This 8th Grade Science class will be embarking into the world of educational blogging. Students will be writing about what we are covering in our class and providing information for those interested. Please join us in this experience.
Looking back, the blogging was actually quite helpful to people who were sick and just generally for getting a grasp into the world of blogging. No matter how complicated and frustrating Blogger gets at times I think everyone should be exposed to this form of sharing work. For me, it helped a lot when I was sick or on CEESA trips because I could just go look on blogger and find out what we did in class. However, Blogger does not only have positives. This quarter I had to use a different computer at home and this computer always signed me out of blogger when I clicked “view blog”. As a result, I had to post almost every blog comment and scribe post at school in the mornings as it was impossible to post from the other computer.
Other than that blogging went quite smoothly over the course of the 4th quarter; especially now that we know what we actually have to do. One last thought is that this blog will be extremely helpful when we want to study for our science final, because it roughly outlines what we did,provides information and an general overview. All in all, blogging went smoothly with a few faults here and there.
Today, in science class, April 22nd, 2010, we continued our forum discussion in connection with the planet packet. However, we first focused on a very important event which is happening today, the 40th anniversary of Earth day. Earth day was started in the US in 1970 but the UN celebrates international Earth Day on March 20th/ 21st. On this special day they also ring a peace bell.
In connection with Earth Day, we will also be planting plants tomorrow and take them home as a way to give back to the environment.
In our discussion about Earth day we brought up some important things such as one major problem at the moment: global warming. It is referred to as the extremes in climate which have drastically changed in the past years. The causes of global warming are being discussed and there are many theories; but, Ms. D pointed out that since carbon emissions have increased in the past years there have been extreme changes in weather patterns. If this process continues we may even end up resembling Venus; The hottest planet which melts metal on its surface, which would not be a pleasant thought!
Lastly, we watched videos and a slideshow in connection with Earth Day. The links to the videos are just below:
During class, Ms. D also gave us corn starch Styrofoam which indeed is very edible. (:
As we moved on to the Forum we mainly focused on Exosolar planets and Daniel explained his topic during class. Extra notes you missed if you were not in class today or just didn’t pay attention:
- The smallest exosolar planet they have found is Jupiter size
- The 4 spacecrafts with the sole mission of leaving this solar system are called Voyager 1, Voyager 2, Pioneer 10, and Pioneer 11. These all went in different directions in our solar system!
- Further explanation of 3 ways to find Exosolar planets:
1) Radical Velocity Method
-It is Earth based
-They find rays from the Parent star (Star which Exosolar planets orbits around) and measure the wavelength. If this wave length is abnormal or weird they suspect that they have found an Exosolar planet.
-The top of a wavelength is called a crest and the bottom a trough.
2) Astrometry Method
-Space based
- Looks at the wobbling of a star
- Star wobbles because gravity affects it
3) Transit method
- Most surefire method
- Both Earth and solar system based
- Watches the changing brightness of a star
We also had a very cute visitor from 3rd grade named Alice. She came to observe our astronomy forum class for the last 20 minutes. The class introduced themselves and their planets to Alice while we continued the forum.
Homework & Upcoming events
April23rd : second blogger comment for the 4th quarter is due!
April 27th at 8 AM: The fifth APOD for this unit any date from 2000-2010 may be used! Also, next week is the last APOD that will be due for science this year!
April 28th : Celestial Body test study session at lunch
April 29th : open note Celestial Body Test
April 30th : third blogger comment due
May 4th or 7th: A friend of Mrs. Sprljan may come in to talk to us about astromomy. He specializes in wormholes and Black holes.
May 11th : Chemistry unit starts
May 14th : Extra credit due. Each picture next to a planet is worth 2 points. The planets which count as extra credit are Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto. Email these pictures to dani.dipietro@aisz.hr or ddipietro.aisz@gmail.com for extra credit. Good luck!
Here are the maps for the extra credit assignment: http://www.phy.hr/~mpozek/planeti/
Hebrew: Ohevet otchem kulam (Love ya guys) and good luck (:
There are many positives and few negatives that come up in connection with the website Blogger. Personally I think it is a great resourcefor people who did not understand what was happening in class or were sick. As I was sick quite often I found it extremely helpful to go onto the 8th grade blog and find out, to the nearest detail, what happened and what I missed. Another positive to using blogger is that the layout is quite easy to comprehend although writing a scribe post is a completely different subject. Writing scribe posts are one of the few negatives of Blogger. For me it was quite complicated and hard to understand where to put URL’s, pictures, and text. However, with time it gets more understandable. Another negative for me was that I had to help multiple people with their scribe post to find the place at which they could actually post it. Many could not find that place and so I had to instruct them how to get there (since I did my scribe post quite early on). All in all, I believe it is VERY helpful in helping people catch up on what happened in class, the homework and anything else that was discussed. However, there are a few confusing parts to Blogger which make it difficult to comprehend at times with the layout and such. As a summary, it has its ups and downs but it was a great experience and I’m sure it will be in the future!
On Thursday, 25th of February, we had science with Ms. D. First, we had a quick review and reminder to get our Editor Posts and minor comments out of the way so we don’t get stuck with them last minute. Afterwards Ms. D introduced a likely field trip relating to the next unit: Astronomy. More information will be coming soon in regards to the field trip.
Our debate teams were chosen for the people that took the quiz on the 23rd of February. We were split into pro and con for the topic:
“ Embryonic stem cell research could allow production of what the world currently lacks- organs, tissue and cells for transplants- that may provide progress in the battle against ailments that are difficult and currently impossible to cure, such as Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s disease, Cancer and Multiple Sclerosis. Should use of stem cells be used worldwide?”
The Pro team consists of Emma, Aidan, Severyn, Abigail and Hana. The members of the con team are Arnie, Holly, Ines and Jacob. Ms. D said that in these debates it is important to bring up ethical and moral issues but not have them as the main focus. Also, to find information for both debates Ms. D recommended using www.digg.com instead of Google as it is more efficient.
Additionally Ms. D summed up APA format for the bibliography that must be done per pro and con team for the debate. So in total there must be 4 bibliographies handed in by the class, therefore 2 per debate. The main points for writing in APA format are: include all used resources, put them in alphabetical order by the first letter, categorize them in groups by media, and indent all lines except for the first. This bibliography is due on Thursday the 4th of March along with the debate. After the explanations and clarifications of Ms. D, we went on to the lower computer lab to find information on our debate topics.
Homework for science is to find information for the debate. Also MS.D suggested talking to Davide as he has some good points in the debate already.
