Science at Bangor & in the News
Homecoming Week was certainly eventful! It was great to see and participate in the week's activities. I hope everyone had as much fun as I did. Chemistry spent the week learning about how measurements should be taken, the importance of accuracy and precision in measurement, and ways we report measurements. This was the first time we have really dug in to some math-heavy work in class, so there were definitely some growing pains. I'm confident that as we continue to practice these skills they will become easier. Science 9 continued exploring variables by testing what affects the speed of a pendulum swinging. We had a conference about what we learned through testing and then put our learning to the test. Each group of students chose a song and then the groups tried to match the swing of the pendulum to the beat of their chosen song for 15 seconds. Aside from feeling like I was running a dance club in my classroom, the challenge was a fun one for me to watch the 9th grade scientists take on.
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In chemistry this week we started out talking about the idea of mass: the amount of matter (aka stuff) something has. We investigated the idea of mass by completing a series of 6 lab experiments. The image below is from the fan favorite: touching a 9V battery to a fluffed pad of steel wool. We started analyzing our data at the end of the week and will wrap up what the lab means at the beginning of this week. Science 9 used our experience from the pasta lab as a starting point to talk about characteristics of science and learning about different types of variables in experiments. We will continue to talk about these ideas for the entire year, so our practice in identifying variables was time well spent. This week we will put our practice to work as the scientists investigate how changing one variable in an experiment can affect the outcome.
The big splash in the news lately has been the discovery of fossils of a new human ancestor: Homo naledi. The new fossils were found in an cave complex in South Africa. The opening was so small that the only scientists who could recovery the fossils were a team of small women. One exciting aspect of the discovery for me was that one of the lead scientists is from my alma mater, University of Wisconsin-Madison. Professor John Hawks reported that the bones indicate that Homo naledi was short (adult height of 5'0"), built for walking long distances and climbing, and had a smile that was probably more human than ape-like. He also said that it appears the bodies were intentionally placed in the cave and not trapped. Scientists still have years of analysis ahead of them to determine the age of the fossils and other information about what our ancient ancestors ate, how they aged, and where they may have lived. We spent last week getting to know group members, setting expectations, and applying the expectations in new situations. On Friday we started digging in to course content and working on new routines. Throughout the semester we will be whiteboarding so that we can have space to represent our ideas and start building models of how science works. Using the whiteboards will allow everyone to develop a deeper understanding and provide a physical representation of what we know and what we need to work on. I'm excited to get into lab & get modeling! Putting expectations into practice in the Cup Challenge. How strong is pasta? It turns out, pretty darn strong!
Today the scientists in all of my classes built boats out of tinfoil and duct tape. After designing & building the boats, the boats were tested to see how many pennies each boat could hold before it sank. The materials had a cost and the scientists were challenged to build the boat with the best (lowest) cost for every penny floated ratio. There are still more calculations to be done, so the winners will be announced later. Stay tuned!
Hello there!
I am very excited to get the school year started on Tuesday. I will use this space to write about what is going on in the classroom and post summaries of interesting science happenings. This year in both Science 9 and Chemistry, I will be using modeling curriculum to teach science. The students in my room will be making observations and collecting data. They will then analyze the data to figure out what it means and draw/build a model that reflects what they figured out. This is a very hands-on process and the students will gain experience in making observations, critical thinking, making measurements, analyzing data, drawing conclusions, and collaboration. I feel this process helps the students truly understand important concepts in science and prepares them to be thinkers on any future team they are a part of. For those of you who were unable to make it to the Open House on Wednesday night, I'm including some pictures of Room 10. See you Tuesday! |
Ms. Lyons
Science is amazing, check it out! Archives
May 2016
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