Science +

This year we are serious about doing fun stuff outside of school and after school. We have had several meetings of the rocketry club and have made and flown our first rockets. This has been made possible by the generosity of volunteers who come and teach the class with us and supply all the stuff! Astronomy is another class which has met several times and is facilitated by a generous volunteer from the community who plans the lessons and brings the materials.
We have several other things planned for the future including an evening trip ti Kitt Peak and possible a trip to the Grand Canyon, one to the Uof A mirror lab, one to the plantarium as well as some activities at school.

Diapers and Oobleck

This week we spent time in the lab making observations and inferences about diapers and oobleck. For homework we are making observations of the moon this month and drawing what we see so that we can try to figure out what pattern there is to the changes in shape. Next week we will try to determine why shadows point different ways and what we can find out from them

New School Year!

Summer vacation is over and we have been back at school for a week. We have been working on getting to know each other and learning to work in teams.
This year we will be having several activities after school including rocketry, astronomy MESA. We are planning to go to Kitt Peak in the spring and to Cooper Environmental Center in the Fall. It is going to be a great year!

The Grand Canyon

This week several of us went on a field trip to northern Arizona. We all had a great time. We had lunch at Montezuma's well and then spent time playing and cooking out at Fort Tuthill before going to a local middle school to stay in the gym. The next day we went to the Grand Canyon and hiked partway down the Bright Angel Trail. We had lunch in the canyon and walked back out. It sure seemed like a lot farther going up!
Later in the evening we returned to Flagstaff where we went out for pizza and then to the Lowell Observatory where we played around in their discovery center and looked at Saturn through the telescope that was used to discover Pluto.
The following morning we went to Sunset Crater where we were led by a great guide who showed us a lot of things about how the crater was formed and some cool stuff about the ponderosa pine trees there.
Finally we headed back for home. What a great 3 days!

Decomposers

This week we will be talking about decomposers- always a favorite of middle school folks. We will also be starting mini-biospheres in 2 liter soda bottles. Students need to bring a clear, empty 2 liter soda bottle by Tuesday for this activity. Dont forget the lid! We will be creating our own mini- biospheres and finding out what it takes to keep them alive.

Spring Break!

Last Tuesday we pulled buffelgrass for a few hours. We filled up several bags with it and got most of it pulled around campus. This is something that we will need to do over each year to keep getting any that comes up from seed. Eventually we will get most of it and will just need to stay vigilant for new patches.
This week we will be working on food webs. We will dissect owl pellets to find out what they eat. We may find that the owl's food web looks a little different from ours.

Buffelgrass

Tuesday we will be pulling buffelgrass around the school grounds. Caliche bars and gloves will provided by the Sonoran Desert Weedwackers.
Buffel grass is an invasive grass that grows well in low water environments and which poses a high fire threat as well as a threat of taking over and crowding out or destroying by fire native species. The iconic plant in this areas is the saguaro cactus and it is especially threatened by fire.
For more information, see Buffelgrass.org

Rodeo Vacation!

We are all enjoying having a long weekend. When we get back we will be finishing up our class presentations of Websites, PowerPoints, Posters etc explaining the rock cycle and how it relates to plate tectonics. By the end of the week we will have reviewed for and taken our unit benchmark and be ready to move on to Ecology.
This looks as if it will be a great year for wildflowers in the desert since we had a fair amount of winter rain. That makes it the perfect time to be studying ecology. Google "Buffelgrass" and be ready to talk about it by the end of the week.

Earth History Projects

We are working on our unit projects for Earth History. Some students are creating websites. Some are doing PowerPoints and others are doing posters, flipbooks and/or trifold brochures. They are all due this coming week and will be presented to the class Thursday and Friday.

Sedimentary Rocks

Last week we got a chance to look at some igneous rocks and learn how they are formed. This week we will be looking at sedimentary rocks. There will be labs most days as we try to create our own sedimentary rocks to see how they form in nature.
Also this week we will begin planning for our Earth History projects. Some students will be working independently on such things as powerpoints and websites explaining the rock cycle and its relationship to plate tectonics. Other students may choose to create a song or rap, a movie, a poster, a diorama, an animation...
to show their understanding of the concepts we have learned

More Rocks

We got a chance to look at samples of some rocks and minerals and to try to define for ourselves what the difference is. Next week we will continue that by looking at igneous rocks and finding out how they form.

Rocks and Minerals

Well, we didnt actually get to rocks and minerals last week, but we did finish up our study of tectonic plate boundaries. This week we will start looking at rocks and find out how the different kinds of rocks that we find help us to understand what was happening at the time the rocks were formed.

Boundaries and Rocks

We are going to finish our plate boundary flip books this week and start learning about rocks and minerals by looking at the rock you brought in. Make sure you have your rock by Friday at the latest!

Happy New Year!

I hope you all had as much fun goofing off as I did. On Monday we will return to studying about Earthquakes and move from there into learning about different types of tectonic plate boundaries.
Homework this week is to find a rock about the size of your fist that looks interesting. Try to find a rock that seems to belong where you found it instead of one that your great aunt Sally gave you or one that was delivered to help cover your yard or driveway. Write down the location where you found the rock, your name and anything you can about what other rocks, plants etc were nearby. Put the rock and slip of paper in a small plastic bag and bring it to school by the end of the week. We will be using these rocks for our lessons next week.