Thursday, February 25, 2010

Grade 8 Science, Debate




On Tuesday, February 23rd, The 8th grade was divided into two. Due to the large amount of people being absent when we did the Quest, Thursday before the break. Today was the day of the Quest for those absent. The other people, who had already taken the test, were told to sit outside and wait for official instructions. Ms. D gave us a sheet named "Ethics and Genetics Fish Bowl Discussion".
Quote: "
This activity is an informal style of debating an issue without all of the rules. You will be on a team of four or five people, to explore the Pro or Con point of view of a current genetics debate."
The sheet listed two debate topics and Ms. D held a vote for which one to choose. The second debate topic was chosen: "
<!--[endif]-->The cloning of "Dolly" the sheep -- thought impossible just 15 years ago -- has created a new branch of science. Should scientists be allowed to clone humans?"* After choosing the debate topic, we were put into two groups in order to know the affirmative and negative sides. We did this simply by picking names out of a cup. Ms. D had told us to check Moodle, because each group needed a bibliography to turn in in APA format. She has given two helpful websites that we can use for APA formatting, listed on Moodle. During the remainder of the class, we were assigned to do some research in the computer lab of our topic, since for this week, we were mainly focusing on the research part of out debate. One great website which is better than Google, in terms of search results, is Digg, recommended by Ms D. She asked us to first visit Digg for resources rather than searching on Google because it always gives the latest and greatest information/news. Ms. D assigned a due date for the Science quest, which was March 4rth.

*Link to a video about Dolly the cloned sheep.

Homework:
For the people who were doing the Quest, I recommend checking out Moodle for the Discussion sheet and making sure you have the due date of this debate written down in your agenda/planner.

By: Joe

Next Scribe: Ines


9 comments:

  1. Nice post Joe, except I thought we weren't going to use last names. I really liked the way we could just click on Moodle or video and go there. (I also liked the video you chose, quick, simple but explained enough.)However, I think that the font is a bit too small and changes too often in one paragraph. You could also have gone over what you wrote snice there are a couple of spelling mistakes.

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  2. Hi there Joe - Your post looks good except for two things. Kat was correct in that you should not be putting last names of people on the blog itself - privacy and protection. I removed both yours and Ines'. And you have not done your tags/labels at the bottom of the post. Keep in mind these are required. Read all of the directions please.

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  3. Great job! I really like the quote and the good use of hyper links! The font could've been bigger, but you used different colors which I like a lot. I liked the video as well, and the way that you wrote what the homework was. (That you recommended that people should check on Moodle what to do, etc.

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  4. Nice Joe :) you were very specific you mostly did not forget anything. You highlited important words, you had very good word choice, some small spelling mistakes, however much better the my 1st blog, and some word size was very small and hard to read. But good work :)
    This is a Minor edit

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  5. Very good job, Joe!As Viktor already said, I liked the thing that you reminded 8th graders to check on Moodle and the homework thing at the end of the scribe post. One thing you could have improved was the size of the font. But overall, it was a very nice scibe post.

    Gio, Minor Edit #1

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  6. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  7. Good Job Joe, What I really liked was that you used hyperlinks. It is good that you used important resources like quotes or video that we can trust. Like the others said it was a good idea that you said to check Moodle and to have the discussion sheet with us. You also remember to put the name of the next scribe. The only bad thing was that the font was too small and sometimes even smaller (in quotes).

    Kamil ---> Minor Edit

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  8. Good job!I agree with other comments.You must change the font size because it's a bit hard to read.I thinks it's great you use links.You gave just enough informations and explained everything very simple.I also like the photo of the children clones.
    (Minor Edit)
    Davide

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  9. Good Job ! thank you for all the links to Digg and the video, like everyone said before me the font size is too small but the color is great. miss you, Abi :D

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