Monday Class

Last day of the Bottle Design Challenge.

1. Students were assessed on their bottles within small group interactions.

2. Students completed a journal reflection on what their eco-columns would look like 2 weeks from now.

3. Students cleaned-up their projects and work space.

We look forward to beginning our next project, "Bee the Hope" later this week!

Friday Class

Today in science, students had a chance to finalize their revisions from yesterday's bottle eco-column work. We had a chance to go outside to recollect items needed to increase biodiversity in our eco-columns. Monday we will re-assess each of the columns!

Thursday Class

Today in science we accomplished the following:

1. Content Assessment: Here is a link to today's assessment on our ecology content from the Bottle Biology Project. All students will be taking this.

2. Reflection Journal:

3. Revision of Bottles Based on yesterday's feedback and grades...students have the opportunity to improve their prototypes and revise their structure. Tomorrow we will be outside with different tools to collect a more diverse factor set!

Wednesday Class

Today in science we had shorter class periods due to the ACT Explore testing in the morning. Students completed their eco-columns and were graded on their product. Tomorrow we will take a content assessment, assess our collaboration, and reflect on our work.

Monday Class

Today students had a choice:
1. Stay inside to finish the construction of their eco-columns. or...

2. Go Outside and collect organisms to go in their eco-columns.

The Deliverable for this project is a constructed eco-column. Here is a link to the rubric that will be used to grade the products. The Deliverable date set is this WEDNESDAY. 

Friday Class

Today in science was a build day! Students built their bottle eco-columns. Here is a link to the rubric that will be used to grade the products.

On Monday and Tuesday, students will have the opportunity to go outside to a variety of habitats to collect factors for their eco-columns.

The deliverable date for the end product is next Wednesday, September 25.

Thursday Class

In science today...

1. We started class with a whole class formative activity on species, populations, communities, and ecosystems.

2. Students finished the road maps. Here is the link to the road map!

3. Students Entered the Brainstorm process of the project.

4. Students received feedback in the form of "I Likes" and "I Wonders" on their design sketches.

*Students will need to bring in their bottles (2 liter pop bottles the best) tomorrow so they can start to construct.

Check out the amazing inspiration wall students put together in making sense of what they gathered!

Wednesday Class

Today in science we look at finishing our gathering phase of the project. Students continue to use the road map to gather their need to knows.

Here is the link to the road map!

In finding focus and organizing their collection, students are creating a inspiration wall that highlights the differences between species, populations, communities, and ecosystems.

Finally, some groups are getting to the brainstorm stage of developing sketches of their potential eco-columns. We are instructing students to bring in 2 liter bottles tomorrow and Friday to construct their eco-column. We are looking at Monday as organism collection day to fill our bottles...although that may change as we move forward. 

Take a look at todays double rainbow outside our classroom!

Monday and Tuesday Class

In science we continue to focus on gathering our need to knows for the design challenge: Design a bottle eco-column that highlights the components of an ecosystem.

In gathering the need to knows...students complete a road map of teacher structured activities and resources.
Here is the link to the road map!

Thursday Class

Today in science we enter the "Gather Our Need To Know" stage of the design process. Using the need to know's students developed yesterday, we developed a "Road Map" for students to use to gather answers.

Here is the link to the road map!

Wednesday Class

Today we introduced our first design challenge of the year!

Design a bottle eco-column that highlights the components of an ecosystem. 

After we introduced the challenge we did a number of things:

1. Developed our Need To Know List
2. Developed Groups and established core group values.
3. Handed out Journals and submitted journal entry: " What can I bring to my team to make this project successful?

Tuesday Class

Today in science we kicked off our first project of the year. This project is based around some general ecological concepts. Tomorrow we will introduce the design challenge. However, we first held a "entry event" today to get everyone thinking about how things interact in nature...we did this by doing a ecological scavenger hunt!

Monday Class

First of all...Welcome to a new group of 7th grade science students!!!!

Here is a link to today's pre-assessment.

Today we do three things:

1. Talk with Mr. Kramer and Mr. Frens
2. Pre-Assessment
3. Resource Tools Search