Look at what we've been up to................
Grades 7 / 8 S.T.E.M. - SCIENCEWinter 2016/17: Topics of study early this winter included traits, heredity, natural selection, adaptations, taxonomy and more. A guest speaker came to speak to grades 6-8 on December 14th about Coyotes and it was related to all of the topics we have been exploring. We all learned a lot about the fascinating ecology and behavior of wolves and eastern coyotes from wild canid ecologist Chris Schadler. Her appearance was sponsored by the Dummerston Conservation Commission; this was hopefully the 1st of several future collaborations with our local commission.
Just recently we have moved into the Physical sciences with a focus on Chemistry: The 1st performance expectation here is Structure and Properties of Matter: help students formulate an answer to the questions: “How can particles combine to produce a substance with different properties? How does thermal energy affect particles?” (NGSS) Next we hope to focus on the performance expectations around Chemical Reactions to help students to formulate an answer to the questions: “What happens when new materials are formed? What stays the same and what changes?” (NGSS) Developing & revising scientific models to help show & explain our thinking will be used throughout these topics of study. Fall 2016: 7th & 8th graders have been focused on the Life Sciences to begin the school year. 7th grade work has been focused around ecosystems, food webs & chains and the energy flow within these systems. 8th graders are extending their ecosystem work from the past Spring into deeper investigations around the flow of energy and matter through ecosystems, the carbon cycle, classification & natural selection. 8th grade will soon begin experimenting & learning about heredity, traits, genetics and evolution. 7th grade will continue with some ecology basics around photosynthesis, respiration and more! Both grades will be moving into studies around matter, states of matter and basic chemistry after the Thanksgiving break, hopefully!
May 2016: Ecology! Pillbugs! Ecosystems, Biomes, Biosphere - oh my! All grade 7/8 students have been investigating aspects of the ecological world over the past 2 months or so. Topics have included: Ecological levels of complexity (posters in slide show), relationships between organisms (predator / prey, consumer / host, etc.), adaptations, greenhouse gases, pond life, and more.
For the 7th graders, some of this culminated & was supplemented by a trip to Dartmouth College's Life Sciences building on May 26th. There they, along with the 5th grade, participated in three special sessions in the Ecology Lab, Microscopy Lab and the Greenhouse (on top of the building!). Most sessions were led by graduate students, some by adults who supervise these separate areas. All Dartmouth personnel were so impressed with out students enthusiasm and deep questions! Please see pictures of the activities & sights on home page! 8th graders, who had an additional week of testing (Science NECAPS), finished up their year with a fun, interactive, collaborative 1 final engineering challenge bringing together several important concepts in both math & science that they have worked with this year. The task was based on a real world engineering "flaw" around the UMass-Amherst campus library building. Please see BELOW for photos of these students building prototypes of a library structure with particular constraints around materials, base surface area, ratio of structure weight to load weights & other challenges! In addition to class related S.T.E.M. writings, all grade 7 &8 students have been writing articles for their self-created S.T.E.M. newspaper. These articles have allowed them to focus on topics & people they're interested in finding more about AND to practice their informational writing skills!
Feb. 2016: Thermal Energy was the focus for 7/8th Science to kick off 2016! We culminated the phenomena of thermal energy transfer with an engineering task of designing a penguin shelter (for African penguins!) prototype. These models, with a penguin shaped ice-cube inside,were exposed to hot "sun" for 30 minutes, and the remaining mass of ice cube was then compared to original & recorded. Most lab teams were able to revisit, tweak & retest their model to further improve their results while incorporating their thermal energy concepts. We have now switched to investigating the Earth-Moon-Sun system. We've looked at different sub-systems and phenomena within this larger system (i.e. why & how do we see different moon phases, earth's rotation vs. revolution) through various simulations including kinesthetic & computerized. Students are currently working in teams to complete an "EXPERTS" project on a connected topic within this system. It's been fun connecting the recent return of astronaut Scott Kelly to our current discussions & questions around how the components E-M-S system interact with each other.
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Grade 7 S.T.E.M. - MATHWinter 2016/17: in 7th grade math we spent some extended time working with operations of positive & negative integers along with integrating some algebraic work around these operations. The number properties, distributive, associative & commutative, were all reintroduced & practiced as we finished up our integer work. More complex work with the order of operations was also part of our studies to start off the winter. We have now moved into a review of different ways to show comparisons between quantities including ratios, fractions, percents & difference. Right now our focus is on scaling ratios, rates or percents to solve problems. Much of the near-future work will be on proportions: setting up & solving proportions; recognizing proportional situations from a table, graph or equation; and connecting unit rates and a constant of proportionality to a table, graph or equation representing different situations.
Fall 2016: 7th graders have spent time extending their experiences & thinking around variables & patterns to start the year. Emphasis has been put on describing relationships between quantities & variable through using & interpreting graphs, tables, & equations. They are also learning to use a graphing calculator once an equation can be written. We are now moving into the world of integers; extending the number line to the left and practicing all 4 operations using both positive & negative integers!
May 2016: Linear function has more than just lines! Equations: writing them & solving them; Graphs: constructing & interpreting; and Tables: creating & utilizing. Identifying the 2 variables is the first point of access in determining whether there is a linear relationship or not. Students have learned all of these skills with special emphasis on writing and solving multi-step equations AND learning how to use a graphing calculator to aid in the graph & table construction!
Feb. 2016: The 7th grade capped off a very strong effort in the study of positive/negative integers with a final focus on the properties of numbers AND order of operations. Students spent several days practicing all integer operations, using several types of properties in many different ways (i.e. card games, puzzles). We have now moved onto looking at the MATHEMATICAL concept of SIMILARITY. This has brought us to new ideas around scale factor, enlarging & reducing images to create similar ones, and how this can be applied in lots of other content areas. We are using & enhancing our skills of proportional thinking and drawing as we explore how similar images are produced and most importantly what effect the SCALE FACTOR has on the new image's side lengths, perimeter, angles and area. These concepts are particularly handy as we use them in our science work around scale sizes & distances within the Earth-Moon-Sun system! The Sun is REALLY big!
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Grade 8 S.T.E.M. - MATH:Winter 2016/17: Models continue to be a tool we are using in both our work in math & science this year. Different ways of showing our thinking, deepening our understanding of complex topics and revising / updating our thinking all can be supported by models. Early winter work in 8th grade was with both linear & inverse variation relationships: writing equations to describe inverse variation; modeling situations with inequalities; and using linear & inverse equations to make predictions & solve problems.
8th graders have most recently been working on "Looking for Pythagoras" (name of our current unit). We have made some recent discoveries about Pythagoras, the theorem that he is credited for finding and how to apply this theorem in different situations. Our explorations leading up to fully understanding the theorem both mathematically & geometrically included skill work in radicals including irrational numbers. Some 8th graders have shown deeper extensions & investments and have mastered the skill of simplifying radicals! Pretty cool stuff! Fall 2016: In 8th grade, we started the year by finishing up some work around 3D geometry - surface area & volumes of prisms, cylinders, spheres & cones! We are now investigating different types of mathematical models which show a variety of patterns & relationships between unknown quantities. Models are a key to both our work in math & science this year. We've experimented with paper bridges, collected data, and created models (equations, graphs, tables, sketches) to review linear relationships and to be introduced to inverse variation.
May 2016: Our transformations unit culminated in a project where students created their own polygon and coordinates. The "original" image was drawn in 1 quadrant of a coordinate grid. From there the image was ROTATED, REFLECTED, and TRANSLATED into the other 3 quadrants.
The past few weeks have been spent reviewing & comparing different types of algebraic relationships: linear, exponential, inverse variation and introducing / exploring with quadratic functions. The final days of math class involve reviewing some basics about statistics & data, with a special emphasis on ways of investigating associations between different sets of BIVARIATE data. The sets of data teams of students have been working with involve cars (soon to be drivers need to start getting familiar with a variety of car data!) Feb. 2016: Growing, growing AND growing oh my! 8th graders continued to hone their skills around recognizing algebraic relationships; in this case the focus was on a specific group of nonlinear relationships: EXPONENTIAL growth and decay! These patterns were examined and investigated through applications involving animal populations, bacteria growth, financial investments as well as medicine levels and radioactive substances. We looked at many different situations to practice recognizing EXPONENTIAL growth/decay versus LINEAR increase/decrease. This was a great opportunity for students to expand their skills around using a graphing calculator; which will serve them well as they continue to get ready for advanced math courses in high school! We've left the algebra focus behind and are now working on deepening our understanding of 2 major geometry concepts: symmetry and transformation.
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CLASS NEWS from earlier in 2015/16 school year:
Grade 7 S.T.E.M. - MATH: 7th graders recently wrapped up a unit on ratios & proportions. This a key unit for middle schoolers as they move forward in their mathematical thinking. Deep understanding of ratios along with writing & solving proportions are both integral to many math AND science topics. We are now focusing our work on understanding & strengthening our fluency with positive & negative integer operations. This work also connects back to the 4-quadrant coordinate plane which is 2 number lines crossing perpendicularly! This work will also review & introduce the basic number properties (i.e. commutative, distributive, associative) all part of the foundation for upcoming units which will increasingly involve more algebraic thinking.
Grade 8 S.T.E.M. - MATH: The 8th grade mathematicians have finally found Pythagoras! Or at least his theorem with a clear understanding of how it derived. They have done lots of hands-on work creating squares, triangles and tilted line segments. They also practiced several types of applications of the theorem and their work in class this year will help them transition to high school geometry & trigonometry. Earlier this fall, we spent several weeks practicing different types of mathematical models which show a variety of patterns & relationships between unknown quantities. We experimented with paper bridges, collected data, and created models (equations, graphs, tables, sketches) to review linear relationships and to be introduced to inverse variation. |
Grade 7 / 8 S.T.E.M. - SCIENCE: The first third of the year has been spent of exploring, applying and writing about the basics of forces, motion and most recently ENERGY! In the past few weeks, both 7th & 8th grade scientists have been learning about what ENERGY is, and practicing with both FORMS of energy and energy TRANSFORMATIONS in small groups at rotating lab stations. We are FINALLY able to move onto some more complex tasks which will be more project-oriented. The first one is about the idea of THERMAL ENERGY TRANSFER. It will involve several rounds of experimentation, collecting evidence, modeling our thinking, observations, collecting more evidence, writing explanations and more! This will culminate in our first official ENGINEERING design challenge. Additionally, on Fridays, the 7th grade has been working on planning a garden "makeover" using their S.T.E.M. skills and ideas. Keith Marshall is leading us in this endeavor. Small committees of 7th graders are working together on different areas of this redesign & improvement task. Soon the 8th grade will be working on designing, developing prototypes and building a complete school garden composting system - so stay tuned!