Happy Hump day everyone! We are getting close to wrapping up the Structures & Functions of Living Organisms unit this week. Today students finished watching Osmosis Jones (a really great movie that uniquely portrays our pathogens & disease portion of this unit well). Tonight students need to complete their study guide because tomorrow we will be going over all of the questions and I will answer any lingering questions students have in order to prepare for our benchmark assessment which will be Friday. Make sure you are studying and preparing for this benchmark at home tonight and tomorrow night. Come to class prepared to ACE this benchmark! I know you will all do great!
Looking ahead, next week we will get a new set of vocab words and start diving into the wonderful world of Molecular Biology. Get ready to learn all about cells, mitosis and meiosis, photosynthesis, cellular respiration, and healthy living! I will be back next week with another update. Until then, happy studying!
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Today we began watching one of my all time favorite movies, Osmosis Jones! Some of my students were able to watch this movie last year in 7th grade, but this year instead of looking at it from a human body perspective, we are watching it from a pathogens and disease perspective. Students will be filling out THIS form while watching the movie. We will be using today and tomorrow's class to complete this movie.
Students were also given their BENCHMARK STUDY GUIDE today to complete for homework. This will be due on Thursday and we will be going over all of the questions so students are sure to have a good idea of what their benchmark will look like. Happy studying!! Today students turned in their vocab notebooks to be checked as well as took a quiz on the previous set of vocab words. We then worked on finishing our PSA poster project that we started on Friday all about GMO's. These projects will count as a TEST grade and they are due tomorrow! Be sure to finish these up tonight and bring them back. See Friday's post with more information about this project as well as the rubric for how I will be grading it.
Looking ahead, you should be preparing yourself for the next benchmark test on Friday.It will cover all of the Pathogens and Disease Unit as well as the Biotechnology Unit. Make sure you are studying all those vocab words and all of your notes in your notebooks. Friday is here!! Today we kicked off a project that will count as a test for this unit. Students were asked to complete the following ASSIGNMENT (courtesy of https://sciencewithmsbarton.wordpress.com/) on Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs). From that assignment students were tasked with choosing a side (for or against GMOs) and write an argumentative paragraph explaining their side. From there, students are required to create a Public Service Announcement (PSA) poster that concisely gets their opinion across to the public. See below for the rubric for this project. We will finish up the project on Monday.
Reminders: Vocab is due Monday and you have a quiz on those 5 words Monday as well. PSA POSTER PROJECT RUBRIC (100 pts possible) Catchy slogan/title 10 pts Info gets your message across to your audience 15 pts Contains factual information 20 pts Neat & organized 10 pts Colorful 10 pts Pictures/charts/graphs/diagrams 15 pts Argumentative paragraph (glue to back of poster) 20 pts Have a great weekend! See you Monday! Just a quick update for today. We finished our notes that we started yesterday (see yesterday's post for the links to download the PPT). We then finished the class off with a game of Quiz-Quiz-Trade with assessment questions about biotechnology.
Students also received this week's set of vocab words. These words will be due on Monday (1/26) and they will have a quiz that day as well on those words. See below for the list of words. Have a great day! VOCAB WORDS DUE MONDAY 1/26/15 Biotechnology Gene Cloning Genetic modification Bioremediation Happy Wednesday everyone! We started our short week off with the Reading Benchmark exam today which made all of our classes a bit shorter. We started off class with our vocab quiz. We then moved to taking some notes in our interactive notebooks. We did not get finished with these notes but will continue them tomorrow. You can find a copy of the fill-in-the-blank notes HERE. You can find the PowerPoint we for this unit HERE.
Tomorrow we will work on finishing up the notes and working with some assessment type questions to help prepare for the next Science benchmark. Ta ta for now! TGIF everyone! Today students worked on finishing up the infographic assignment we started on Wednesday. When students finished they were able to use three different interactive websites that went along perfectly with this unit (see below for the websites we used).
I hope you all enjoy the long weekend! See you back here on Wednesday! Interactive Websites: Epidemic Game Pathogen Tracker Game Disease Detective Hello everyone out there! Today has been a great day in science class. Students were able to participate in 7 different stations that helped them to review different separation techniques for mixtures. We learned about magnetic separation, density separation, mechanical separation, sifting, boiling, and chromatography. I was happy to see all the hard work the kids did today. Check out some pictures from today!
See you tomorrow! Happy Wednesday to all! I hope you enjoyed your day to sleep in! I know I did! Yesterday was a super busy day so I did not have an opportunity to post. In class we watched a video all about the Spanish Flu pandemic. Today, students are working on reading 6 different infographics (found under my class resources tab). Students are required to read through each infographic and answer questions about each. You can find the questions HERE. Due to shortened class periods we will continue this activity on Friday.
Tomorrow is CHEMISTRY THURSDAY!! See you then! Happy Monday everyone! I hope you all had a wonderful weekend! Today students turned in their vocab words and took their quiz. I hope everyone studied and did well this time around! We also began learning about outbreaks, epidemics, and pandemics today. Students glued a READING ASSIGNMENT (found on THIS site) into their notebooks and answered the questions right there so they had the information to help them study at home. We also watched the TedEd video below about how Pandemics spread. We also received our new set of vocab words. They will be due next week on Wednesday (1/21) when we return from our short break from school. VOCAB WORDS Contagion Pandemic Epidemic Outbreak Infectious Contagious Algae Host cell Quarentine Immune system Happy Friday everyone! We have finally made it to the end of the week and what a great week it has been! Today students played of the role of doctor. They were given 6 "Celebrity Case Files" and were tasked to identify the disease the celebrity had contracted. Click HERE for a copy of the assignment. They seemed to enjoy it and it helped them learn about several different diseases and what their symptoms are. Don't forget, if you didn't finish this will be due Monday.
REMINDERS: Vocab due MONDAY AL MAKE UP WORK AND EXTRA CREDIT DUE MONDAY!!! Extra Credit: 5 points for every box of tissue donated to the class, max 100 points Have a great and restful weekend! See you back here Monday! Happy Thursday everyone! Who's cold today? I know I am!
Today starts our first Chemistry Thursday! Myself and the other 8th grade science teachers have decided to make every Thursday a chemistry review day so that the topic stays fresh in our minds for the rest of the year. We kicked it off today with a lab on elements compounds and mixtures. You can find a copy of this lab HERE. Students were required to travel to different stations and identify the substance as either an element, compound, or mixture. They did a great job with this assignment and I am looking forward to more Chem Thursdays!! Just a reminder, your vocab words are due on Monday and we will be taking a quiz over those words Monday as well. Make sure you are studying! Have a wonderful day everyone! See you tomorrow! Hey Hey Hey everyone! I hope you are all bracing yourselves for this deep freeze we are getting tonight! I think I might have to curl up under a blanket with some hot chocolate when I get home tonight!
Today in class students watched 2 videos (courtesy of http://www.amoebasisters.com/handouts.html). The first video was on BACTERIA and the second was on VIRUSES. After each video students were to complete the activity sheet that went along with each video. Click the following links to get the handouts: BACTERIA HANDOUT VIRUS HANDOUT If students finished early they were given the opportunity to work on their vocabulary words that are due on Monday, January 12th. Today students received notes on pathogens and disease. We looked at a PowerPoint (adapted from a file found at missj12biol.wikispaces.com) presentation and students filled in NOTES that go in their notebooks. Use these notes to help you study.
Students also were given an assignment that had them look at data from different flu pandemics and answer questions about it and draw a graph from the data. You can find that paper HERE (courtesy of http://sciencewithmsbarton.wordpress.com/). REMINDER: Progress reports went home today. Please make sure to get them signed and brought back tomorrow! Welcome back everyone! I hope you all had a wonderful and restful break. I went up to visit my family in Michigan and this was the first trip in 7 years that there was no snow! Oh and how about those SPARTANS?? Did anyone see that awesome football game? Michigan State had the come back of the year with that blocked field goal! I was on the edge of my seat the entire game! And for those of you Buckeyes out there, congrats on beating Alabama! It was a great day for the Big 10!! Moving on from football, today we started diving deeper into the world of pathogens and disease. Students did a Gallery Walk where they read posters on 4 different kinds of pathogens and filled out a chart that they will eventually glue in their notebooks for a reference guide. See below for the links to these items if you were absent. We also received our new set of vocabulary words today. These words will be due on Monday, January 12th and we will have a quiz on these words as well that day. See below for the list of words. I am looking forward to the 2nd half of the school year with all of you. Keep in mind, the 2nd nine weeks is ending NEXT WEEK which means if you have any missing or make-up work you want to turn in you need to do that ASAP!! ALSO, don't forget you can fix any test or quiz for a better grade. Just fill out THIS form, correct your test or quiz, staple them together and turn it in.
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November 2015
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