Karin's Reflection Post

I think that I did inprove over these couple of years on Blogger, all though sometimes my blog posts were not as good as they could have been. I think that this class blog was sort of useful because it is quite the same thing as moodle and only people who have been sick usually check it. But sometimes it is helpful for other people who are not in our class to see what we are learning about in science class. I think that this blog could also be used for our parents to see what we did in class and what homework we had. Blogger helped my grammer skills a little bit but not by much. Blogging has helped my commenting by knowing what i should look for in a blog post. The most important thing i learned from blogging is how you can use the most simple thing like a science class and turn in into a learing site on a blog.

Last Week for Simple Machines

This week was the last week that we got to work on our simple machines before we had to start working on the large compound machine. The Cookie Monsters are ahead of the Evil Elves for now but who knows what might happen. The Cookie Monsters now have enough credits but have to finish the whole gears section before they can start the compound machine.

These are some of the simple machines we got to build so far:

This week, as you see, we had the last chance to finish our small simple machines and collect enough credits to move on to the compound machine. The Evil Elves were working on levers but now went on to gears, and The Cookie monsters are currently working on gears.

Ms. D also told us that once we are done with our blog post that we can write our reflection post right away. Here are some things that you should include in your reflection post:

*How do you feel you have improved as a blogger over the past year or two?

*How do you feel blogs contribute to learning for a class in school?
*What else do you think a blog could be used for?
*How has blogging helped your overall writing?
*How has blogging helped your commenting to others about their writing?
*What is the most important thing you have learned from blogging?
**** Don't forget to label your post with your name, Reflection Post, 4th Quarter!****

For our other homework assignments i put a link to moodle at the bottom of my post.. I also found a bunch of videos from eureka. There is a video for the screw and the wheel, the inclined plane, the lever, the pulley.

The Inclined Plane -http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pG_kT565-XQ&feature=BFa&list=PL356D58984641EDC6&index=1

The Lever -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wV1pYkTtsxg&feature=BFa&list=PL356D58984641EDC6&index=2

The Screw and Wheel - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-UXry7OiXM&feature=BFa&list=PL356D58984641EDC6&index=4

The Pulley -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlPWy7qW7oM&feature=BFa&list=PL356D58984641EDC6&index=5

These videos will explain all types of simple machines. There are actually seven types of simple machines, they are the screw, pulley, inclined plane, wheel and axle, lever, gear, and wedges.

Although this week we did not do much in class except for build with knex, we got to have a lot of fun with it. And even though they are called simple machines they can become very complex. like this model of a ferris wheel built from knex:

Even though this ferris wheel looks very complicated it is actually made of two or more simple machines. From just looking at the picture i can already spot one... a wheel and axle that go through the middle of the ferris wheel. So now you know that no matter how complicated a machine may look, it is always made of one or more of the seven simple machines.

The next scribe is... Drum roll... David!!!!

Moodle -

http://zagreb.ceesa.net/course/view.php?id=188

Reflection Post

This quarter for science, I think that I did pretty well for my scribe post. I think that I improved from last quarter but I still think that I could have done better. Some things that I could improve upon for next quarter are things like:

• Color


• Science


• Depth


• Explanaton

Some things that I did well on are things like

• Color


• Explanation


• Pictures


• Links

But I think that I could do better next quarter. Some things I liked about Blogger are that I can read about what we did in class if I was sick, and that I get to let other people see what we did. Some things that I did not like about blogger is that it does not spell check, and it does not come out as you planned sometimes, but other times it works out just fine.

Knex and Quiz

For the past two classes, we did only two things:

• built with Knex
• took a quiz

For the quiz there is not much to explain so let me just get to the Knex building. For the first time we built with Knex, the girls and the boys were separated, we were to only build whatever came to our minds. And that was because we only had about fifteen minutes after the quiz. But later during the next class, Ms. D properly explained the whole project. We were separated into two groups, then we were given the task to came up with a team name. After that was done, we got our own box full of Knex parts.

When that was out of the way, Ms. D explained to us how we were going to build small simple machines to earn points.

The first step was to pick a simple machine off of a list she had given us. Next we were to build that simple machine with Knex parts the way a card showed us. when we finish building the simple machine we need to go to Ms. D and show her the machine. She needs to confirm that the machine is built correctly, and that it works. Then she will ask us a scientific question about that simple machine, If we answer correctly, we gain the number of points the simple machine is worth. We need to build a lot of small simple machines to get enough points to start building the bug multi simple machine knex construction. When the large knex construction is complete it should look something like this:

This is a project that the eighth graders did last year. They also had two teams and built the machine successfully. These are some pictures I found on their blog post.

If you want to read the post about knex last year, here is the link to last years seventh grade blog:

http://aisz70910.blogspot.com/

But on friday, Ms. D left for the CEESA Robotics competition so we had a substitute, Mr. Tim.

http://zagreb.ceesa.net/course/view.php?id=188

The next scibe is... Drum roll... David!!

Karin's Reflection Post

For my first scribe post of the year I got thirteen comments. All of them told me I did a good job but told me how I could improve it. The most commonly used correction was pictures and scientific vocabulary. Also people told me that they liked the color purple and that they liked my picture. Most people liked how I explained formula-plug-chug (the three step method for solving math problems). Though I could have al lot more improvements. Next time I will:

• Use more pictues
• put more links
• hyperlink
• use more scientific vocabulary
• make a longer post
• put definitions
• use videos
• explain what we did in class in more detail.
• put labels the first time

Things I did right:

• I used one color that was easy to read
• I explained formula-plug-chug
• I put a picture
• I put the questions and answers of the homework we had to do for the class
• put a link to moodle for other homework sheet
• I talked about what we did in class

But because I was the first person to do a scribe post I think that I did a pretty good job and next time I can use previous comments from my first scribe post to know what to do and what not to do. What I liked about blogging was that when I was sick I could just go to the blog and figure out what our homework was and what we did in class. I enjoyed Blogger because we got to use pictures and colors and make our scribe post "pretty". Though I enjoyed working on Blogger there are some things that I did not like. What I did not like about Blogger is that we HAD to comment because I would forget many times and have to do it at the last minute. Another thing I did not like about it was that we are being graded on this. I also did not like (as Ben mentioned in his reflection post) that Blogger does not automatically spell chech and capitalize your I's, so I got some points of for that.But next time I KNOW that my scribe post will be better because now I know how I can improve it and make it better.

Speed, Time, and Distance

Today during the short science block we had time to talk about our homework. Our homework was to do all the questions of the paper Ms. D gave us (Speed Practice Problems). We talked about the answers and talked about how we need to use Formula - Plug - Chug and how we always need to write the formula and the units. If you didn't catch the answers here they are, but be sure to write the formula, the plug, and the chug:

1. An opel car travels 736 km in 8 hours. What is the speed of the car at that time? S = 92 kmph
2. If a horse travels 52 m in 3 minutes what is the rate of the horse? S = 17.33 mph
3. A plane flew for 7.95 hours between Chicago and London, if its speed was 812.7 kmph what was its speed? D = 6460.57 km
4. The speed of a lion going for a kill is 12 m/s. How much time will it take the lion to run 37 m? T = 3.08 seconds
5. If a runner can go 3.25 m/s and runs for 2.32 hours during a race, what is the distance covered during the race? D = 27,144 m
6. A balloon travels approximately at the speed of 46.9 kmph. Calculate the time in hours it takes to tracel 26,578.64 m. T = 0.57

If you lost your sheet you can find our home work sheet on moodle on this link:

http://zagreb.ceesa.net/course/view.php?id=188 and on that link you can also find our next homework assignment. Our next homework is to do the other sheet, Speed Problems #2. The first two are easy, the second two to are getting harder and the last two you need to really concentrate. And remember the triangle: For distance multiply speed x time, for speed divide distance/time, and for time divide distance/speed. And remember Formula - plug - chug!

The next scribe is Emilija!