The 6th Grade begins the year studying natural resources. A class discussion lead to the group setting up an experiment to test the biodegradability of regular plastic utensils and BPA free compostable utensils (thanks for bringing those in, Sophia!). The class designed an experiment, came up with a list of materials, and developed a test procedure (which is extendable to their first SciencEXPO project, too).
We weighed a knife, fork, and spoon of each test material and then buried three sets of each 10 cm deep in the HCA organic garden. Each plot was marked and the location of plastic vs. compostable utensils were also marked. We also used a large plastic bin to bury a control set of each utensil type to keep in our classroom. We decided that every 30, 60, and 90 days would be a good time frame to dig up one set, observe, and weigh each utensil. Then we can compare overall compostability over time. Stay tuned for our results in future blogs!
The 8th Grade continued to become increasing familiar with metric measures and equivalencies to imperial measurements with some math conversions and hands on measurements. The goal is to understand, for example, that a liter of gas in Germany at a cost of $1.33 isn't such a good deal compared to the cost in the US. One US gallon is 3.8 L so they calculated the cost per gallon and compared it to gas pricing here.
5th Grade is continuing to become familiar with terms that we will use in the field at College Settlement at the end of the month. They learned about populations and ecological communities and created a community of distinct populations in Google Classroom using the Google Draw app. Look for their excellent work displayed in the middle school hallway!
7th Grade is working on the characteristics and needs of life as an introduction to their initial work on the cell. They are also doing a fantastic job learning the location of and the difference between, say, the metatarsals and carpals of the human skeleton. They will master all the anatomical names of the major bones of both the axial and appendicular skeleton!
DOING SCIENCE!
