As we move forward into our final week on October/ first week of November, there are a few exciting things on the horizon and a couple of tasks to share with our parents! Key Upcoming Due Dates/ Exams - Tuesday October 31- Biodiversity Exam. A skeleton of the unit notes can be found below. -Wednesday November 1- Biodiversity Website Due. The URL for each website will be posted on this site and we will review them in the coming week. -Thursday November 2- Math Quiz: Linear Relations -Tuesday November 7- Linear Relations Unit Test Space Exploration: It's Out of This World! As you sit there, reading this blog and listening to Space Lord by Monster Magnet (how many of you are going to YouTube that song now?! You should also check out Space Hog's "In the Meantime" while you are at it.), I bet you're thinking: 'I miss Sky Science from grade 6'. Well, have I got a deal for you! This week we are going to be blasting off into our Space Exploration Unit! Starting this week, we will be examining a plethora of articles about space exploration with the purpose of:
Homework Hotel Finally, remember, Homework Hotel is on Wednesday's at lunch and Thursday's after school. Have a question? Want to work in a focused environment? Need some extra practice? Be there!
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We are now finishing off our biodiversity unit and, as such we will be finishing our websites. To the other three pages (if not more), add the following:
Selection and Survival
That's it! If you want to include any other interesting facts, do so! Next WEDNESDAY we will post the URL for all of the sites on this blog so that your peers can share in your understanding and how you have captured the Biodiversity unit! Math UpdateThis past week, we continued to look at linear relations by reviewing graphing on a cartesian plane and then translating equations to graphs and vice versa. This week we will continue to look through this concept though we will take a time out to introduce our investment Strategies Program. In the photos, students are playing linear relation battleship to forge a more solid understanding of how to derive an equation based on a given graph. Additionally, it introduced concepts of vertical and horizontal graphs while reinforcing graphing techniques. Science UpdateWe have worked through to a point in our unit where we are ready to embark on some final concepts before finishing off our Biodiversity unit. In the final section, we will review heredity, look at artificial and natural selection, and investigate biotechnology. Website UpdateFor those new to my class, we have been building a website for Biodiversity since the beginning of the year. We will be working on this on Monday and should have Part 3 up and published by Wednesday. Parents, talk with your children about the website and get them to show you their work. It has been peer edited but will receive a more rigorous treatment in the coming week during humanities.
There will be one additional section added to our website in the next week and then we will be presenting our finished work. Stay tuned to the website for links! For those of you new to our class, we have been working on a website since the start of the unit. This site serves as a repository for the information that we have learned while it also gives us the focus of a local plant or animal. For groupings, we will look at those that are still paired and those students that are now alone. From the list we will regroup students. In section 3 of the website, we will do the following: Please include the following on your site: 1. Chromosomes - This page will address the following:
2. Mitosis and Meiosis
If you missed it or want to ensure that all of the first section is complete, the initial assignment is below... Part 1 of our Website: Select an organism that can be found here in Coventry Hills. With this organism in mind, you and one partner are to brainstorm a testable question that you can ask about the organism. A testable question is the type of question found in professional scientific papers and science fairs. They not only involve an inquiry but also have the potential for the scientist (you!) to conduct an experiment. After choosing a question and/or an organism that can be used to focus on your question, set up your homepage. On your homepage the following are required: 1. The name of your organism and an image. 2. The structural and behavioral adaptations of the organism. 3. The variation that can be found within the species. 4. The food web and habitat that the organism exists in. How important is it to the food chain? What happens if it is removed or if another organism is removed from the environment? 5. How does a high biodiversity benefit your organism? How might a low biodiversity harm your organism (relate this to #4). 6. On the page, include a classification of your organism (Kingdom, phylum, classes, order, genus, species) and a breakdown of how the naming system came to be (hint: investigate Carl Linnaeus). Part 2 of our Website: Heritable traits are characteristics that organisms pass on to their offspring. Thinking of your organism, provide examples of heritable and non-heritable traits and publish them, and the following, in an applicable section of your website. In order to pass on traits, organisms need to reproduce. You need to provide a synopsis of reproduction, in general, before summarizing your organisms reproductive capacity. Within this, you need to: · Describe the different modes of sexual and asexual reproduction. · Identify and interpret examples of asexual and sexual reproduction in different species. · Describe examples of organisms that use both sexual and asexual reproduction. · Compare advantages and disadvantages of asexual and sexual reproduction. Checklist that should be included: Describe Binary Fission Describe Meristems Describe Asexual Spores Describe Budding Describe Bacterial Conjugation Describe Plant/ Animal Sexual Reproduction 6 Drawings/ models/ images for each type of reproduction Two organisms that use both asexual and sexual reproduction One advantage and disadvantage of sexual reproduction One advantage and disadvantage of asexual reproduction
Rational numbers is not finished! For that matter, no unit in math is ever finished as the concepts build upon each other. But, as we move forward in math, we are going to start to look at linear relations and graphing. To start with, this week we are going to look at deriving patterns from data. My son, who is now in grade 4, has looked for patterns for years and we are going to be no different. That said, our patterns will be numeric based and we are going to try and find short cuts to skip pattern numbers.
The file above, on the left, provides extra practice problems as well as some exemplars and skeleton notes. On the right is a copy of our textbook chapter as a reference.
Welcome to October and to new classes! So far this year, despite who your teacher has been, you have covered:
As we move forward this week, we will be looking at genetic traits and heritability. Additionally, we will look at dominance and determine how certain traits can be influenced by the environment.
This guy sounds like he has never ridden a rollercoaster... wait, come to think of it I'VE never ridden a rollercoaster. Do I sound as monotone? Agh, who knows. None the less, this is super straightforward (until 2:45. At 2:45 we start to expand into the Bio 20 realm!) is a good video about DNA. Check it out! While we are at it, this video, by the same exciting dude, is pretty wicked for "What is a Gene". Check it out! Today in math we went over a series of questions aimed to help us recall the steps for the order of operations and attention to detail. Towards the end of class we asked the question: what is the answer to 6/2(1+2)? After coming up with 3 different answers, we were able to eliminate 1 as a response but which is correct, 7 or 9? That's your homework!
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Mr. GordonMath/ Science 9 Archives
June 2019
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