Students in Snow Leopard science are beginning their first unit this week, "Living Systems". Today we started the unit by looking at how we classify things into biotic ( living) or abiotic ( non-living) groups. Students reflected, brainstormed, classified, discussed and played a game to look into the criteria of how we classify living organisms.
Students in section A had a great discussion about what science is, and what process skills we will focus on this year to help us be successful at science. The students then had a chance to use their skills cooperatively to find the relationship between 6 numbers. After that, we had some quality time getting to know Darwin the bearded dragon and Nutmeg the holland lop/mini-rex rabbit. Picasso the corn snake was feisty and hungry so he got fed and stayed in his tank for the day. What a great first day of science class, I really had fun getting to know these kids!
The first day of school is almost here! Teachers here at York Middle School have been working hard to get ready for the big day. I have been in organizing my classroom and going through trainings to help with the fantastic changes that are happening this year. I am so excited to try new things this year and grow my brain!
I have been reading about the growth mindset, and wanted to attach a fantastic and well written article that I just read this morning. It is a good Introduction to growth mind set and I encourage parents and students alike to read it. It is written by the man who started Khan academy. It is not too long, not too complicated.....just about right. I am looking forward to talking about growth mindset with my students, and encouraging them to take risks......to make mistakes.....to stretch their minds.....to grow their brains along with me this year! I also look forward to working with parents to help make this the best 7th grade year ever for their students! Here is the link to the article.....enjoy! Snow Leopard students were treated to a visit by Mr. Williams this week. Mr. Williams shared his experiences working as a research scientist at the Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Studies, which he did before he became a science teacher. The projects that he worked on are closely related to what our Snow Leopard students are doing with their population studies. Students learned about real science techniques, problems, and language. Dependent and independent variables were discussed as well as methods for determining population size, and students were able to translate the language to the experiments that they are developing.
For the rest of the month students will continue their ecology studies and creating their own experiments to prove that space is a limiting factor for plants. Don't be surprised if your student comes home wanting scuba diving lessons........Mr. Williams' presentation may have had that effect! Snow Leopard students are finding some pretty cool science happenings going on in the world right now. They are working on creating presentations to share their findings with each other to go along with our team integrated unit. Stay tuned for some samples of their work
To become inspired, the whole team watched the following TED talk video, we hope you enjoy it too! Snow Leopard science is now on twitter! Follow us at snowleopardscie
Snow Leopard science students are hard at work creating their models of plant and animal cells in class. The creative juices are flowing! Students will be then using their models to create an "Explain Everything" presentation to share with their class. The NGS Standard that we are addressing is the following:
MS-LS1-2. Develop and use a model to describe the function of a cell as a whole and ways parts of cells contribute to the function. Stay tuned for some great work coming your way! |
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