Jan 19-21: Reservoirs

I love short weeks - more than the students do, I think... Even though it's a short week, here's what we've done/ are doing/ will do.

Monday & Tuesday - NO SCHOOL!!!
Wednesday & Thursday - Water notes (p6) - what are the global and local reservoirs for water? How much water is fresh and could be drinkable for humans? How does the sun affect the movement of water in and out of the reservoirs?
Thursday - Continue Notes and take a short water quiz (water cycle, water properties, and reservoirs).
Friday - Correct quizzes & notebooks.

Friday will be our Freshmen Celebration Day during 6th and 7th periods. This is our opportunity as teachers to thank your students for all their hard work this last quarter. We will be playing lots of games and having a grand ol' time. Thanks for your support and encouragement. We hope that students who may have struggled at the end of the quarter will step it up this quarter - never to fall behind again!

Jan 10-14: Water Cycle & Properties!

We're finished with weather (not that the weather is ever finished...). We will be discussing a related topic though - water! This week we'll review the water cycle (they've known it since elementary school, I know... but we get to do it again with more detail and more emphasis on energy and pollution). We'll also be playing with water to determine some of water's unique properties that make it important for life and important to protect.

Monday - Take out important notes from the last unit, and get new pages for the water unit. Start review of the water cycle with "The Magic School Bus" (we really are going back to elementary school!) Students drew everywhere the kids went and added the scientific terms for the processes they saw (pg5 front).

Tuesday - Water properties lab (pg5 back). Students were given materials to play with in order to learn as much as they could about water.

Wednesday - Finished the written portions of page 5. For the water properties, students should be able to explain: cohesion, adhesion, the repulsion of water and oil, and that water is the universal solvent. For the water cycle, they should understand evaporation, condensation, precipitation, runoff, infiltration, and collection.

Thursday - Aquifer lab (p7). Students will model how aquifers store water, how water is drawn into a well, and how pollution in our well water can be around for a very long time.

Friday - Finish lab questions if necessary (p7). Start water reservoir notes - p6. Students will understand the various reservoirs for water on our planet and will have a general understanding of how much of the Earth's water is in each type of reservoir (97% in the ocean... that doesn't leave us much to drink!)

School will not be held Monday for Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and we will not have school Tuesday either for teacher-grade-putter-inner day (I'm sure there's a more technical term, but this what ya get). We'll pick up again on Wednesday!