Ecology & Cells Clean Up!

Hey everyone! This is Riley in for Tyler P. Today in Grade 7 Science, we did some cleaning. We cleaned out both our binder and virtual binder. Now, everything should be all clean so you can start again after break!
Tonight's Homework: FINISH Sel. Perm. Lab DUE TOMORROW!
Only one more day until break everyone!!

IMPORTANT: FYI ON IMAGES

FYI- When we have images, you can press them and they will be brought to a separate web page. If you want to save the image, just drag it to the desktop. If you want to download the full image/Smart Notebook file, head to Science7 and press "Smart Notes" in the sidebar. Thanks!
-Bloggers

Cells Test Back & Sel. Perm. Lab

Hello 7th Grade Scientists! Today, we received our Cells Tests back. If you have any questions, you can see Mrs. Cartwright on Thursday. We also went over the Selective Permeability Lab for homework (which is due FRIDAY). If you are a CHORUS student, you should try to finish it tonight, because there is supposed to be no homework because of the choral concert tomorrow. Good luck on the Lab!
-Riley (in for Tucker)

Trout Review

Hello fellow 7th graders. Today in science 7, we took a review quiz on trout. Don't worry though... it only counted as classwork! After that, we reviewed how to test Ammonia, pH, high pH, and how to change the water.
Tonights Homework is to start the Selective Permeability lab which is due FRIDAY. If you are in Band, you do not have to do homework.

The trout are comming!!!

Hi everyone! Since Mrs. Cartwright had to pick up the trout today, we spent our class working on a brain-teasing cross-word puzzle. Who knew trouts had a fin called a caudal fin?!
Just in case someone did not catch the homework form Mrs. Hughes, we had to finish the cross-word puzzle.
-Brittany M.

Today in Class we talked about Mr. Hinez

Mrs. Cartwright showed us a video of him talking to one of the other science classes. He talked about his fishing life, and why he loves fish so much. She showed us this video because it was his idea to get the trout, so she wanted to show him to us. He seamed like a really nice guy and it sounded like he knew a lot about fish. Mrs. Cartwright said that he left his book of the pictures of most of teh fish that he's caught in his life. And he tells us about a HUGE rare striped bass that he caught once. And he even left a picture of it for us in his book. We got to see it; it was really big!! In Science F everyone told stories about wildlife and their experiance and what they've heard about hunters, and fisherman. Some of them were sterio types, and some of them were not. Towards the end of class, Mrs. Cartwright handed out a packet on the directions, and some information on the trout that we are getting. The packet also said that we are going to get the fish as tiny little eggs! I can't wait!
Have a nice day!!
-Elena

Quiz practice!

Today, we made sure we had downloaded all of our smartnotes off of FirstClass. They are all still there. We also took each other's practice quizzes.

Homework: review all your smartnotes, worksheets, and other homework

Class Update December 6th

Today Mrs. Carwright was absent and we had a sub. We continue to work on our projects. The 3 choices were a comic, map, or story. You have to complete one of the assignments that are posted on FirstClass Hopefully, they are colorfully and turn out good. Keep up the good work and more posts to come.

Homework: Study Plant and Animal Cells on FirstClass in a Smart Board Notebook file. Make sure you know your organelles.

Cells Projects

Hello 7th graders! Today, we worked more with cells, doing review exercises. First, we read a packet and answered questions. Next, time permitting, we started our cell projects (due Friday). We could choose to: 1. Draw a cartoon, 2. Make a story, or 3. Make a map (using the worksheet) all about cells. Tomorrow we will we continue to work on these projects. For tonight, there is no homework because of Chanukah.

Diffusion - What happened to the Eggs?

Selective Permeability and Cell Membranes

soon to come!

KWL - Cells

Today in science class we started off by getting some of our old graded work back. After, we went over what the homework was to make sure we knew what to do. Then we took a look at the charts that each class made. Every class wrote what they know about cells and we went over it to see what was true or false. Many classes did a great job. During the last couple of minutes, we played a quick cell quiz game. To see details on what students know - check out the smartnotes posted on first class titled "KWL Cells Intro"

Homework : Read Cell Packet (Page 20), and complete index cards.

Cells Part II

Today in Science, we all continued to use the microscopes to see if we can locate the nucleus in living cells. We observed cheek cells, onion cells, and elodea plant cells. As we looked and focused on the item underneath the microscope, we noticed that the animal cells, or cheek cells, were more grouped together and clumpy, as I said in science, We also saw that on the elodea plant, the cells were packed together, much like a brick wall. all in all, this science class was interesting and memorable, not at all like what you see on TV shows!
Tonights Homework: Read Cell Packet (page 19), and answer questions 5-7.

Cells Intro, Using a Microscope

Hey everyone! Today in 7th Grade Science, we started to look at Cells of different things using a microscope. Some people looked at Cells of onions, some of their own cheeks, and drew them. Some things we learned:
1. Different Magnifications (multiply by 10- 4x is really 40x)
2. Different parts of a microscope
3. How to handle a microscope
4. Different types of cells: eukaryotic cells (with a nucleus) and prokaryotic cells (without a nucleus
Tonight's Homework: Read Cell Packet Pages 9 and 18, and answer questions 1-4 in the worksheet which is posted on first class.
Looking Ahead: Tomorrow: More Cells, looking under a microscope

Graphing the Oh Deer Data

On friday we talked about the Oh Deer game. We also downloaded and made a graph and a data table on our class data based on the Oh Deer game.

Oh Deer!

Yesterday (Wednesday the 14th of November), we played a game called "Oh Deer!". It taught us about CARRYING CAPACITY which is the maximum number of individuals that can live in a habitat. In the game, we started out with two deer. The rest of the class were necessary resources (either food, water, or shelter). The deer would go and get the resource needed, then that resource would be come a deer. Then it all happened again, but sometimes there was a drought, so no water. Then, some of the deer died (and became resources). This showed CARRYING CAPACITY. Finally, we added a another factor that prevented or limited the deer population from rising, which was a newly built highway with cars passing through. If you were touched by the car, you died, and became a resource. The car was a non natural limiting factor, but we could have added a predator as well! All throughout the game, Mrs. Cartwright took data of how many deer there were versus how many resources.

Today, we have no school because of conference day. Also, starting this Monday, November 19th, we will have blog entries EVERY DAY and a WEEKLY SUMMARY! So, stay tuned!

Learning Styles and Study Strategies

Today (November 7,2007) 7th Grade Science had a very fun and helpful day. Our assginment was to create a some knid of studying tool to help us study for our upcoming test on Monday on Ecology. Students found out their learning styles. Some were Visual, Linguistic, Kinesthetic, and some were Musical. After we figured out our learning styles we applied them to our studying. We made podcasts and Smart Notes and study the terms Symbiosis, Mutualism, Parasitism, Commensalism, Competition, and Predator/Prey. After all, I think this day was very helpful and productitive and I hope we have another one just like it.

Invasive Species and USDA Funding

Hello everyone, and thanks for checking out the Science 7 Blog! This week, we have been trying to determine which invasive species the USDA and National Invasive Species Committee should fund.

Tuesday: We decided as a table, which invasive species project should be presented to the class.

Wednesday: We started presenting to the class our projects by table.

Thursday: Mrs. Cartwright was out.

Friday: We will finish presenting our projects to the class, and vote which species should get funded.

That’s all for now… stay tuned for more information about Mrs. Cartwright’s 7th Grade Science to come!

PRAYING MANTUS FOUND ON CAMPUS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Last week, Paul found a Praying Mantus on campus. This is very cool insect and if you want more information on it copy and paste the following website.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Praying_mantis

Attaching Photos and Links to Wikis

Right now in Mrs. Cartwright's Science room, we are working on our Wikis for our Invasive Species Project. So far, we have learned how to create pages and tables, but today we are going to learn how to attach/link photos, and attaching podcasts/movie files. To view these projects, visit the Science 7 Wiki (see link below). Stay tuned for more Science news!

Remember: Projects due this MONDAY (the 22nd)!

Science 7 Wiki

Reed's Yellow jacket Nest

Our own Reed W. of science 7D found this Yellow jacket nest in a maple tree above a power line in his front yard. He and his father got it down by throwing rocks at the branch it was connected to. Thanks Reed!

If you have any other cool stuff relating to science, bring it on in, and you can also be on the wiki and blog!!!

Invasive Species Project

At the moment we are doing the invasive species project. This project, we will make a website on a chosen invasive species. The notes for thi project are due on Friday 12, 2007. The whole project is due on Friday 19, 2007. For infomation on this project, go on to science7.editme.com and go to project descriptions.

The homework for tonight is to finish 3 out of the 6 invasive species questions.

Hint: when doing the invasive species project, don't get ahead of the class if you don't have to, also, sped more time looking up infomation, not finding pictures.

More to come!!!

Deforming Frogs

This is a summary of the article Deformed Frogs written by Alice, Chris, Elena, and Amanda of 7F.

Deformed frogs are increasing because of algae growth from the run-off of nutrients from nitrogen and phosphorus from the land. The snails eat the algae and breed more, the snails are a home for the parasites and so when there are more snails the parasites use it as a breeding space so they will spread faster. Snails excrete infectious parasites into the water thus infecting tadpoles. Therefore, many more frogs will become deformed. Deformed frogs have loss of limbs, or extra limbs. Birds will then eat the frogs with parasites, and then the parasites will be excreted out into ponds and breed again in the growing snail population. The enviornment that these frogs can be found is just a normal pond. To help the study of deformed frogs, a research group made 36 artificial ponds with snails, some ponds had a run-off to test.

Stay tuned for more information from the 7th grade classrooms.

OVERPOPULATION

This is a summary of the article overpopulation by students in Science 7E. This summary was writen by Tyler, Ellie, Marlaina, Bobby, and Sara. It is from CNN News.

In many countries like India and China there is overpopulation. Many people think that this will cause reduction of resources and that people will not get the proper standards for living. For example, water is a big problem people are not getting enough and if they do get it is not clean. Already people are getting sick and dieing. One disease that is affecting many people is HIV and AIDS. Environmentalists are concerned that the rapid growing human populations are affecting deforestation, desertification, air pollution and global warming. Also, the more people the countries have the more waste and it is harder to control and they don’t have enough places to hold the waste. One idea that China came up with is a birth control. They made a law that families are only allowed to have one child, which is very effective because then the population should go down. At the rate of people being born right now overpopulation is a big problem that needs to be addressed.

If you want to see the article click on the link below

http://www.cnn.com/TECH/science/archive/index.html

Stay tuned for more information from 7th Grade Science

just a test to see if it works

hey guys- this is a test

TEST

This is a test. Hi! Stay tuned for more info.

Hey this ia a test!!

More posts to come

Just a test!!!!

Hi this is just testing how this works!

hey

This is a test

How do you know that you know it??

Today we reflected on how students typically study for a test. We uncovered the fact that Dictionary.com is often used, and what students typically do is write the definition and simply memorize. While this may work for the short term, it doesn't work for the long term!

Now that 7th graders have final exams, the goal is to keep that information stored in their brains for the long haul. So, how do we do it? We talked about the fact that if you can clearly explain or teach the concept or term to a second grader or to someone else, then you know it! Other ideas that came up were pairing that definition with an image or another word. The ecosystem illustration that students drew for homework is a perfect example! The point is... you have to DO something with the material.... like sing a song, act it out, link the idea to a picture etc.

Memorizing is a great skill... but if you don't understand what you are memorizing, you will have a much harder time recalling information or making connections with new material! Your foundation of knowledge will be built out of paper rather than out of brick!

FOR MORE INFORMATION: Check out Surfari.editme.com

HW: Make sure you know the difference between Observation and Inference. Go back and take a look at the Ecology Concepts and see if you can study to "understand" rather than just memorizing a dictionary.com definition.

SMART NOTES: Go through the smart notes which we downloaded in class. There is an additional SMART notes on Observation and Inference that was posted on First Class. I believe Science B and D did not get a chance to download it! Check it out.

Surfari.Editme.Com

Today we took care of some housekeeping stuff. We finished up the lab report on the Blackworm and dropped it onto server 4. We went over the review sheet in terms of what students are responsible for knowing and we talked about some possible strategies that students can use in preparation for the quiz on Monday. The Surfari.editme.com site has great memorization strategies (the link is shown on the right - above Science7 wiki link). We have been asked to try one of the strategies out. Using the Smartnotebook software is a great way to set up study materials because you can incorporate visual images and link words to definitions on different pages.

All of the smartnotes that we have done in class are posted on First class and can be downloaded to the virtual binder. Please check them out!

HW: Using the Smartnotes and Classwork assignments - complete the Ecology Concepts section of the review sheet using one or more of the strategies from Surfari.editme.com. Both the review sheet and the memorization strategies were handed out in class.

Activity 74: Observing the Blackworm

In class on Friday and today, we observed reactions and behaviors of the blackworm, Lumbriculus variegatus.
We observed the worms response to touch, their behavior in water versus on moist filter paper, and we even got to see the blood traveling through the worms body under the microscope!
The purpose of the lab was to understand how to gather facts and make clear observations and then make inferences based on those facts. Often times, we make inferences and describe behaviors based on the "Human Point of View." For example, if we observed that the worms were tangled together and squirming, we may fall into the trap of describing this behavior as "wrestling or fighthing" because that is how humans may behave.

Observations are facts that are made using one or more of the five senses. Scientific observations must be specific!

Inferences are explanations or interpretations based on the observed facts.




FOR MORE INFORMATION: Go to SmartNotes titled "Activity 74 Blackworms"

HW: Read "How to Write a Formal Lab Report" - handout was provided in class and can be found on First Class.

Living or Non-Living? That is the Question!

We need to catch up on a few blog entries from last week! The homework assignment for last Monday was to choose an ecosystem near or around your home and to draw the components of that ecosystem (abiotic and biotic factors). However, in order to accomplish this, one must have an understanding of what makes a living thing, well......... living! We learned that every living thing is made up of cells, and cells help to carry out 7 main life processes which are listed below. To help us remember the 7 life processes - we used a mnemonic device "Mrs. Gern" who you see in the picture below!

Movement
Reproduction
Sensitivity
Growth
Excretion
Respiration
Nutrition

We also looked at a frog, car, and fire to see if they carried out all 7 life processes. There was much debate over whether fire was considered a living thing - but in the end, we realized that fire is not made up of cells, nor does it meet every one of the 7 life processes.


Once we had a better understanding of what makes a living thing living.... it was much easier to draw and label the abiotic factors and biotic factors of an ecosystem!

Note: This activity was completed last Monday, prior to the Ecology Concept Map and Cats in Borneo!

Ecology Concept Map

Today we went over how to do a concept map based on a reading about Ecology. We highlighted main ideas from each paragraph and then put those main ideas into an web with Ecology as the center of the web (the main overarching concept of the entire reading). The goal was to become familiar with the meaning of ecology and the vocabulary words that surround it. The following words were found in the concept map:
Ecology
Ecosystem
Living Things
Non-Living things
Habitat
Population
Community
Food Chain
Food Web
Sun
Producers
Consumers
Decomposers
Resources (water, shelter, food, gases etc.)

FOR MORE INFO: See Planet Earth Reading and Concept Map SmartNotes for more detailed information.

HW: Read Act. 74: Observing Organisms pages E16-E18

Importance of Ecology & Cats in Borneo

Ecology is the study of relationships between living organisms (biotic factors) and the physical environment (abiotic factors). We learned by reading the story of the cats which were parachuted into Borneo that one change in an ecosystem can have significant impacts to the ecosystem itself. Understanding how living things and non living things are connected is the key to making decisions that will keep the earth balanced.

FOR MORE INFORMATION: To view the story check out the SMART notes titled cats in borneo.

HW: Complete the Concept Map of the reading "Planet Earth"

Up to Date on Technology!

To start off the year, students have completed the following;

1. Logged onto First Class to check homework posted on MS teachers
2. Learned how to "download" assignments/worksheets
3. Set up virtual binders on the desktop
4. Accessed Server 4 to learn how to back up school work
5. Downloaded SMART board software

Welcome!

Hi Everyone! Welcome to our classroom blog. The purpose of this blog is to give you updated information about our class. You will find homework, announcements, and important topics discussed that day. I hope this helps!