My Science Homework

The reaction essay to the National Geographic Tsunami video was due at the start of today’s class. We briefly discussed their reaction to the video before moving on to today’s topic: relative aging puzzles.
We began by finishing up the guided notes on relative aging that we had started back on Thursday of last […]

Today was a break from the lecture and notes format that we’ve followed much of this week as students watched the National Geographic special presentation:  Tsunami:  Killer Wave.  This special covers all angles of the tsunami of 2004:  the causes, how the event played out, and how the event impacted the lives of millions of […]

After finishing section 3.1 on The Earth’s Story yesterday, students have until Monday to complete work on their Geology Debate Posters (see Tuesday’s post for more details).  Today, students recorded guided notes on the definitions and applications surrounding Relative Aging.  We will conclude the notes in class Monday and then begin solving some “relative aging […]

Today’s class time was reserved solely for students to make progress on the debate poster project assigned to them yesterday.  See yesterday’s post for complete details on the assignment, including a copy of the scoring rubric.   Today is the final in-class work time that will be allotted for this project.  It is due on Monday […]

After discussing the definitions of uniformitarianism and catastrophism in class yesterday, today we compared and contrasted these two mutually exclusive theories. Remember - we can’t put these in a venn diagram because these would signify two seperate circles that do not overlap.
Additionally, we discussed what the primary tenets of a debate are. These include evidence […]

On our first day back from Spring Break, we began by reviewing the scores on the geology test that was completed the day before break.  The average scores were higher than on the previous test (average among all freshman:  71%) but many students did poorly on the “phases of the moon” portion of the test.  […]

Students took the test covering the Rocks and Minerals portion of the Geology unit as well as Phases of the Moon in class today. No homework was assigned.
After we return from Spring Break, we’ll begin discussing what we know about the history of the Earth - how it is shaped and changes over time.
Have […]

Today’s primary objective was to get prepared for tomorrow’s geology test.  We started by taking an informal (ungraded) egg quiz over the rock types that we spent last week focusing on.  This included questions about the formation, composition, and texture of igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic rocks.  Students then spent the second half of class working […]

Today was the day to get all of the resources organized from the Rocks and Minerals unit.  We’ve covered a lot of material since late January and it is all fair game for the upcoming exam.  The test will be on Wednesday and will cover not only Rocks and Minerals, but also the tail end […]

As a way to pull together everything we’ve learned in this Rocks and Minerals chapter, students learned about Oil and Petroleum today.  From how it is formed in nature to where it can be found and how it can be extracted from rocks, students worked in cooperative pairs to gain knowledge about this important nonrenewable […]