Monday: Today we worked on finishing the electricity virtual lab. This one is more quantitative and will set us up nicely for discussion next week about Ohm’s Law.
Tuesday: Today we took some of our virtual lab experience and put it to work with real wires, currents and lightbulbs! We build series and parallel circuits and measured voltage, current and resistance with multimeters.
Monday: Complete one more lab section for the electricity lab under blogroll.
Monday: This was our last day working on our water turbines. Those students who were already finished watch a mythbusters on electricity.
Tuesday: Today we went over the expectations of a formal lab report. We then moved into our electricity unit by watching a video that was made to educate the public about electricity in 1945.
Wednesday: Today we finished watching our video about electricity and began to work on our circuit building activity on the computers. This activity is inquiry based and allows the students to discover a lot of what we will be learning about circuits through experimentation in an online program. Here their experiments will sometimes cause electrical fires! This was all done after we took some time to peer edit our backgrounds for our formal lab reports.
Thursday: Today we used our online circuit building program to learn what it takes to complete a circuit, and what different kinds of circuits we can make. At the end of class we discussed what we learned from these activities. Tomorrow we will look at these kinds of circuit with a more quantitative focus, even though I will not be here.
Friday: I will not be here, as I have a committee meeting to attend, but the students to be exploring the relationships between voltage, current and resistance in both series and parallel circuits through the wonderful online program that the University of Colorado at Boulder has made available. (link under blogroll if you are interested in checking it out)
HW
Monday: Read the background examples.
Tuesday: Write a background for the hydropower turbine experiment.
Wednesday: None! But remember that you can be working on your lab report if you find yourself bored with all this no homework stuff.
Thursday: Work on lab. Read 7.2 and complete section review.
Friday: Work on lab. Watch the electricity videos if you missed them in class (under blogroll). Everyone should draw a circuit for a living room that will have at least 3 lights of vary brightness.
This is a short week, and for it we will be working on our hydropower turbines in preparation for the Great Depression Simulation, and to figure out what aspects we could put together to make the most efficient turbine design.
Class Progress:
Wednesday: I am happy to be back in school! We got to work today on our hydro power turbines. Many students came in with great design ideas and they worked out what they were going to do in their groups and got down to business!
Thursday: Today, work continued on out hydropower turbines. Students are making great progress, and are well on their way to figuring out how to make the most efficient turbine possible.
Friday: Students worked on finishing up their hydropower turbines today! Many students are down to adding the last finishing touches, and the designs are varied and promising. We will be testing these on Depression Day, which is now scheduled for March 8th (Thursday, 2 weeks from yesterday.)
Wednesday: no hw
Thursday: no hw
Friday: Read the “General Lab Report Outline” found under pages to get an idea of how to write a formal lab report. Get tests signed.
Happy Valentine’s Week everybody! We are celebrating with an Energy Test on Tuesday (the big day).
Monday: Today in class we discussed questions from the practice test and the reviewing that everyone did over the weekend in preparation for our test tomorrow. In some classes we finished watching the rube goldburg movies.
Tuesday: We took out test! And I gave out chocolate for Valentine’s Day!
Wednesday: Today we talked about how we prepare for tests and what all of us could have done better to prepare for this last one. This included talking about having a second review day and having students come in for more extra help when they need it (and how to know when you need it). Also we started our discussion about electricity with a static electricity demonstration using balloons, the walls and water!
Thursday: Today we talked about how generators produce electricity…how they get those electrons moving. We then introduced our challenge for the Depression simulation, which is to determine the effect of a variety of factors on the efficiency of a hydropower turbine. The students were broken into groups today to begin planning their experiment regarding the water turbines. They were then each assigned to research designs over the weekend in order to come in on Tuesday prepared to offer suggestions to their groups.
Homework:
Monday: Study, test tomorrow
Tuesday: None, enjoy the rest of your Valentine’s Day!
Wednesday: Read 7.1 and complete section review
Thursday: Bring in a turbine design with notes on how to modify it for your factor that you are testing (either size of blades, shape of blades, mass of turbine, or rigidity of blades)
Some links to possibly useful websites can be found in blogroll.
OB was great!! Now we get back to learning about energy! This week with a focus on where the energy that we use everyday comes from.
Monday: Today we began our discussion of where energy comes from (like the sources of energy that we use everyday). We reviewed some of the math that we’d been doing before outward bound and our test that will be next Tuesday of Ch 4 and 9.
Tuesday: I woke up really sick this morning, and so we had a sub. The students began work on an energy source chart, comparing the different sources of energy that we will be discussing using their books and computers for research.
Wednesday: Today we reviewed the quiz that was returned and then reviewed some of our energy source chart information in a discussion. We focused today on the advantages and disadvantages of the most common energy course, fossil fuels.
Thursday: Today we discussed the pros and cons of other sources of energy, including nuclear and renewable sources. We also worked in some more math practice with the law of conservation of energy.
Friday: Today we finished up discussion of renewable energy sources, talking about how we can use these sources to make electricity and how those processes are alike and different from fossil fuel use. We ended class by watching the rube goldburg movies as a way to review discussions of energy transfers. Look for movies to be posted soon! Test on Tuesday!
Homework:
Monday: Read 9.1 and complete section review.
Tuesday: Finish energy chart from class (under pages)
Wednesday: Read 9.3 and complete section review
Thursday: Study
Friday: Practice Test on blog (under pages)
Monday and Tuesday: We worked on finishing up our movies of the Rube Goldburgs! Students are making great progress, the finished products are due on Thursday by the end of the day. They should also be preparing at home for an Energy Quiz on Thursday.
Wednesday: Today we reviewed some of the math that we’ve been using in our projects and in our understanding of energy. We reiterated the concept of the law of conservation of energy, as this is a piece that the students seem to be forgetting in their problem solving.
Homework:
Monday: None, review as needed.
Tuesday: Quiz Thursday, bring questions tomorrow
Wednesday: Study for quiz…extra practice on blog under Energy Practice in pages. The answers to the energy practice (with ALL of my work) is in a link under pages entitled Energy Practice Complete Work, use this to help you study.
Check out the video of some students working on their projects!
Tuesday: Progress is definitely evident in our rub goldburgs! Students continued to work on their projects, including a lot of testing today, and then troubleshooting how to refine their ideas.
Wednesday: We continued working on our rube goldburgs today, and they are coming along nicely. The students are now experiencing a lot of troubleshooting, which is great for letting them practice real problem solving skills.
Thursday: The rube goldburgs are almost done! Today we began filming to put together our video lab reports where the students will demonstrate their understanding of energy conversions in their machines.
Friday: We are now in full swing working on the movies of the rube goldburgs! There is much talk around the class of this kind of energy changing into that as the students seek to make a movie that proves how much they know about energy.
Homework:
Tuesday:Check your energy worksheet 2 answers (found under pages). Rework any problems that were missed. This will be checked tomorrow, so use a different color to check and rework.
Wednesday: None (practice energy problems available on blog if still having trouble)
Thursday: None (practice energy problems if you need to)
Friday: Graded energy problems (under pages) — to be turned in as a quiz grade. You may use your notes but not people. Download
Students work on construction of their Rube Goldburg machines
Monday: Today we did a lab where we played with different kinds of energy. We got to see all kinds of energy transformations and tried to explain them all using the kinds of energy that we have talked about in class.
Tuesday: Today we went over yesterdays and lab in the beginning of class. We then went through the introduction to our next big experiment, building a Rube Goldburg machine. We watched a couple of examples of some working to turn pages, shoot paint cannons and pull down an advertisement in order to get some inspiration. We then began working on our own designs for some examples, and our groups will begin planning tomorrow.
Wednesday:Today we planned in our groups for our rube goldburg projects. At the end of class we had sketches and materials lists. I will be shopping tonight for all of our materials!
Thursday: Today was our first day of construction on our Rube Goldburgs! We learned the system for keeping up with materials and tools, and the safety rules we have to follow and then we got to work.
Friday: The rube goldburgs are coming along nicely. Students got the entire period today to work on them, see the pictures in this post to experience some of the fun!
Homework:
Monday: Write a paragraph about 3 of the stations that you worked at in the lab. In each tell what kind of energy you started with, how it changed throughout the station and what it ultimately ended up as. Also include an object that uses those kinds of transformations that we didn’t see in the lab.
Tuesday: Complete the mini-rube assignment — can be found under pages.
Wednesday: Bring in stuff for rub goldburg.
Thursday: Work on rube goldburg, and practice energy math if you need it.
Friday: Complete the energy practice problems under pages (titled Energy Worksheet 2)
Note: If you were absent at all during this project, you need to check with your group to see what you can do over the weekend to make your contribution! You may take home materials that you need, or use some from your house.
We are so done with matter!! Nothing more will take up space in science…we are on to energy!
Class Progress:
Tuesday: Today we talked about our exams and what we should do to learn from the experience of taking them for the first time. We then started to talk about energy — brainstorming about what we know that doesn’t take up space and then classifying our types of energy.
Wednesday: Today we completed a webquest about energy. The students learned a lot of new stuff about energy and practiced using this new knowledge by exploring this great website ftexploring.com.
Thursday: Today we began using out new knowledge of energy and the conservation of energy to solve problems! We learned that we can find a lot of information about a situation with just a few facts because of the idea that energy is always conserved!
Friday: Today we reviewed our practice of the energy problems from last night. We talked more about how energy and convert from one form to another and how the law of conservation of energy works in things like swings, rollercoasters and ski jumps.
Homework:
Tuesday: Ch 4 section 1 review
Wednesday: Complete webquest to turn in tomorrow (or if you’re in 6th, work on it, due Friday)
Thursday: Complete “Energy Worksheet” found under pages to practice using your energy equations.
Friday: Read section 4.2 and complete the section review
Students collaborate to learn all that they can from a great energy website.
Monday: Today we reviewed for our nuclear quest! We went over the difference in fission and fusion, half life and radioactive dating and nuclear decay.
Homework:
Monday: Robert says study for your nuclear quest (quiz/test) tomorrow.
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