Welcome to Our Science Blog!

We exercised our anger at the unfair body proportions Barbie has been championing for 50 odd years today by tying Barbie’s feet together and attaching some rubber bands and throwing her off a two-meter high platform!  Most of the Barbies sustained only minor injuries, but a few suffered decapitation.  Luckily, I was there with my tape to bring them back to life.

Here are Jacob, Amanda, and Hunter just after releasing Barbie.  You can see the blur of Barbie as she falls.  Amazingly enough, Jacob is NOT standing on a chair.  he he he

Here are Shane and Kimberlie getting ready to release Barbie for a jump.

Zoe and Krystal gently setting Barbie on the platform before making her plunge to almost certain death!

Jay playing with experimenting on Barbie.  I told him to stop fixing her hair, but he kept saying that he was almost finished…  Poor Nanette just wants to get on with the lab.

And finally, here are Dominique, Shelby, and Andy having WAAAY too much fun with their barbie.  Their smiles are all a mile wide!

We will be computing our data on Friday and Monday we can throw our Barbies off of the 4 meter balcony in the cafeteria.  The group that gets their Barbie closest to the ground without killing her wins!

Our little fly families have been reproducing like mad and we have maggots in our fly colonies now.  They are very cute and tiny and will grow much bigger over the next few days. 

Congratulations guys!  Today you became fly parents.  Our flies are handsome and beautiful.  Each group got 2 girls and 2 boys for their breeding stock.  By Tuesday, we should be seeing small maggots, or larvae, in our vials. 

Today, we had our flies put to sleep with Fly chloroform so we could transfer them to the group vials we have ready.   Since they were so conveniently asleep, we looked at them through the microscopes to see extreme close up views of them. 

Here’s a picture taken by Jarred through the microscope with his (ahem) cell phone.  It’s a female since you can see stripes on the abdomen all the way to the end.  This fly has the dominant red-eye phenotype.

We set up the giant star lab in my classroom Monday and spent a day exploring stars and constellations.  Mrs. Adams and Mrs. Parra’s classes got to go on Monday, while we went on Tuesday.  It was awesome! 

Students learned about their astrological signs and why someone is labeled a “pisces” or a “libra”.  This was a fun addition to the 8th grade mythology unit they did in English classes this year!

Also, I showed how to find the North Star and what importance those tropics of Cancer and Capricorn have.  This is a great way to figure out exactly where the Earth is in relation to the universe!  AND we got to sit on the floor!!!

We’ve been taking a marathon benchmark test for the last two days, but we’re finally finished.  Sigh…  Anyway, on to the fun!  Today I gave the Pre AP classes a nice little Oompah Loompah genetics page to review a bit of genetics before we move on to our Fruit Fly lab.  Students who aren’t finished with their test will have time to finish tomorrow as well, so no worries!

Today we reviewed weathering and erosion really quickly.  It’s a review of things you guys learned in 6th grade, so it shouldn’t be too hard to bring it back to the front of your brain!  Here on the notes, Weathering and Erosion Notes, and here is the lab, Erosion and Weathering Lab. 

In class today we recreated the rock cycle using Crayon “rocks” to weather and erode and deposit and compact and apply heat and pressure and melt! 

We had a good time.  In some class periods, a little too much fun was had and we had to break out the giant fan to evacuate the smoke from the room.  he he he.  I had 17 visitors poke their heads in the door and ask if we were all right in there.  I had to tell them that science is smelly and smoky sometimes. 

We ended up with crayon igneous rocks at the end that the students get to keep.  This is a fun lab.  Make up for this lab will include some book work.  Yea!

First Place: 

Jordan L, Tommi J, Matt Z, and Devan A in 5th period. 

They got 7 of 9 correct.  That is outstanding!!!

Second Place (tie):

Ashley R, Hunter B, Jacob P, and Amanda R in 1st Period. 

Jamika A, Morgan F, James E, and Austin R in 6th Period. 

They both got 6 of 9 correct!

Third Place (tie): 

Anthony S, Nanette J, and Justin G in 4th Period.

Roel G, Candice N, Mark G, and Ashlyn D in 3rd Period.

Lauren G, Brenna B, and Angel C in 3rd Period.

They got 5 of 9 correct!

In 2nd Period, the results are:

First Place:  Ariana N  Whoo hoo!!!!

Second Place:  Sunshine C

Third Place:  Teffany M and Tasha G

Well, oops.  I learned something today.  Due to budget and chemical availability, I tried to reuse some phenyl salicylate this year even though it is waaaaay out of date and has been made into crystals before.  Poor First period watched longingly for something–anything to happen.  The promised crystals simply congealed into a glue-like sludge instead.  Sigh…

So, quick thinking and desperation led us to watch a couple of Brain Pop movies on the subject of crystals and look at a box of igneous rock samples to see real crystals! 

I shall break down and go buy some better phenyl salicylate so we can do the real lab later this year!  Sorry Guys!!

We’ve been testing minerals for all kinds of properties for the last two days.  When the tests were done, we used a key to figure out what the name of our mystery sample was.  I got some prizes for the groups who were able to identify the most samples correctly today! 

Each person was responsible for at least two samples, and there were 9 total.  If you were absent either day, I will grade what you did on the day you were here.  If you were absent both days, I’ve got a make up assignment for you here:

Mineral ID Lab Make Up   you’ll need the two keys below to complete this

Metallic Key      and      Non Metallic Key

I’ll be posting the winners and the class averages tomorrow, so keep watch for these results!