Monday 10/15/12:
Today the students fininished up the measuring with a microscope after we went through the process one more time. I wanted to make sure that all students were comfortable with the process and had an opportunity to measure at least 3 objects. Once the students finished that, they were to work on their review packet for the test the next day and play "think like the teacher." Each lab table was supposed to come up with one question from each topic that the test would cover. We published the questions on the blog (see older posts!) and the students were encouraged to use this complilation of questions as a practice test. Hopefully they found it helpful. In the future this is going to be something that we use as a forum for questions and students helping each other.
Tuesday 10/16/12:
Today we took the test that covered graphing, metrics, scientific notation, the microscope and measuring with the microscope. I ended up condensing the test into one day and we tried something new with the new answer sheet program where the students were able to bubble in a numerical answer...not just choose from a list so that was pretty interesting.
Wednesday 10/17/12:
According to Haley B. from 5th hour...
First we went over the test we took yesterday about metric conversions, graphs, microscopes, scientific notation,
and how to determine low and high power diameter. After that, we went over the expectations of bio blog and everyone was assigned a new date in alphabetical order. Then, we talked about our upcoming project, the cell organelle campaign. The purpose is to have your cell organelle elected as The Most Important Organelle. You may do this by making t-shirts, buttons, and other advertisements. After that, we broke off into groups to start working on our campaign. The coolest part of class was working on our campaign projects because although it is educational, it is fun and enjoyable too! The only homework is to work on the organelle campaign project.
Thanks Haley this is perfect!
Here is what Suruchi B from 5th hour has to say...
Today in class we had a work day. Yesterday, we were assigned a project for organelles. Everyone received a
type of organelle to research. For example, one group got the nucleus, another got mitochondria, and another group got cytoplasm. Today, we all got hand-outs that included a bibliography citation guide and a rubric.
Today in class we were given the Cell Campaign Rubric. We reviewed it so that we understood what was expected from this project. We need a accurate poster, a factually correct brochure, some creative extras, and a speech along with smear campaigns to bring down other cells. Along with the rubric, we recieved a "How to Site" or "Reference" packet. This is so we would be able to site the sources we got our information from. The rest of the period was spent working our project. The only homework was decided between group depending on what needed to be done. A test question could possibly be about how to site something.
Thanks Kristi...Great Summary of the day!
Friday 10/19/12
Just in from Matt B of 5th hour...
For the first half of the period we dicussed the differences between porkaryotic and eukaryotic cells. The main
difference being that prokaryotic cells lack any membrane bound organelles (most notably the nucleus) while eukaryotic cells do have membrane bound organelles.
Thanks Matt, awesome pictures!
Coming next week... Election Day POSTPONED!
Monday 10/22/12:
Today we are going to spend some time talking about how twitter was being used in the other classes on the cell organelle project and how the students were getting in touch with research scientists from around the world because of their tweets. We are going to talk about possible implementation of this or another extra and the students will have some time to work on this. Then we are going to spend some time in class going over the organelles and making sure that every student has a basic understanding of the organelles before campaign speeches start. We will accomplish this background information by working with venn diagrams, crosswords and picture diagrams! If we have time, we will begin a lab where we take a look a some plant and animal cells under the microscope. The homework for the students will be to determine what "extra" the students will be adding to their project!
Tuesday 10/23/12: - Friday 10/26/12
TBA Monday Night - Sorry for the inco