Science at Bangor & in the News
Scientists have found a frog in Costa Rica that looks a whole lot like Kermit the Frog. I think they should have named it Kermitus frogus though. Check out the article from TIME magazine.
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Holy cow, time is flying! I can't believe how little time I have left with the students. We're going to have an action-packed ride through the end of the semester. Last week we wrapped up Ka calculations and started pH calculations. After some initial hesitation, the students seemed to be catching on. As the students kept at their practice problems, they definitely improved. We were also able to spend a day researching the science behind the Diet Coke & Mentos phenomena. In the next few weeks, the students will write a proposal and present it to their class. Each class will vote on their favorite proposal and will perform the experiment from the winning proposal. After the data are collected, the students will be adding that information to their proposal and writing up a lab report. This should be a lot of fun for the students and for me. I'm looking forward to hearing about what each group is proposing.
We probably could spend a few weeks studying Diet Coke & Mentos, but sadly time does not allow for that. We will be moving on to looking at electrons in chemical reactions, how electricity works at the chemical level, and the juniors will spend the last couple weeks of school on biochemistry. I hope everyone has their hands inside the car & has secured their belongings because it is going to be a crazy ride to the end of the year! Thank you to both my Science 6 & Chemistry students for staying focused through this week. I know it was not an easy task, so I really appreciate the hard work that everyone did this week. In chemistry we spent Monday & Tuesday continuing our work on acids. It seemed like the students were getting more comfortable with working problems, so I think we are in a good position to continue our learning after break. The chemistry students also got to see what happens when you drop Mentos into Diet Coke. Thankfully when the wind picked up during 6th hour, we were outside of the spray zone. We will be working on the Diet Coke & Mentos phenomena periodically in April & May. I hope this research will give us a good break from our normal routine and provide an opportunity for everyone to learn about the scientific process.
Science 6 wrapped up their unit on fossils with group presentations. I know I learned a lot from the students' presentations, so I'm sure the rest of the class did too. Today was the first day that I got to lead an exercise and I had a great time. The students got into groups of 3 or 4 and worked together to save Fred. I was very impressed with the team work, communication , and perserverence from each of the groups. I hope everyone has a relaxing Spring Break. Be safe, have fun, & wear your sunscreen! |
Ms. Lyons
Science is amazing, check it out! Archives
May 2016
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