Mid Quater Reports Are Coming!

That's right, and they will be followed in short order by Parent Teacher Conferences. Check your grades for any missing assignments and talk to your teachers. The worst we can say is "No, it is too late to turn in that missing assignment." Also there is a quiz on Monday.

Easy Points: Take Two

It's that time again. Send me an email before the start of school on Monday (9:30am) and I will add two points to an assignment or quiz of your designation. Power School will not let me give a score over 100%, so these will be "save it for a rainy day" points.

Remember that you have internet access during contact, before school, after school and during lunch. You can also get online at the Noel Wien Library during the weekend.

Now that everyone is (cough) looking at my blog (cough) on a bi-weekly basis (cough), I am sure that my inbox will be flooded by the start of the weekend.

Microscope Menu

The items on the "Microscope Task Sheet" have increased to eight. The coloring sheet has been added, and one of the previous items was split into two. All the worksheets for this week, as well as the task list, are posted under Class Documents. There is still a quiz on Monday.

Worksheets for the Microscope Menu

All the worksheets for this week have been posted under Class Documents. There will be a quiz on microscope vocabulary on Feb 1.

Week of Jan 25

Next week in science class, we are diving into microscopes.

Day One will be an introduction to the scopes and preparing slides. The rest of the week will consist of the “Microscope Menu.” There will be six items that students need to complete by the end of the day on Friday and it will be up to you in which order they will do them.

One of the six items is a vocabulary review flippy for the parts of the microscope. I will be giving a quiz on microscopes the week after next, and you will be able to use the flippy while taking the quiz.

QUIZ FEB 1. No one is allowed to be surprised this time.

Homework: Vocab Flippy, due Feb 1, for use on the quiz

New Plan

The pace of the class has dictated that we move the water lab to next week. It will be one of the stations in the "Microscope Menu."

Week of January 18

This week, we will continue exploring cells and organelles. Students will be taking a few more notes and doing some book work in class. We will also discuss macromolecules. On Friday, we will be doing a couple of lab activities involving water and introducing microscopes in preparation for next week.

Homework:
Due Friday- Page 24 questions (there will be class time)

Now for a few words on extra credit. The Science for Alaska Lecture Series begins Tuesday Jan 19th. Students can earn 10 points by attending a lecture and writing a summary of the presentation, at least half a page.
More information: http://www.uaf.edu/scienceforalaska/fbx-lectures/

Second, the science fair is coming up soon. I will distribute an outline for a project in class this week and explain the criteria.

The Big Finale

After a final measurement, the students each made a graph to show how their eggs were affected by the various solutions they used. Most of them showed an overall increase in size. Others showed fluctuation through the course of the lab.

The point of this lab was to give students a chance to see the effect of solutions with different densities on a membrane bound cell. The more stuff there is dissolved in the solution, the higher its density, and the more the egg will shrink. However, if there is more stuff dissolved inside the cell, which for the most part is what we observed in class, then the water outside the cell will move inside, causing the egg to swell.

If students were to try this at home, with permission of course, placing a de-shelled egg in an extremely dense fluid, like corn syrup or molasses, would cause the egg to shrink as water moved out of the cell, following its concentration gradient.

Overall, the students did very well on this lab. We only had a couple of mishaps involving broken eggs. None of them ruined any books, papers or articles of clothing.

Cell Vocab Quiz

Final online reminder, there will be a vocabulary quiz over the first 15 terms from the semester. The list is still in Class Documents.

Also, there is an easy extra credit opportunity. If you (the student) email me with your name and class period between now and the end of the day on Tuesday, I will add two points to your quiz grade.

Cells: A Sense of Scale

We looked at this website in class the other day to get a sense of the relative size of various cells, organelles and other small things.

http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/begin/cells/scale/

The Egg Lab Continues...

In part two of the egg lab we placed the de-shelled eggs in salt water. Most students discovered that the salt water made their eggs swell. Some increased their size by six centimeters!

In part three, students placed their eggs in a solution of their own choosing. Most used some kind of colored water. A few combined that with hand soap or Big K soda. One used a mixture of vegetable oil and baking soda.

We will be finishing the egg lab shortly and students will make a graph that shows how their egg was affected by the solutions they used.

Week of January 11

Happy weekend everyone!

This coming week in science class, we will continue our egg lab, learn more about cells and organelles, make a vocabulary flippy, graph the data from the egg lab and take a short quiz about cells.

Make sure you bring your data sheet to class!

Homework:
Due Friday: Vocab flippy, which we will begin in class on Day One
Due Tuesday/Wednesday: Bring in a solution from home to use in the egg lab

I will provide colored water, but if you would like to use something more exotic, you will need to bring that from home. Remember, you can't use anything that you are not allowed to bring to school.

The vocabulary list and the notes on Diffusion are posted under Class Documents. Have another look if you missed anything.

Egg-citing Egg-speriments

On Friday, we began an investigation into how eggs react to various solutions. Step one was to soak chicken eggs in vinegar for three days. Students recorded data about their eggs and predicted what would happen to them. These data are all being recorded in the "Egg Lab Data Sheet," posted in Class Documents in the links bar.

Next week, we will continue the investigation, collection more data and making more predictions.

For the final step of this investigation, students will place the egg in a solution of their own choosing, as long as it not flammable, hazardous or an energy drink such as Rockstar. Suggestions in have class have included soda, milk, ketchup, lemon juice and colored water.

After the eggs have soaked in the three different solutions, students will make a graph showing how their egg changed size over the course of the investigation.

Check back later for updates on the investigation.

Week of January 5

This week, we will be discussing molecular movement, cellular vocabulary and a review of lab safety. There will not be any homework due this week, but we are starting a few projects that will be due next week. Please don't wait night until the night before to do your projects. Planning ahead makes everyone's life better.

Don't forget that Science News Articles are still perpetually assigned, so keep your eyes peeled for interesting science news.

A New Semester Dawns

For those who have not yet met me, my name is Rob Gumpert and in this new semester, I will begin my formal student teaching in Mr. Shier's science class. I will be teaching third and fourth periods for the duration of the semester.

On this blog, I will post weekly agendas, homework assignments and other related materials.

Feel free to contact me at rgumpert@northstar.k12.ak.us.