My Science Homework

Class began with the conclusion of the Rock Cycle graphic organizer guided notes. This only took the first 15 minutes of class or so. We then discussed the significance of today’s date; February 29th: The leap day.
Since we had just closed the unit on Astronomy, and considering that the calendar’s “year” is […]

Today we began a discussion of the rock cycle: the transition from one rock type to another. We started by discussing the formation of sedimentary rocks from sand. This portion of the rock cycle includes processes such as weathering and erosion. We will continue the rock cycle grpahic organizer in class […]

Today, students worked in pairs on the Mineral Identification Lab. There was no post-lab write-up, only the identification of all 10 mineral samples for a 10-point score. Anyone who missed this lab must make it up before or after school this week. All lab work must be completed no later than Friday […]

The term used to describe a classification tool that allows a person to distinguish between many objects with different characteristics (like birds, flowers, minerals, etc…) is a dichotomous key.  We started today’s class by defining the term “dichotomous” (separating into two contradictory groups) and then practiced constructing a dichotomous key by using an animal example. 
The […]

In order to identify minerals, we need a solid understanding of the characteristics that differentiate one mineral from another.  Friday we started a two-day section on mineral characteristics by defining and detailing the first four (of eight) mineral characteristics and today we finished the guided notes by detailing the remaining characteristics:  Hardness, transparency, density, and other […]

The guiding question for today’s class was: What is the Earth made of? The answer is rocks and minerals. In order to examine geology more in depth, we are starting the geology unit by examining the properties and identifiable characteristics of minerals.
Today we examined the first four properties: Color, Streak, Luster, […]

Thank you to all the students and parents who sent lunar eclipse photos last night!  I was able to incorporate them all into today’s slides for class and it was a fantastic way for students to see the full extent of the eclipse…well, at least the first half of it before clouds moved in around 9:15 and prevented us from […]

Tonight is the big night for the lunar eclipse!  The next one won’t come around until December of 2010.  The only wild card is the weather.  Clouds are already streaming into southern Kansas in advance of tomorrow’s storm, but we can hope they hold off just long enough to allow viewing of the eclipse.  The […]

Today’s focus was two-fold:  discuss and preview upcoming important astronomical events and to complete construction of the phases of the moon flip book.
We started by looking at some images of the space station as it passed overhead on Friday.  Several students reported seeing it high in the sky on Friday at the scheduled time (6:48pm) […]

After completing our notes on the Phases of the Moon yesterday, today students analyzed not only the names and descriptions of each phase, but also their position in the Earth-Moon-Sun system during each phase.  Questions we tackled included “what phase would be visible high in the sky at midnight (full)” and “Which phase would be […]