Ms. Hohenemser

Our last quiz for LS3: Why do organisms look the way they do? will cover lessons 8-10. The quiz will be open note, but that means you need to know the material in your SN to be able to find it and use it. If you have been understanding everything in class (and have been in attendance) you probably wont need to look at your SN at all. Here are three ways that you can study for the quiz.

• Complete a 6 step natural selection flow chart for DDT mosquito article on page 150-151
• Make sure you know the difference between biotic and abiotic factors by looking over your T-chart notes on page 102
• Practice interpreting graphs using chapter 8 graphs or graphs from the finch database.
• Make sure you know how to interpret a food web. Look at the one you drew on page 122

Dear Students and Parents,  

We have begun our second IQWST unit of the year. As you may recall, at each grade level, we are covering 4 areas of science (Earth, Life, Chemical and Physical) with our new middle school science curriculum. The name of our 8th grade life science unit is called “Why do Organisms Look the Way they Do?”. It focuses on heredity, variation within and between species and natural selection. We will look at these three topics at the individual, species and population levels.

Although some of the subjects were covered last year in seventh grade science, there are new approaches to several of these topics. Since Ms. Ruzicka taught seventh graders last year and is one of the eighth grade teachers this year, she has detailed knowledge of what was covered and will help me pace the curriculum so as not to spend too much time on reviewed topics.  As always, if you have any questions or concerns, please contact me. The topic of genetics and talking about parents and inherited traits can raise some issues for students who do not know one or both of their biological parents. I have talked to the class about the fact that many people have parents to whom they are not genetically related, however when the book uses the word parent, it means biological parent. I will attempt to address this issue in a sensitive way, but if anything comes up at home, please let me know. Thank You, Julie Hohenemser

How do the Plates Interact With Each Other?

For the quiz, you should be able to show relationships among the words listed below. You will be asked to complete a mind map showing how different concepts are related (with connecting words and images.) You may use words more than once or draw arrows showing connections.

Types of Boundaries: Convergent Boundary: two kinds, subduction and mountain building. Divergent Boundary: Sea Floor Spreading and Transform

Processes associated with Plate interactions: Sea Floor Spreading, Mountain Building, Crumpling, Mid Ocean Ridge formation, Subduction 

Effects of plate movement: Earthquakes, Volcanoes, Oceanic Trenches, Ocean Ridges,   Fault

Locations of different boundary types: San Andreas Fault (transform), Marianas Trench (subduction), Mid Atlantic Ridge (divergent)

You should know that Continental Plate is thicker and less dense than the oceanic plate and this accounts for certain types of plate movement. 

To study for this quiz, you should use your SN, for lesson 5, the data table on page 36, and perhaps make a rough draft of a mind map using these terms.. Notes will not be permitted during the quiz. There is an app called inspiration on your iPads that you could explore to study as well. See me if you don’t know how to use it.

The video links below can also provide a good review:

http://nationalgeographic.org/media/plate-tectonics/

http://www.discovery.com/tv-shows/discovery-presents/videos/understanding-volcanoes-plate-tectonics/

Video lesson to explore types of plate boundaries: Follow the directions carefully.

• Overview Video from Discovery we’ll watch together

For the rest of the videos you will have one iPad with these directions and one computer between you and your partner. Keep the sound low or use earbuds, you are mostly relying on the diagrams.

• Video From National Geographic Sea Floor Spreading 1:29–you’ll need to choose the “slide” that looks like video. The first time watch and describe to your partner the types of plate movements based on direction. The second time watch and name the movements as convergent, divergent or transform.
• YouTube Video Plate Boundaries 2:21–The first time just watch, stop between each type of boundary and discuss the effects of direction of movement. The second time answer the questions on page 39 with COMPLETE sentences. Stop the video as necessary. Be careful, the questions are not in the same order as the video.

GET A STAMP FROM Ms. Hohenemser before moving on.

If you have extra time watch this video about how scientists gather information about the ocean floor that is shared via many of the images we’ve been looking at!

Check out this song!

We have been studying how the earth is changing and wondering about the forces that move the huge plates on top of the mantle. In order to understand convection currents, (which is one of the mechanisms for this) we have been thinking about what happens to matter when it is heated and cooled. I showed two demonstrations, The bottle and the balloon and the Egg in a flask egg-suck video to demonstrate that air expands when heated to become less dense and contracts when cooled to become more dense. I showed two other demonstrations to show that matter that is less dense rises/floats on matter that is more dense. The immiscible liquids jar was one and the squished pan and regular pan in a tank were the other. Ask your students to explain each of these to you!