Lesson 1 - Monday, May 12
Today in science: A number of students missed science today due to the SGIS Track & Field event. Students were given class time to work on their A3 paper model of the structure of the Earth and the atmosphere. To guide students’ research about each of the layers of the Earth and atmosphere, Dr. M published a bulleted check list and put it in the Google Science Classroom. Students’ biggest decision in this project is whether to try and make their model to scale–i.e., representing the thickness of each layer or the Earth or atmosphere relative to each other–or make it unscaled by showing each of the layers as equal thickness. To help students appreciate the true scale of the layers of both the Earth and the atmosphere, as students worked on their model Dr. M created a scale model with special color coded pieces of A3 paper.
Homework: There is no science homework tonight.
Lesson 2 - Tue, May 13 (B, C) & Wed, May 14 (H)
Today in science: Students were given more class time to work on their A3 paper model of the structure of the Earth and the atmosphere. To guide students’ research about each of the layers of the Earth and atmosphere, Dr. M published a bulleted check list and put it in the Google Science Classroom. Students were also given their graded Chapter 1, 2, & 3 one-question quizzes back for reflection.
Homework: There is no science homework tonight.
Lesson 3 - Wed, May 14 (B, C) & Thu, May 15 (H)
Today in science: During the first half of today’s lesson, students were asked to answer some Pre-test questions about “rocks,” “day and night,” and “seasons.” Although not graded, Dr. M will be using students’ responses to guide his planning for the remaining science lessons within our Earth & Space Science unit. For the second part of the lesson, students were given some additional class time to work on their A3 paper model of the structure of the Earth and the atmosphere.
Homework: Dr. M has asked all Grade 7 students to print a copy of their final answer to last weeks Driving Question Essay (Where does human food come from?). Despite submitting this essay digitally to the Google Science Classroom, students have been asked to bring a printed copy of their final answer to Dr. M for grading.
Lesson 4 - Thu, May 15 (B) & Fri, May 16 (C, H)
Today in science: Dr. M started today’s lesson by collecting students paper/printed copy of last week’s Driving Question essay.
To begin learning a bit of Earth science, we watched a short CrashCourse video titled, “What are rocks and how do they form?” This video helped us answer at least two of Lesson 3’s Pre-test questions: 1) What are the names of the main types of rocks found on Earth? and, 2) How are rocks formed in nature (not in Minecraft!)? This video also helped us annotate our layers of the Earth portion of our mapping project, which students were then asked to turn in at the end of today’s lesson.
Homework: The only students with weekend homework are those unable to turn in a completed Layers Project by the end of Lesson 4. This project shows the layers of both the Earth and the Earth’s atmosphere.
Announcements...
The DRIVING QUESTION of our current unit is: Where do we live? What is this place we call "home" (aka. Earth)?
C & H period homework collection days: Wednesday & Friday.
B period homework collection days: Tuesday & Thursday.
Including this week, there are three full weeks of science lessons remaining in the school year!