My Science Homework

What causes the Phases of the Moon? That was today’s big question. We began by naming the 8 phases of the moon:

New Moon
Waxing crescent
First quarter
Waxing gibbous
Full moon
Waning gibbous
Last quarter
Waning crescent

…and finally back to the new moon. We also demonstrated the phases in class with a large group demonstration utilizing a soccer ball […]

The focus for today’s class was how the moon affects life on Earth.  To many, the moon’s role in life on Earth is perceived as relatively trivial, but after closer examination, it is recognized that the moon is actually critical for life on Earth.  From regulating tides to generating light at night, to stabilizing the […]

After completing the astronomy test yesterday, a lighter lesson was in store for today. Students watched the first half of a film about the moon. The film, titled “If We Had No Moon” is a Discovery Channel production. Today’s portion of the video focused on the current scientifically-accepted theory of the moon’s […]

Today students completed the test over the Astronomy unit. Tomorrow we will begin transitioning toward the Earth, but first we have to go through the moon. We will begin by discussing the formation of the moon.
Any students who missed today’s test are reminded that they must make it up within the week.
Homework: […]

The Sun Song was the lesson for today.  The song by They Might Be Giants chronicles a great deal of scientific information about the sun and it is virtually all accurate - a great way to get a handle on some of the important information about our star.  Students were able to read the lyrics […]

Students continued working on their model of the sun in class today after we briefly discussed the three surface features of the sun:  Sunspots, Solar Flares, and Prominences.  The definitions of each were chronicled in our notes and each should appear on the student-constructed sun models.  See the Sun Model scorecard for more information.  Remember […]

As anticipated yesterday, our schedule of due dates and the test will simply be bumped back one day. The test review will be on Friday and the test on MONDAY, 02/11/08.
Homework: Planet Flashcards due tomorrow @ the start of class, begin organizing resources for test.

After completing the planet flashcards in class yesterday, students were introduced to the structure of our own sun.  After a breif discussion of the sun’s formation (as discussed during yesterday’s video clip), we then discussed the internal layers of the sun:  the core, radiative zone, convective zone, photosphere, chromosphere, and corona.  Tomorrow we will discuss […]

Today, students worked on completing four more planet flashcards:  this time they were for the outer planets - the Gas Giants:  Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune.  Refer back to the Planet Flashcards Checklist for the details.
Remember, these flash cards are due at the start of class on Wednesday.
Other upcoming important dates:

Wednesday:  Planet Flashcards Due
Thursday:  Review […]

After wrapping up work on the stellar life cycle projects in class yesterday, today students began constructing a set of flash cards about the planets. We started class by watching a 2-minute video clip about the formation of a solar system. The video focused on how the dust and gas of a nebula […]