WHAT WE'VE BEEN WORKING ON
This week and last week, we've been working to establish what I call our "Science Toolkit." This "toolkit" involves measuring accurately and precisely; writing and converting between numbers using scientific notation, metric prefixes, and factor-label unit conversions; and using significant figures ("sig figs") to represent the precision of our measurements and calculations. These are basic skills that your child will need not only throughout the year in Foundations of Science but also in every science class they ever take in high school or beyond.
I continue to be impressed by the way this group of 9th grade students works together, works ahead on assignments, and works with me to grow and improve every single day! All students showed growth from their pretest on August 31st to their post-tests on both parts of experiments and unit conversions. We will have a quiz on Significant Figures on Monday, and I have posted some helpful links on Schoology that they can use to review over the weekend as needed.
Next week, we'll focus on lab safety before doing our first "real" science lab - The Density Lab. This involves measuring, units, and significant figures. We will also write an abbreviated lab report next week.
WHAT'S COMING UP
This weekend, your child should be focusing on his or her Glossary to go along with his or her Journal Article. This is due uploaded to Schoology by midnight on Thursday.
Today during class I demonstrated how I created my own glossary (68 terms from a 5 page article) from the vocab list I made to go with an article on waste-created bricks. At this point, I should have looked over your child's vocab list and article and offered them some feedback. The students do not need to use academic sites to define their words; dictionaries or Google searches are fine. They do need to include a link or some sort of informal description of where they found the source definition for each term. The definitions they put in their glossaries should be in their own words so that they are meaningful, useful, and understandable when they re-read and summarize their articles. They may still need my help defining terms or understanding their article, and I am happy to help! The main idea is that I need them to find out sooner rather than later what questions they have for me.
My examples, along with their assignment details and scoring rubric, can be found on Schoology under the "Journal Article Project: MP1" folder.
I know this is a huge undertaking, and I have been very proud of their work thus far. Please don't hesitate to contact me if you have any questions!
This week and last week, we've been working to establish what I call our "Science Toolkit." This "toolkit" involves measuring accurately and precisely; writing and converting between numbers using scientific notation, metric prefixes, and factor-label unit conversions; and using significant figures ("sig figs") to represent the precision of our measurements and calculations. These are basic skills that your child will need not only throughout the year in Foundations of Science but also in every science class they ever take in high school or beyond.
I continue to be impressed by the way this group of 9th grade students works together, works ahead on assignments, and works with me to grow and improve every single day! All students showed growth from their pretest on August 31st to their post-tests on both parts of experiments and unit conversions. We will have a quiz on Significant Figures on Monday, and I have posted some helpful links on Schoology that they can use to review over the weekend as needed.
Next week, we'll focus on lab safety before doing our first "real" science lab - The Density Lab. This involves measuring, units, and significant figures. We will also write an abbreviated lab report next week.
WHAT'S COMING UP
This weekend, your child should be focusing on his or her Glossary to go along with his or her Journal Article. This is due uploaded to Schoology by midnight on Thursday.
Today during class I demonstrated how I created my own glossary (68 terms from a 5 page article) from the vocab list I made to go with an article on waste-created bricks. At this point, I should have looked over your child's vocab list and article and offered them some feedback. The students do not need to use academic sites to define their words; dictionaries or Google searches are fine. They do need to include a link or some sort of informal description of where they found the source definition for each term. The definitions they put in their glossaries should be in their own words so that they are meaningful, useful, and understandable when they re-read and summarize their articles. They may still need my help defining terms or understanding their article, and I am happy to help! The main idea is that I need them to find out sooner rather than later what questions they have for me.
My examples, along with their assignment details and scoring rubric, can be found on Schoology under the "Journal Article Project: MP1" folder.
I know this is a huge undertaking, and I have been very proud of their work thus far. Please don't hesitate to contact me if you have any questions!