Jan 24-28: Chemical Dumping & Water-Use Brochures

We focused on more fresh water problems this week.

Monday & Tuesday - Midnight Chemical Dumping (p8 - students are investigating the source for chemicals that have gotten into the ground water).
Wednesday - Begin long-term water use plan for a preposed city. (Come up with solutions to water problems like salinity, pollution, drought, etc.)
Thursday - Fresh water Planet Earth movie guide (I was in meetings all day).
Friday - Work on Brochures for water use plans

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!

Nov. 22-24: Ozone & Quiz

 This week we're talking about ozone and taking a quiz!

Monday - Finish nitrogen and start ozone
Tuesday - Finish ozone and review
Wednesday - Quiz on nitrogen cycle and ozone

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!

I'm thankful for my job!
I'm thankful for the good days and the good students!
I'm thankful for the times when they make me laugh!
I'm thankful to go home at the end of the day!

Nov. 15-19 : Global Warming & Nitrogen Cycle

We're wrapping up our discussion about the carbon cycle, and possible human influences on it, and moving on to nitrogen. Nitrogen is important for the DNA and proteins in living things - so it's important to understand how it gets around and how we influence it as well.

Mon 15 - Greenhouse Lab (p8)
Tues 16 - Annotate global warming article
Wed 17 - Finish pg8 and play nitrogen cycle travelling game (10)
Thurs 18 - Nitrogen Cycle Notes (11)
Fri 19 - Finish notes

With the nitrogen cycle we're going to talk a lot about how humans influence the amount of nitrogen in the soil and water by adding fertilizers. Too much fertilizer can be carried away by rain water into our groundwater, rivers, and oceans. It causes algae to bloom (grow) and many algaes actually can create deadly toxins. Do humans worry too much about green lawns? This might be a good topic for discussion if you want to do some critical thinking!

Nov. 8-12: Carbon Cycle

We're talking about global warming this week... please email me if you have any quesitons about what and how I'm teaching this issue. You can email me through the Fort Herriman MS website.

Monday - Finish You're a Star projets & Carbon Cycle Notes (pg6)
Tuesday - Human Impacts on the Carbon Cycle (pg9)
Wednesday - Most 9th graders are going to the play. Those who stay will be given an alternative assignment.
Thursday - Carbon Cycle Quiz for R&S.
Friday - Finish human impacts notes.

Nov. 1-5: Carbon Cycle

The new quarter has finally arrived. Last week students took a big exam on all of our astronomy stuff that we've covered over the first quarter. They took it on Thursday and then had a chance to retake it on Friday if they didn't pass. The students who did pass went to a cool "Halloween" science demonstration put on by Mr. Hammari who also teaches Earth systems. It sounded like it was really fun, and I wish I could have gone up there to watch, but I was in charge of retesting and of my 8th graders that I had for the other half of the day.

Here's what we've done/ are doing this week:

Monday - No School
Tuesday - You're a Star work day (Apollo 13 movie in the afternoon).
Wednesday - Make new folders and recycle the old stuff - discussion on Earth's spheres (pg5)
Thursday - Half of the carbon sinks and sources lab (pg7) & part of carbon cycle notes (pg6)
Friday - Finish pg 7 lab and work on pg 6 notes

For extra credit: Post a comment describing what the colors of the bromothymol blue solution pictured here mean.