Dr. M is also keeping track of the all three classes data in the Grade 7 Notes Portal.
Similar to last week, in their science notebooks B, C, & H period students were asked to include 1) Drawings of any germinated seeds (if students choose to take photos, they must print them on their own and glue them into their notebooks), 2) Results (How many seeds germinated successfully? How many did not?), 3) Noticings (aka. observations), and 4) Wonderings (aka. Noticing-related questions).
To help students learn the names of the parts of any successfully geminated plants, Dr. M provided resources to assist students in this task. These resources can now be found in the Google Science Classroom.
Homework: In Veracross students will see they have INV#6 photo-related science notebook assignments due by either Tuesday (B period) or Wednesday (C & H period).
Lesson 2 - Tue, Feb 11 (C - Dr. M absent) & Wed, Feb 12 (B, H)
Today in science: With a Guest Teacher, C period students watched a BBC video from the well-known The Private Lives of Plants series. Today’s episode is called “Travelling,” and it shows dozens of ways in which plants spread by ingeniously dispersing their seeds. During the video, students recorded Noticings (interesting observations) and Wonderings (interesting questions) from the phenomena presented in the video.
With Dr. M’s return, B & H periods communicated their Day 5-7 seed data so that he could add it to the class seed germination results table. Students were then shown how to transform these table-based results into a bar chart. In this activity, students practiced skills related to graph/chart making, e.g., counting, measuring, numbering, transferring data accurately from a notebook to separate document, labelling axes, plotting data accurately, titling, shading, using a ruler, etc.
Homework: There is no science homework tonight.
Lesson 3 - Wed, Feb 12 (C) & Thu, Feb 13 (B, H)
Today in science: With Dr. M’s return, C period communicated their Day 6 seed data so that he could add it to the class seed germination results table. Students were then shown how to transform these table-based results into a bar chart. In this activity, students practiced skills related to graph/chart making, e.g., counting, measuring, numbering, transferring data accurately from a notebook to separate document, labelling axes, plotting data accurately, titling, shading, using a ruler, etc.
B & H period students…
Homework: —
Lesson 4 - Friday, Feb 14 (No school)
Today in science: —
Homework: —
Announcements...
The DRIVING QUESTION of our current unit is: Where does food come from?
C & H period homework collection days: Wednesday & Friday.
B period homework collection days: Tuesday & Thursday.
This week marks the third full week of the new Spring Semester.