10/30/08 Midterm Presentations 3

Today in science class, we had our third day of presentations. Tessa and I gave our presentation on tornadoes today. We had the class make tornadoes in a bottle and then explained what tornadoes were. The other presentations included mixtures, newtons laws, heat/light, and senses. They were all very interesting and informative presentations. I think that all of the presentations so far have been great. We have one more presentation left for next Tuesday and then we are done with the midterm presentations. I have really enjoyed participating in and learning about all of these different science presentations.

10/28/08 Midterm Presentations 2

Today in science class we continued our midterm presentations. Due to technological problems, we only got through four presentations. They were very good presentations though, one that I really liked was the baking soda rocket one. In that presentation, the presenters explained how to make a rocket and how it works. They demonstrated the rocket and it flew up and hit the ceiling of our classroom. We also had presentations about oil spills and two presentations about mixtures. All of the presentations we exceptionally good. We had to allow another day for presentations since we did not get to all of them yet. I can't wait to see the rest of them on Thursday.

10/23/08 Midterm Presentation 1

Today in science class we started the midterm presentations. There were four groups that went today and they were all great presentations. One of the presentations was about mixtures, another was about habitats, one was about oil and water, and the last one was sink/float. The oil and water activity turned out to be disastrous for my table because our oil and water fell over and went all over the table and floor. It was quite a pain to clean up, but we got it pretty good. It was a very informative day today and I learned a lot from all of the presentations. Oh, and we also got to make jello and then eat some too. Let's just say this was one of the most interesting science classes so far.

10/21/08 Reading Guides and Ping Pong

Today in science class, there was some confusion regarding our reading guides and quizzes. So, we took a majority of our class time to go over the most recent reading guide. We went through each question and came up with answers for each. We took notes on what we were discussing about the reading guide.
After our reading guide discussion, we still had some time left over for an activity. We did an activity where you take a ping pong ball and put it in a funnel, which is put in a plastic container. Then a person is suppose to blow on the ping pong ball and try to get the ball to go into the other plastic container that is sitting just a few centimeters away. Our group had Whitney blow on the ball and we got the ping pong in the other container on our first attempt. We noticed that the air that we blew created a current underneath the ball that forced the ball up and out. It was a very fun class today.

10/16/08 Internet Safety Scavenger Hunt

Today in Science class, we were handed a piece of paper and were told to use the internet to find the answers to some questions. So, we got into groups and started searching the internet for information about internet safety. We learned a lot of interesting information, such as a person's username should be the only thing that a person shares with someone else online. We learned that you should never open an email from someone that you do not know because it could contain a virus and so it should be deleted right away. We also had to turn in a url address for a website that we found on safety in the science lab. Needless to say, my group found all of our internet safety tips and got them all correct.

10/14/08 Work Day

Today in science class, we talked about science stories and everyone got to read a part of a science story on eggs. After that, we discussed questions about our midterm projects and cleared up some misconceptions that some people might have had. Then, we were allowed to work with our partners on our midterm project. Tessa and I looked up the SD Content Standard that we wanted to link our lesson to and then we chose a grade to gear it towards. Our project is about weather patterns and safety tips for severe weather.

10/9/08 Midterm Outline

Instead of class today, we were asked to meet with out partners and form an outline for our midterm project. The midterm project is due on the 23rd of October, so it is coming up quite quickly. My partner, Tessa, and I got together and came up with our outline and submitted it to the dropbox. It was nice to have the extra time out of class to work on this project.

10/7/08 Mirror Writing

Today in science class, we discussed some important questions that people needed answered. Then we discussed judging a science fair properly, since we will be judging the Elk Point Science Fair on the 25th of November. It sounds like a lot of fun!
After all of that, we were instructed to get some supplies and try our hand at mirror writing. It is much harder than it sounds! We had to take a note card and punch a pencil through it and then hold up a mirror and write our name. Mine looked quite horrible. Then we had to do a series of different shapes using the mirror writing technique and all of mine looked terrible. Maybe I'll try practicing mirror writing to get better at it.

Web Seminar Make-up

I was unable to attend the webseminar, but I just viewed the presentation and I was amazed at all the things I learned about stars. I had always thought that stars were made up of mostly carbon, but I found out that they are in fact made mostly of hydrogen. I also learned that stars are hot glowing balls of gas. I never knew there were so many different types of stars until I viewed this webseminar. I learned a lot about high and low mass stars that I had never known before now. I thought this webseminar was quite interesting and am disappointed that I missed the actual presentation. I did think that there was a lot of information, which is important for people to know, but it was slightly overwhelming for someone who doesn’t have that much background knowledge of stars and how they are formed. Overall, I was very impressed with the presentation and learned a great deal of information from it. Thanks!

10/2/08 Mystery Boxes

Today in science class, we viewed and discussed a powerpoint on chapters 3 and 4 of Ready, Set, Science. After that, we did an activity with mystery boxes. We had a big sheet of white paper and had to draw a box in the middle and then lines to each corner to create five different boxes. Then we were given small black boxes that had mystery items in each one. We had to investigate each mystery box and write down our observations in our box on the white sheet of paper. I thought that there were toy cars in two of the boxes because they were heavier and seemed to roll around pretty easily. After we had all written down our observations, we discussed in our groups what we thought was in each box. After our group discussions, we came together as a class and discussed what we thought was in each box. It ended up that each box had a marble and some cardboard pieces in it. The pieces of cardboard were in different places within the box though.
Overall, it was a very fun and exciting activity.