Here is a copy of the review sheet. Answers should be written on paper. Here is a link to the glossary from the book for definitions. You should be able to get the rest of the answers from a complete science notebook. I am available Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday mornings for extra help this week. There are copies of SN pages and Reading pages in the SN section of this website.
We started to work on a concept called claim evidence and reasoning or CER. It is a way of writing scientific explanations. Students/scientists come up with a claim which is often in our class a response to a question from the teacher. For example this week we are studying batteries. We built a battery and manipulated it’s parts and tested several “what if” questions the students had about the battery. (For example what if instead of a copper and a zinc electrode we used only zinc electrodes.) The question I asked was: What are the parts of a battery that are necessary for it to work? Students then made a claim that certain parts were required to make a battery work. They then needed to provide three pieces of evidence on the CER template and then link each piece of evidence to the claim using reasoning. The reasoning should use some kind of scientific concept or principle. When they were done I asked them to turn their Claim, Evidence Reasoning into a paragraph form. What most end up with is a complete answer to the initial question. I showed the video below to get us started. Generously the maker of the video provided me with materials (template and rubric) to help students organize their thinking.
Thank you to those of you who attended open house. It’s such a busy time of year and I know it is difficult for some of you to make it in person. I am attaching my power points from Open House for Advisory, Science and AVID. I didn’t get to talk about all my slides even though I was talking really fast! So here they are.
We have started working on the physics unit Electricity, Waves and Information Transfer that we are piloting for the district. Students are keeping a spiral notebook as a science notebook. So far the notebook has been used only in class. I graded the notebooks this weekend and grades are posted online. If a student misses class he/she is responsible for making up the work. The first place to check is the science calendar page to check what was missed. Making up work does not mean copying another student’s work, but answering the questions on their own. A template for the notebook pages can be found in the classroom. There is a scanned version of the teacher SN in the SN section (see above). Since students can’t take the text book home, they can take a photo on their iPad of the pages they need. Sometimes the missed work needs to be made up in class with materials that can not be found at home. At these times it is critical that the student check my office hours for the week so as not to come on a morning when I am at a meeting. Thanks for helping to remind your student to make up work after an absence.
As part of piloting new curriculum I am trying out an AVID strategy called the interactive notebook. Students will be creating a notebook with table of contents and certain writings and drawings on each page. The pages on the right are for input of information, notes, and the left pages are a placeof processing of the information on the right. It is important that students put the correct work on each page, so that they can find it efficiently and so I can grade it efficiently. A scoring rubric can be found at the back of their notebooks and is using a 5 point scale for each 2 page spread. I have been scanning the pages of the science notebook and posting them under the SN tab above. This scans of SN pages can be downloaded onto iPads and be used in class and also at home when a student has to miss school due to an absence.
Changes to science education in Oregon are on the way. Oregon has adopted the new National science standards called Next Generation Science Standards or NGSS. 14 other states have adopted these standards as well. (They are a similar idea to the Common Core standards in Math and Language Arts.) Teachers in Eugene School District 4j are currently pilot testing new science curriculum in order to make an informed decision about what to purchase to replace or 20 year old curriculum. As part of this process, Ms. Kim Lum and I will be teaching a new unit called Electricity, Waves and Information Transfer. We are excited to see how this new curriculum aligns with the new NGSS standards. Other teachers around the district are pilot testing other units and giving feedback to the district. Hopefully through this year-long process, we as a district can make a decision that will provide our students with the best curriculum available. Although I have been teaching for 19 years, I think I am going to be feeling a little like a first year teacher as I navigate my way. After October we will return to the curriculum we have been using for years called Properties of Matter (A unit I really love to teach!). I look forward to getting to know my new students. Thanks for reading!
Cal Young had a great showing at the 18th annual EWEB Solar Challenge. We had 8 teams representing our school. Several cars made it to the semi-finals and one team made it to the finals and finished in third place. Several of the teams experienced some frustrations with faulty wiring, track bumps etc, but all maintained a good attitude. Team Felicia (designed and built by Gabrielle L, Rachel U, Natalie B and) came in FIRST PLACE in the Design Competition. With their unique design they also came in 3rd place overall in the speed races (out of almost 70 cars)! Check out their car below (Car #36). The two teams that beat Felicia are pictured below was well. Check out their outside of the box thinking! Titanium axels on the winning car (#19) and a plywood chassis! The second place car (#16) has another unusual design with a super skinny chassis, fat tires and crazy long axels! Thanks to all of my students who showed up to race their cars or support their peers and eat snacks, Gabrielle, Rachel, Natalie ( Car=Felicia), Kai, Dacian, Jaxon (Car=Sqaud), Ainsley, Ginni (Car=Wingnut), Glenda, Madie, Wyatt (Car=MTU car), Brycen, Jackson (Car=Big Bertha) Jaden (Car=Timothy), Dylan W, Myles H, Drew. (I hope I didn’t forget anyone!) Check out the story from KMTR.
On Saturday, May 30th one team from each of the six science classes will be invited to attend the annual EWEB Solar Challenge held at Cal Young Middle School. Registration begins at 9:30 and the first race begins at 11:00. My classroom will be open (via the back door) starting at 9:00 am for last minute adjustments. (a bit of a home court advantage.
Students started designing solar cars this week. Information about building the cars can be found on this fact sheet. Here is the link to the Solar Car website. We reviewed some Engineering Terms that relate to the solar car project and will be covered on the Physics Final as well as the OAKS science test. For the scoring guide for solar car drawings click here. Solar car drawings must be completed by each member of the group before building can begin. Each drawing must be actual size and have everything labeled as indicated on the scoring guide.
Here’s a photo of last year’s winning team and their car Windsor from Cal Young!
The OAKS (Oregon Assessment of Knowledge and Skills) test will be given in science classes towards the end of May. It covers content from science taught in grades 6-8 at Cal Young. The science department will provide a two day review of the 6th and 7th grade content before the test is given. For students who would like to know what is included on the science OAKS test before that, here are the standards covered on this years test. We do not cover the standards in the order they are presented here since we divide them into Earth (6th) Life (7th) and Physical (8th). Please feel free to see me or contact me if you have questions or concerns. Here’s a link to the practice test you will need to do it on a computer.
We will be transitioning to our physics curriculum on March 30th. The unit is called Energy Machines and Motion. Due to time constraints of the solar car unit and the science oaks prep and testing we will do a modified version of this unit. For concepts not covered in this unit I will be using an e-textbook from CK-12 that is on your iPad. I have left many of the reading assignments in the EMM SN because they cover important concepts, so be prepared to have daily homework for the next few weeks. If you have time, feel free to work ahead.
Many students currently have low grades due to missing work samples, tests and other assignments. Please check your grades on StudentVue and take care of any missing work this first week back from Spring Break. Check my office hours for my availability.
