Tuesday, January 19th, 2010

Today we went over our review for our Science Milestone that we will be taking tomorrow. It will review all concepts from the Physical Science unit. Tomorrow, we will take our Milestone, and then on Thursday we will begin our Earth Science unit. We introduced 11 new vocabulary words that will be part of this week and next weeks' discussions.

Our words added are:

Sediments

Sedimentary Rocks

Weathering

Erosion

Deposition

Mechanical Weathering

Chemical Weathering

Igneous Rocks

Metamorphic Rocks

Glaciers

Fossils

Friday, January 8th, 2009

Today, at Station 1 you will post your responses here:

1. Include what cards you liked, and some information about it.

January 7th, 2010

This week in Science we began talking about Forces and some of the different types of forces, such as gravity, magnetism, pushes, pulls, buoyancy etc. A force is a push or pull on an object, so gravity is the forces that PULLS objects to the Earth, Magnetism is a forces that PULLS magnetic objects together, etc. We discussed friction, and how it is the rubbing of two objects together that causes heat, we demonstrated this by furiously rubbing our hands together and feeling the warmth in our hands, we discussed how this is created on our tires when we drive, and one of the students made an astute connection with bowling, and the lanes being slicked to create LESS FRICTION!!! WOW, GREAT JOB GUYS!!!

We added these words to our vocabulary rings this week:

melting point 102

boiling point 103

freezing point 104

force 105

friction 106

air resistance 107

motion 108

JellyMuffin

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Thursday, December 10th, 2009

This week in Science we have discussed Electricity, including circuits and their parts, conductors and insulators, as well as reflection and refraction.

The students learned that a complete circuit consists of a source of energy, such as a battery or plug, a device, such as a lightbulb, or whatever is trying to be operated, and finally wires to connect the two. We include that circuits often contain a switch to make opening and closing the circuit easier, but that it is not a necessity. The learned that conductors are materials that allow heat and electricity to flow through them easily, such as most metals and water. We add to that the fact that insulators are materials that do not let heat and electricity flow easily, such as cloth, feathers/fur, wood, plastic and rubber.

Reflection is the bouncing back of light, such as our image in a mirror, or off of tinted widows i a car. It bounces back at the same angle, but opposite. Refraction is the bending of light. The refraction of light changes the way that the object looks. Refraction occurs when the light changes from one state of matter to another, such as through air to a glass of water, gas to liquid, etc. Items that refract light usually include some type of lens. Such as eyeglasses and contacts, cameras, telescopes, microscopes, magnifying glasses etc.

Wednesday in class the students received the following sheet and had to sort the pictures into two columns, one labeled conductors and one labeled insulators. There should have been eleven of each.