Thursday Class

Fail Early...Fail Often...

Good montra today as many groups revised original focus because it became clear they were down a wrong path... Good opportunity to learn!

Today we entered the brainstorm phase of the project as students were challenged to begin the process of idea generation.

Wednesday Class

Students did three things today in science:

1. Students posted/displayed their "stakeholder" profiles on our inspiration wall.

2. Students formed teams to complete the "Bee the Hope" project.

3. Students found focus for their project moving forward.

• Students decided on a stakeholder to focus on.
• Students decided on 3-5 insights to connect their stakeholder to. 
• Students developed "how might we..." or "what if..." statements that will be the root of their idea brainstorm session tomorrow.

Next Up:

Thursday: Brainstorm

Friday: Make Apple Cider

Monday: First Prototypes

Monday Class

Today in science:

Insights From Research and Reading

• Due: End of Class Monday (Today)
• Each partner must submit their edited insight developed last week.
• When possible, try to include some science terms such as: mutualism, symbiosis, interdependence, ecosystem, population, community, species, relationships.
• Remember the rules posted on our blog last week!

Profile of A Stakeholder in the current Bee Problem

• Due: Beginning of Class Wednesday (October 30, 2013)
• Each group must construct TWO profiles of potential stakeholders they want to target a solution for. Ultimately, you will select one in the end and in fact may choose another stakeholder that you didn’t plan for.
• Use the following procedure to guide this work:

1. Use the list developed in Social Studies class to guide your decision. Pick the two you want to focus on.
2. Research how these “stakeholders” interact and hold a relationship with the honey bee. Focus on the following:
1. How might they depend on honey bees and how do honey bees depend on them?
2. How might this stakeholder help preserve the honey bee’s existence?
3. How does this stakeholder feel about the current honey bee problem?
4. How sustainable is their “business” if the honey bee population continues to go down?
3. Using a regular size paper, create a “profile” visual combining visual sketches and words to communicate the background of this “stakeholder”.
4. Post this “profile” on the front wall.

We are entering a period in the project where students will need to access a variety of resources... We have started a resource page with links to various websites.

Wednesday Class

Today in science we:
1. Discussed symbiosis, mutualism, and parasitism. We did this by using a mixture of video clips and photos. Below you will find embedded resources.

2. Created insights based on the themes we collected yesterday in our saturate and group activity. These insights will provide the foundation for our brainstorms and product creation.

Tuesday Class

Today in science students finished their story share and capture of the articles they read on the honey bee issue. This process follows a protocol in which students take the article they were assigned and share information in the form of a story to their group members who did not read that article. Those members listen and take down information on sticky notes. These sticky notes are organized into themes which help identify insights into the problem.

Students handed in their "Reading Synthesis Quads" for this activity.


 We have 6 articles that each team needs to read. Each person is responsible for reading 2 articles...therefore each team needs to make sure all 6 articles are covered. We are expecting a text marking strategy to be used in reading and all articles will end with a synthesis quad. These articles are used to gather our "need to knows". Please click here to access our need to know list!

Here are the electronic versions of the articles: 

1. National Geographic Article (The Plight of the Honeybee)
2. Time Magazine Article 
3. NBC Article ("Declining honeybees a threat to food supply)
4. Ethiopia: Bees make honey money
5. Honeybee Mystery (Kids National Geographic)
6. The Honey Hunters of Nepal

Monday Class 10/21

Today we are collecting surveys!  Thank you to all who participated.  We appreciate the feedback.  We are constantly looking for ways to improve what we do here.

In science today we took student individual feedback as well as continued looking at how bees live, function, and survive.

Friday Class

We have done a great job sharing information with one another based upon articles we covered this week about relationships in ecosystems regarding bees.  Students are doing a great job of comprehending informational text.

We are in a time that we want to reflect on our science class and what we can improve.  We have already thought of a few ideas to make the experience better for kids here at school.  Today we are sending home a short survey for you to fill it out.  Please have your child bring it back to school and slip it into the box in the science room on Monday!

Here is a link to the survey if you would like to see it:

Survey Link

Monday Class

Welcome back after a great weekend!

Today in science we recapped the interviews and presentations from last Friday by the Blueberry Farm and Beekeeper. We did this by using a story share and capture method in which students shared insights that captured their attention. This information was used to create a group and saturate wall. This is a very big part in trying to make sense and find focus on this problem.

Thursday Class

Today in science we did not see everyone because of MEAP... Those classes we did have finished the reading that we started a couple days ago:

 We have 6 articles that each team needs to read. Each person is responsible for reading 2 articles...therefore each team needs to make sure all 6 articles are covered. We are expecting a text marking strategy to be used in reading and all articles will end with a synthesis quad. These articles are used to gather our "need to knows". Please click here to access our need to know list!

Here are the electronic versions of the articles: 

1. National Geographic Article (The Plight of the Honeybee)
2. Time Magazine Article 
3. NBC Article ("Declining honeybees a threat to food supply)
4. Ethiopia: Bees make honey money
5. Honeybee Mystery (Kids National Geographic)
6. The Honey Hunters of Nepal

Check out our highlight documentary of our Bottle Project '13! 

Wednesday Class

Today in science class we continue to work on our challenge: Design a sustainable solution that ensures a healthy bee population in West Michigan for years to come.

In the shortened class period due to MEAP, we did the following:

1. Discussed our need to know list.

2. Developed interview questions for our guest speakers on Friday.

3. Developed an empathy map to record information on Friday.

See the previous blog post for information that Mr. Wandel and Mrs. Fuzak did in the social studies portion.

Citation Practice II

Take it to the next level!  Here is another chance to practice this skill you will use for life!

Citation Practice II

Tuesday Class

A reminder....this project is a joint effort between science and social studies!

Yesterday, Mrs Striegle and Mr. Malefyt teamed in science to work on a text marking reading strategy that ended in the completion of a Synthesis Quad. 

Today: We have 6 articles that each team needs to read. Each person is responsible for reading 2 articles...therefore each team needs to make sure all 6 articles are covered. We are expecting a text marking strategy to be used in reading and all articles will end with a synthesis quad. These articles are used to gather our "need to knows". Please click here to access our need to know list!

Here are the electronic versions of the articles: (Watch throughout the day for these to be loaded in)

1. National Geographic Article (The Plight of the Honeybee)
2. Time Magazine Article 
3. NBC Article ("Declining honeybees a threat to food supply)
4. Ethiopia: Bees make honey money
5. Honeybee Mystery (Kids National Geographic)
6. The Honey Hunters of Nepal

Monday Class

Today we are focusing on technical reading and writing as a way to gather information for projects.  The following links will support the learning for today:

Citation Guide

Friday Class

Design Challenge: Design a sustainable solution that ensures a healthy bee population in West Michigan for years to come.

Today we developed our need to knows for the gathering stage. This took most of the day...

We were able to build in some group team building as we have different groups for this project!

Enjoy the weekend!!!!

Thursday Class

Today we begin with a assessment opportunity from the bottle eco-column content.

• 6th Hour Students Click Here

• 7th  Hour Students Click Here

Then we watched the following short video as an entry event into our bee project.



Finally, we handed out the project flyer... this was taken from our website page.

Wednesday Class

Today in science we:

1. Finished yesterday's activity.

2. We held a writers seminar based on our science journals. We recently graded the journals and the quality was not very good. We had a good discussion with examples shown.

3. We did a visualization activity that was a entry event into our bee project that we will introduce tomorrow.

Tuesday Class

Today in science we take a break from project work as we find ourselves in between projects.

Today we complete an activity called, "Wolf Survival is Just A Roll Away". Click here to access that activity.

When students are finished, they are to create a drawing that represents the story of their two wolf packs...no words can be used.

Here are the rules in google presentation format: