Grades 6, 7, and 8 are deep into their ScienceEXPO projects and have been busy testing hypotheses to gather data at school, at home, and in the field. ScienceEXPO 2019 begins at HCA on Wednesday, February 6th and concludes on Parent Visitation Day on Friday, February 8th. Students will be in front of their posters and ready to discuss their projects with visitors from 8:15 to 8:55 AM on the 8th so please come and support our student scientists!
The 8th grade is studying the Periodic Table of Elements and learning how to use it as a tool. Instead of memorizing the first 20 or so elements, they can, for instance, use the family name and period to determine an element's relative atomic size or how many valence electrons an element will have. They conducted a lab to see how different compounds with elements of the same family behave similarly and, conversely, how they contrast in precipitate formation with elements of different families.
Grade 7 is investigating chromosomal structure, genes, and DNA as a build-up to their study of cell division. They will use this to better understand mitosis and meiosis. Part of the DNA study included building a simple model of DNA nucleotides, matching adenine with thymine and cytosine with guanine along a sugar-phosphate backbone. It is proudly displayed in the Science hallway! Next up will be the isolation and extraction of DNA from strawberries in the lab.
Grade 6 has been continuing their work on the four Earth systems and have been reinforcing their knowledge of maps, latitude, and longitude. I think its a pretty good bet that any 6th grader doesn't need GPS to find their location anywhere on a map since they know how to plot the coordinates of their location! They also investigated Buckminster Fuller's unusual Dymaxion maps. They built replicas and pieced the round Earth onto a flat plane, helping them better understand why it is difficult to map our sphere as a flat map.
Grade 6 also did a wonderful job performing their One Act play about the Lost Boys first encounter with Wendy in Peter Pan. Their next performance will be on Friday, February 8, 2019 during Parent Visitation Day!
Grade 5 studied watersheds and their importance locally, nationally, and globally. They modelled watersheds and demonstrated how water moves between ridges into localized areas. They also modelled how smaller watersheds combine to form larger and larger watersheds.
Grade 5 has recently started their research project on the six major terrestrial biomes of the Earth. They will use their research to make infographics about the characteristics of each then build a representative model of their biomes that will be on display near the elevator on the Middle School floor through Parent Visitation day. Be sure to check out their collaborative and creative efforts!
