Feb 21-25: Earth's Changes (Fast & Slow)

It's been a long, but fun week in 8th grade science. Here's what we've been doing:

Monday - Finish fossils notes (p8). Use the rest of the time to make up anything students may need to.
Tuesday - Slow & Fast Changes of the Earth (p9 - we watched some pretty awesome clips showing lava flows, mudslides, glacier calving, etc. - pretty impressive stuff).
Wednesday - Finish p9 & Candy Quakes Lab (p10 - it must be good if it involves smashing candybars as thought they were tectonic plates).
Thursday - Collection of Superhero picture, research, & superhero persona sheet for student led conferences.
Thursday & Friday - In the Shadow of Vesuvius (movie about one of the world's most famous volcanoes and the people who lived, and who live there).

Next week (around Tuesday) we will have our geology unit final - please encourage your students to study, study, study!

Feb 14-18: Fossils & Misc. Stuff

This has been a really strange week... we had a lot of assemblies, schedule changes, and testing.

Monday - Recognition Assembly 3rd period, Figurative Language Valentines 4th period, & continued heart assembly 5th period.
Tuesday - Start fossil notes p8 (honor's assembly during 5th)
Wednesday - Fossils & playdough activity - students made impressions of plastic toy animals in play dough, swapped teams, and then had to figure out what animal the fossils were depicting.
Thursday - Directed Writing Assessment (persuasive essay writing state test)
Friday - Finish superhero pictures

Feb. 7-11: Erosion, Geologic Column, & Hearts

February 1-14 is national "Congenital Heart Defect Awareness Week." To be honest, I wouldn't know much about this, except that I work closely with another faculty member who has a son who was born with a major heart defect. She's a great mom who has made it a goal to help others recognize that these problems exist. We're going to have a "Heart Assembly" on Friday where Mrs. Dowdle and Mr. Shaw (both 8th grade science teachers) will talk about their kids who were born under extreme circumstances. I think the kids will find it fascinating - I sure do. Then, during our upcoming Rise and Stretch, I'll be performing a deer heart dissection, thanks to one of the students on our team who donated it for the good of science! (Again... that's a DEER heart, not the student's heart). To learn more about "Congenital Heart Defect Awareness Week", click here.

Other than heart stuff, we're still plowing in to our geology unit.

Monday - Stream (Erosion) Table Observation p6 (students watch weathering, erosion, and deposition in real time!).
Tuesday - Relative Dating & Geologic Column Notes p7 (we learned about how usually older layers of rock are near the bottom of the column, and younger are near the top. However, folding and faulting can play tricks on us if we don't look for them carefully!).
Wednesday - Review and take R&S Quiz on Rock Types & Rock Cycle (igneous... sedimentary... metamorphic)
Thursday - Finish Geologic Column Notes p7 (forces between Earth's plates: compressional, tensional, & transversal).
Friday - Heart Assembly during 3rd, 5th & 6th (excused from 6th - but still need to get the work). Because of how it's worked out, students will come back to class during 4th and work on their superhero mineral drawing.

Jan 31 - Feb 4: Rocks & Superheros

This quarter's research project has focused on minerals. Students researched a particular mineral and made a superhero based on their mineral's properties. Many of the minerals have some very interesting properties - some glow, some double in size when they get wet, some have incredible strength, etc. Perfect stuff for making up a superhero persona. They will be coloring a picture of their superhero (or supervillian if that's how your student rolls), and will also be writing a creative short story in English to go along with it. This is a fun activity because our 8th grade teams are all named for superheros - we're the Spiderman Team.

Monday - Rocks & Minerals Movie (I got sick... and had a sub).
Tuesday - Mineral Research
Wednesday - Chocolate Rocks lab (students looked at melted chocolate and rice krispy treats and made comparisons to real igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic rocks).
Thursday & Friday - Earth's Surface Notes p5 (students learned more about specific processes for making a sedimentary rock: weathering, erosion, deposition, & cementation).