Tuesday, May 30th's Class

Hello Everyone!!!

On Tuesday, everything started out with every student saying what was most creative in their Cell Project, and why they used it. These were later handed to Ms.D for grading. Also, there were many things that were due on Tuesday. First, we had to do the last blog comment of the year. Then, there was also a Reflection Post that was due. Here are the directions to the past homework. Later, we discussed the many things that will be happening this week. First, there will be a Cell and Microscope Quiz Friday for all of the seventh graders. Remember, this is the last big grade of the quarter (along with blogging), so study hard!! The picture above shows a plant cell with all its parts, so it might help to study! Here is a fun link that helps you review the different parts of a cell! Basically, what we have to study is the following:

• The different Organelles of a Plant and Animal cell


• 
  
  Microscope Parts- Here are my notes for the Microscope parts:

• 
  
  Magnifies small objects so humans can see them better.


• 
  
  Types of microscopes- simple, compound, electron and light.


• 
  
  Simple- only 1 lens to magnify objects,


• 
  
  Compound- 2 or more lenses used to magnify,


• 
  
  Light- magnifies as far back as cells! Refracting light.


• 
  
  Electron- magnify from electron level, amazing resolution.


• 
  
  SER (scanning electron microscope)- outer of organisms,


• 
  
  TEM (tunneling electron microscope)- inside of organisms.

This is a picture of an Animal Cell!

Here is a Video that might help you revise for cells!!

We also have to study the organization of everything. Here it is!

Strings(?)- quarks (6)- protons, electrons, and neutrons- atoms- molecules- elements- compunds or mixtures- DNA (Deoxy-Ribonucleic Acid)- cells- tissues- organs- systems- organisms- species- Genus- Family- Order- class- Phyllum- kindoms(6)- Biomes- Planets- galaxies- cluster of galaxies- Universe- ?

Basically, it is how everything in the universe is classified, from smallest to greatest. The question mark on the string is because scientists are not sure if there actually are the strings. Also, the one after the Universe is because no one knows if there is something bigger yet.
Later in the class, we started talking about our Cell Lab. Ms.D gave us the worksheets and we continued started working. The partners were the same we had had for our practice Lab, or numbers 7 on our appointment clock.

Here are some pictures of the people that worked together!

Courtney (and me)!

Tamara and Ghazaleh!

Karin and Maria Chiara!

Eric and Dave!

Valentina and Emilija!

Finally, our homework is to STUDY!!!!!!! Study as hard as you can, because, as I already said, the test will be the last final grade of the quarter!!

Here is a link to Moodle!

I hope you all enjoyed my post!!!

Oh, and I almost forgot.....The next scribe is........amazing, humongous final drum roll of the year..... JAKUB!!!

Davide's Reflection post

Davide's Reflection Post

Hey Everyone!!!!

I feel that I have improved in different ways as a blogger over the

past two years, since I learned many things. At the start of blogging, even this year, I was nervous, since I wasn't sure how my blog comments and posts would be. Though, as I continuously commented and posted to the blog, I felt more secure. I learned how to hyperlink, add pictures, make my text funner to read, and putting a day's work in a brief explanation. I got better at commenting, with more complete and logic comments. I feel that almost every class in school should have a blog, since, even though it is a lot of work, it is mostly fun, and it helps both the scriber and a classmate reading it remember what happened during the day. I feel that blogs contribute a lot to learning a class for school, since they refresh everyone's memory. I think that a blog could also be used for even something simple and basic, like sharing ideas about life or about some specific sports or activities. Blogs help anyone feel involved in something they like without taking parts or being aggressive. I think that blogging has helped my overall writing, since, after I write a post or comment, and I spell-check it, I don't have a

s many mistakes. Also, it has helped get used to writing more and reflecting about what happened in class. Blogging also helped me a lot in commenting on others about their writing. Having to do comments, I got used to analyzing their text and looking at the different pros and cons that it contained. This also helped me outside of blogging. In fact, I am now definitely more able to analyze and evaluate a text than before blogging. The most important thing I learned about blogging is that revising things when you come home helps with school work, and that commenting, even though sometimes stressful, can be a whole lot of fun, as can posting. Overall, I really enjoyed blogging, and I hope to do it again next year!!

Davide's Reflection Post

My post for the third quarter had many pros and cons. These are mostly found in all of the comments the 7th and 8th graders made to me. I found all of the comments very helpful, since they helped me understand my mistakes and gave me an idea on how to make a better post next quarter. Some good things I did were:

• Good font
• Good color
• Showed emotions (excitement)
• Good hyperlink
• Gave the notes we took in class
• Good spelling/Grammar
• Defined key terms

Some things that I could improve for next time are:

• More pictures
• More links
• Put a caption for the pictures
• Add new information
• Made my post less confusing (organization, explained the notes)
• Included examples for the math problems
• Change the color of a hyperlinked word, so that people can see it
• Bigger title
• Resolve the problems with my computer (word and sentences cut off in the middle, color working)

Overall, I thought that posting was OK, since we had the pressure of it being graded. It was fun because we got to express our ideas and write about what happened in class. It was helpful when I was sick, and I am sure it helped when anyone couldn't attend the class. It wasn't as fun though, since we had to keep an eye out for the rubric and for spelling/grammar mistakes. Instead, I found commenting on other people's posts really fun! It is good to see what other people think about your post. It is also fun to let everyone know what YOU think, and since I tried to comment on everyone's post, it made it even funner! I like blogger and think it is a great way to express ideas and show what you learned. Overall, I liked posting and really enjoyed commenting!

Thursday's and Friday's classes

Hey there everyone!

Thursday and Friday were very busy classes for the seventh grade. Since Ms.D was sick on Thursday, we had a substitute teacher called Ms.Erfle. She checked our homework, which was the Work & Power Math Sheet. You can find it here. We had to use the Formula-Plug-Chug method to solve the sheet. Here are the answers to the worksheet!

1. 794.97 J (Joules)

2. 20.60 N (Newtons)

3. o.43 m (meters)

4. 20.13 W (Watts)

5. 20 s (seconds)

6. 7491 J (Joules)

For seven and eight, there were two parts to the problem, labeled "a" and "b".

7a. 129.75 J (Joules)

7b. 54.06 W (Watts)

8a. 43.2 m (meters)

8b. 589.88 W (Watts)

Later on, we did the Work and Power Math 2 worksheet. Here are the answers to this second sheet!-

1. 411.84 J (Joules)

2. 37.24 N (Newtons)

3. 5.48 m (meters)

4. 13.87W (Watts)

5. 6.14 s (seconds)

6. 7,222.50 J (Joules)

Again, for numbers seven and eight, there were two parts to the problem, labeled "a" and "b".

7a. 472.50 J (Joules)

7b. 89.15 W (Watts)

8a. 55.46 m (meters)

8b. 133.25 W (Watts)

Moving on, we started to take notes, define key terms, and answer analyzing data for pages 114-119. Since we didn't have enough time to finish this, Ms.Erfle gave it as homework for Friday. Lastly on Thursday, we started watching a video by BBC Life that talked about how animals live around the world and what they do. You can find the video here. Unfortunately, we didn't get to watch all of it, since class finished. As a reminder to everyone, our Science Superhero projects were due on Friday.

Friday's Class

On Firday, Ms.D was back! Firstly, we showed Ms.D our homework, which was, 
as I said before, to take notes on pages 114-119. Then, we talked about our Science 
Superhero projects, since most, if not all, of the class had problems with them and didn't 
understand what they were doing, Ms.D gave us until Tuesday, March 8th, to re-do 
them and correct them.

Things to know about Science Superheroes are:

• First part, CREATIVE WRITING!!! NO SCIENCE!!
• Footnotes- at the end of the paper, SCIENCE!!!

After having discussed and understood our Science Superhero Projects, 
we looked at our homework. Here are the notes we took:

Machine- a device that allows you to do work in a way that it is easier.

Input Force- the force that you exert on the machine (done by person).

Output Force- the force the machine exerts on an object (done by machine).

Input Work- input force times input distance.

Output Work- output force times output distance.

Mechanical Advantage- output force/input force.

Efficency- the efficency of a machine compares the output work to the input work; 
calculated as a percentage (%).

A machine makes work easier by changing at least one of three factors. A machine 
may change the amount of force you exert, the distance over which you exert a 
force, or the direction in which you exert a force.

Output Force/Input Force=1- changed direction.

Output Force/Input Force= greater than 1- increased the amount of force.

Output Force/Input Force= smaller than 1- direction changed.

Here are the answers to the Analyzing Data-

1. Input force (N) - independent variable.
2. 400 N (Newtons) of output force.
3. Ramp 1= 10, Ramp 2= 5, and Ramp 3= 2. (Ramp 3 has the greatest MA)
4. The slope shows how much a machine can do with an amount of input force. 

Strangely enough, for the input and output forces, you do NOT have to put a unit!

After taking notes, we started on a new subject...drum roll...SIMPLE MACHINES!
We only started out,so we only discussed the seven different types of simple machines.

They are: pulley, ramp, lever, wheel & axel, screw, wedge, and gear.

We are going to make a presentation (powerpoint, poster, prezi etc.) in groups of 
two, on a different type of simple machine for every group. As a reminder, our partners 
are numbers 5 in our appointment clock. 

Our homework for Tuesday is to finish our Science Superhero Projects!

AND THE NEXT SCRIBE IS......EVEN COOLER MUSIC.....JAKUB!!!!

Davide's Reflection Post

Hi everyone,

According to me, blogging was fun, even though it sometimes put a lot of pressure on me since it was graded. I found it very helpful to use when I was sick, and found that commenting on other people's post is a lot of fun! I found out that even receiving comments is very helpful. For example, when I first published by Scribe Post, I made many mistakes, which I corrected thanks to all of the comments that 7^th and 8^th graders wrote. Here are the suggestions and compliments that I received:

Things I should improve:

• Put labels
• Put more pictures
• Put more color
• Put the title
• Better spelling
• Focus a bit more on the questions that we have for homework
• Re-check it before posting it
• Find a better YouTube link

Things I did well (once I corrected it):

• Good pictures
• Good link
• Good color
• Explaining the pictures
• Covered what we did in class

Thanks to all of you that commented on my post. Without those comments, I couldn’t have improved it! Doing a post can be fun, because you get to think about what you did in your class, and write it down for other people to see. Though, it can be a problem, since sometimes you either have a „blackout“, where you don't remember anything, or you are too stressed out. Overall, though, I found blogging a good exercise to remember what we did in class. I am excited about doing it again next quarter! I will try to do all of the suggestions that 7^th and 8^th graders told me, and I hope my post will be better and more interesting to read next quarter! J

Ping Pong, Tennis, and Soccer ball Lab

Tuesday, December 7th's Class

Hey everyone! In class on Tuesday, we started out by checking our previous homework, which was to graph the data for the Ping Pong, Tennis, and Soccer ball Lab! This consisted in drawing either one or three graphs with the data of the lab. After having Ms.D check our homework, we discussed on how to draw a curve line on our graph. These lines helped us to find out the outliers (outliers: points on a graph that have nothing to do with the other ones, and are proved wrong) . Here is a possible example of an outlier:

This graph is showing how fast some boys were running for 3200 meters. As you can see, there is a red line in the middle, which shows the average speed and the average time. All of the dots that are far from the line, are examples of outliers! Notice that some are on top of the line and some are under, showing how some boys took more time to travel the distance than others.

This is a picture of a dotted graph which is similar to the ones that we were working on in class. Even though this graph has the dots connected, we haven't connected them yet.

During the continuation of the class, Ms.D gave us our quizzes back, which we saw, but couldn't keep, since Tamara, Vale and Chiara haven't done them yet. Once we saw our grade, Ms.D gave us the rest of the class to finish the lab.

Here are the questions we worked on:

1) What was your speed for the ping pong ball? tennis ball? soccer ball?

2) What was the speed of the person behind you (down the hill) for the ping pong ball? tennis ball? soccer ball?

3) What was the speed of the person in front of you (up the hill) for the ping pong ball? tennis ball? soccer ball?

4) What is happening on your graph? Please use scientific vocabulary to explain this in a paragraph (5 sentences min)

5) If the hill went down and then back up and we rolled a soccer ball along the entire thing, what you expect the graph to look like and why?

6) What are some of the possible errors in this lab? (4 minimum)

6) In one sentence, explain the main concept of acceleration.

7) In one sentence, explain the difference between acceleration and deceleration.

Here is the link to moodle if you want to print the sheet out:http://zagreb.ceesa.net/course/view.php?id=188

Here is an interesting website that explains what time is: http://www.historyforkids.org/scienceforkids/physics/time/

Here is a video talking about best fit lines and scatter plots...can you identify some outliers in the graphs this man is drawing?? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1uKiZpkl9A&feature=related

Homework:

Our only homework for Thursday is to finish the lab. REMEMBER to do your fourth blog comment for Friday, and 7th graders,keep in mind that by the end of the quarter, you will need to have made four comments to our class, and three comments to the 8th grade blog!!

The next Scribe is......drum roll......Tamara!!!!