EARTH SCIENCE: The Earth Science class has been studying the Planets and the Solar System. We are learning that the solar system consists of planets and their moons, comets, meteoroids and asteroids that all orbit the Sun. They worked really hard on a large mural of the Solar Systems with planets, stars, moons and fun facts. PHYSICAL SCIENCE The Physical Science class has been working on Energy, Forces and Motion. We have done lots of projects demonstrating potential and kinetic energy, energy transformations and the the law of conversations of energy. We ended our semester with an activity called BOMBS AWAY! where students design and build devices to protect and accurately deliver dropped eggs. The devices and their contents represent care packages that must be safely delivered to people in a disaster area with no road access. Similar to engineering design teams, students design their devices using a number of requirements and constraints such as limited supplies and time. The activity emphasizes the change from potential energy to kinetic energy of the devices and their contents and the energy transfer that occurs on impact. Students enjoy this competitive challenge as they attain a deeper understanding of mechanical energy concepts. Although we had a lot of broken eggs, we did have several successes and a lot of fun! LIFE SCIENCE the Life Science class has been using a series of procedures called the Scientific Method to solve problems. An example of one of the worksheets we use is below. As we study life's structures there are lots of questions that can be asked. This method allows us to use critical thinking and problem solving skills to organize our investigations. The students also had a lot of fun creating different types of Dichotomous Keys. A Dichotomous Key is a tool scientists use to identify organisms.
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