6 & 7 Spring Science Activities

When we return from vacation on Monday, the sixth and seventh grade science classes will begin a unit on environmental studies.

I am in need of some materials to support our activities, if you are able to send any of the following things in with your child it would be greatly appreciated.

   

   Magazines with pictures of animals and/or plants

   White dinner sized paper plates (no styrofoam please)

   Small colored paper plates - green, blue, yellow, red and black

   Containers for collecting soil samples

   Plastic spoons

   Beads - single colors - red, blue, green, black, orange, yellow,      

                                        brown, white, purple

              - mixed colors - any variety

   Cotton yarn or string

This unit will combine activities related to the environment of Southern New Hampshire using the Project Learning Tree Environmental Science program and the Pearson Environmental Studies text.

As the Spring season warms up, I hope to take many of our activities outside. I will try to let you know ahead of time to be prepared with appropriate clothing and footwear for Spring in our area.

Please comment below if you are sending an item in with your child so that I can make plans for anything that we still need.

Thank you!!  I am looking forward to a great and active Spring in science.

New planets are discovered ... out there...

A Tiny Planet

NASA's Kepler mission has discovered a new planetary system that is home to the smallest planet yet found around a star like our sun, approximately 210 light-years away in the constellation Lyra.

The artist's concept depicts the new planet dubbed Kepler-37b. The planet is slightly larger than our moon, measuring about one-third the size of Earth. Kepler-37b orbits its host star every 13 days at less than one-third the distance Mercury is to the sun. The estimated surface temperature of this smoldering planet, at more than 800 degrees Fahrenheit (700 degrees Kelvin), would melt the zinc in a penny.

Astronomers don't think the tiny planet has an atmosphere or could support life as we know it, but the moon-size world is almost certainly rocky in composition.

Image credit: NASA/Ames/JPL-Caltech

For more on newly identified planets, go to:  NASA - NASA's Kepler Mission Discovers Tiny Planet System

678 Earliest Blooms follow up question

After reading all of your great papers, I wonder why it is important to keep a written journal instead of, or along with, a computer based journal?

Submit your answers in the comments section.

678 Science Reading assignment - Earliest Blooms Recorded in U.S. Dueto Global Warming 2/5/13

Click the link below and read the article

Earliest Blooms Recorded in U.S. Due to Global Warming

Write a two page written or one page typed essay stating why keeping an accurate and complete scientific journal can be important to you and to future scientists.

Predict what will happen over time as winters become less cold and plants begin to flower and bud earlier in the year.
What other environmental and life forms will be affected?

Typed essays should be NewTimesRoman, 12 point, double spaced with 1" margins

You will earn 10 Bonus points in Science for completion of all parts of this essay.

Due 2/20/13

678 Science Fair Project Reminder

As we approach the February vacation please begin any experiments that will take longer than one month to complete.

If you have a shorter experiment, the sooner you complete it the more time you will have to work on your report.

Remember, if you are changing variables, only change one variable at a time and keep your changes consistent.

As you work on your experiments, you are required to keep a journal of what you are doing.  This is your record of your experiment, results, changes, new results, etc and will be a part of your final project.

If you are able, taking photographs of your work in progress will be helpful to your journal and can be used in your final presentation.

You may also use video recordings, especially if you are completing a sports related activity.  

The Middle School Science Fair will be on April 17th and it will be here sooner than you think.  Please don't wait until the last minute to start your projects.

Have fun and good luck!!

Maggie's snow day photos

Snow day photos by Julianna

Snow day photos by Ethan

Great photo of the cardinal, and the snowboarding looks fun.

Snow day photos by Matthew

Snow day photos by Keara

Nice photo composition Keara!

Snow Photos 2/9/13

Here are some son photos taken by your classmates and a few from my yard.

Snow Day Bonus for 678

A maximum of five bonus points for Math and five bonus points for Science will be given for the completion of these activities today.  Each activity is one point each.

1. Take a picture of your yard this morning before it starts snowing hard.

2. Take a picture of your yard as the snow begins to get heavy.

3. Take a picture of your yard after the snow has been falling hard for a while.

4.  Take a picture of your yard after sunset.

5.  Take a morning picture of your yard on Sunday as the sun comes out.

1-5 are worth one point each

6. two points - First write down the time of day and temperature. Collect some snow in a one cup measuring cup, level off the snow with the back of a knife (try not to pack the snow into the cup, keep it loose and fluffy) Melt the snow in the measuring cup and then measure the amount of water that is left.  Enter your measurement, temperature and time of day in the Comment section of this post. 

7. two points - Do the above again on Saturday and compare your results with what you got yesterday.  Enter your measurement, temperature, time of day and comparison in the Comment section of this post.

8. two points - Measure the snow every hour until sunset, so long as you can do this safely. Enter your hourly measurements, including your town name, in the Comment section of this post.

Have fun, I will be doing some of these activities too.

8th Grade Science homework (7th graders should try this too)

Use what we have learned about making a scale model of the Earth-Moon system and create a scale model of the inner solar system which should contain the Sun, Mercury, Venus, Earth-Moon, and Mars.

Since I did not sent the books home with you, here is some information that will help you get started.

Radius:
   Sun - 695,000 km
   Mercury - 2,440 km
   Venus - 6,052 km
   Earth and Moon should be in your journal
   Mars - 3,390 km

Distance from the Sun
   Mercury - 57,910,000 km
   Venus - 108,200,000 km
   Earth - 149,600,000 km
   Mars - 227,940,000 km

Remember the Scale that we used in class was 1 cm = 1063 km

To start you off using the diameter of Mercury
   
        ( 2440km x 2 ) ÷ 1063km/cm = scale diameter

Use several pieces of white printer paper taped together on one to make this model, once you complete the math, you will know how much paper you will need.

Hint: you may need to reduce the km/cm to km/mm to make this fit onto a manageable size.  Check what you drew in your journal as an example.

(7th Graders, you have already learned how to switch from cm to mm by moving the decimal, review how in your math text if needed)

Science Fair Update - all Middle School Grades

I am almost finished reading over and making comments on your Science Fair Proposals.

Some students still need to hand these in and some only handed in a portion of the proposal.
If my comments ask you to complete a missing part of your proposal, please do so and turn it in before Friday 2/8/13

Most of the proposals are well written, some will be quite interesting and I'm excited to see your final results.

8th graders, you may want to start letting your family members know that you are looking for recycled materials for your inventions.  I do have some paper towel tubes and other items available in the classroom that you may use when you are ready to build.
Things such as jar lids, Snapple or ice tea lids, old music CDs and lids from yogurt containers make great wheels that can be used for your pulleys.
Many of your designs did not show how you will support your machines, once you start building you will have to think about the support structures that are needed and why.
Remember, you don't want the ball to roll off of your machine, so you may want to think about how you will prevent this from happening.

Sunrise this morning on Mt Washington 2/3/13

Source - Mount Washington Observatory FB page