Welcome to the 2015-16 school year! Below are some activities and projects we worked on last year.
Attached is the Science Information Sheet that students were issued on August 22nd.
Attached is the Science Information Sheet that students were issued on August 22nd.
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To start the second trimester of the 2015 year, we have incorporated scientific illustration, funded by OGEP and led by local scientific illustrator Krista Anandakuttan. Visit Krista's website at http://illustratescience.com/
Students were inspired by blossoms from our xeriscape garden. They then added pollinators to their illustrations and colored with pencil. |
Later, students prepared microscopic slides of the pollen from the flowers that they drew and took photos of the microscopic images. Some of the photos are below.
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On 11/17/15 two local chefs
Matt Paille and Gerry Lowe from Epicurean Escape Catering http://www.epicureanescape.com/ came to Willowside to work with students harvesting from our garden and producing two wonderful potato salads and a fall green salad. From this exercise we were able to begin discussion on the "Farm to Table" philosophy. |
SCOE 5 minute film festival March 2015
Students are working on making videos on the theme of growth.
For information on the festival go to scoe.org/film
Two seventh grade groups have placed in the top 15 videos! The students will be given the red carpet treatment at the Roxy in Santa Rosa on March 16th. The videos are linked below:
Bonzu's Invention Adventure
and
Growth Through the Ages
Students are working on making videos on the theme of growth.
For information on the festival go to scoe.org/film
Two seventh grade groups have placed in the top 15 videos! The students will be given the red carpet treatment at the Roxy in Santa Rosa on March 16th. The videos are linked below:
Bonzu's Invention Adventure
and
Growth Through the Ages
Ebola Virus 8/31/14
We bagan our studies with a quick look at viruses. We focused somewhat on the Ebola virus because of the recent outbreak in Western Africa. The video of the right, shows footage of a recent investigation on Ebola in the Congo. Students impressively carried out their own experiments on mealworms as a preliminary activity and training in scientific investigation. We discussed that no matter what the scientific discipline, scientists use the scientific method to answer testable questions. |
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Interdisciplinary Project 3/11/14
Today Eve Lynch a certified herbalist (and supervisor of our after school program), lectured the students on Medicinal Herbs. She discussed some of the most important herbs to our Native tribes, briefly discussed the importance of herbs to the Ancient Egyptians and Greeks and made connections to herbs used in Medieval Times with particular reference to The Midwife's Apprentice, the novel read by the students in Language Arts. We smelled essential oils and made tea bags from organic tea.
The lettuce, carrots, peas, kale, cilantro... are in the ground delicately and excitedly transferred by the students. They have been covered for now to keep the birds at bay. Our rain barrels have been installed. Thanks to the district for funding this part of the project, to Chad from Harmony Farms for his expertise in irrigation systems and Jake from RH and sons for the installation...Now we wait for rain.
Today Eve Lynch a certified herbalist (and supervisor of our after school program), lectured the students on Medicinal Herbs. She discussed some of the most important herbs to our Native tribes, briefly discussed the importance of herbs to the Ancient Egyptians and Greeks and made connections to herbs used in Medieval Times with particular reference to The Midwife's Apprentice, the novel read by the students in Language Arts. We smelled essential oils and made tea bags from organic tea.
The lettuce, carrots, peas, kale, cilantro... are in the ground delicately and excitedly transferred by the students. They have been covered for now to keep the birds at bay. Our rain barrels have been installed. Thanks to the district for funding this part of the project, to Chad from Harmony Farms for his expertise in irrigation systems and Jake from RH and sons for the installation...Now we wait for rain.
Genetics 3/10/14
We continue with our genetics unit by studying the
basics of the structure of the DNA molecule.
We have extracted DNA from wheatgerm
and made paper pet families
and DNA origami.
We have introductory discussion
in some of the advances in genetics
and students debated on the pros
and cons of cloning in different scenarios.
A good website to visit for introductory instruction
on genetics is
http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/
We continue with our genetics unit by studying the
basics of the structure of the DNA molecule.
We have extracted DNA from wheatgerm
and made paper pet families
and DNA origami.
We have introductory discussion
in some of the advances in genetics
and students debated on the pros
and cons of cloning in different scenarios.
A good website to visit for introductory instruction
on genetics is
http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/
Scientific Illustration
with Shannon Abbey 1/30/14
For more pictures go to
http://dgrimalowe.weebly.com/art.html
To learn more about our guest artist go to www.shannonabbey.com
with Shannon Abbey 1/30/14
For more pictures go to
http://dgrimalowe.weebly.com/art.html
To learn more about our guest artist go to www.shannonabbey.com
Fish Tail Circulation 1/24/14
As students were working on assignments showing the pathway of an oxygen and carbon dioxide molecule cycling through a mammal then plant, we were able to see blood cells moving through the blood vessels in a goldfish tail. The students were able to differentiate between arteries, veins and capillaries.
As students were working on assignments showing the pathway of an oxygen and carbon dioxide molecule cycling through a mammal then plant, we were able to see blood cells moving through the blood vessels in a goldfish tail. The students were able to differentiate between arteries, veins and capillaries.
Interdisciplinary Project 1/11/14
We have launched our seventh grade interdisciplinary project. The problem the students will be solving is, "How do we plan, plant and harvest a garden that will benefit the well being of the community and environment?"
In science the students brainstormed "what they would need to know" in order to solve this problem. Among other points that were made such as defining the community and the growing conditions for the plants, we discussed our abnormal weather patterns and the impact this may have on professional farmers. Our discussion lead to some research on rainwater harvesting and water conservation. Go to the Project Based Learning Page for updates.
(Training for teachers was funded by the district and provided by The Buck Institute of Learning).
THE CELL (12/11/13)
We are currently studying the cell and cellular processes. The photos above are of Elodea leaf cells in fresh and salt water at 400x magnification.
RUSSIAN RIVER ESTUARY
Thank you to students, chaperones and staff for your support in making our first two kayaking trips (10/10 and 10/11) fun and informational! We covered everything from paddling a kayak to how the ocean influences the Russian River Estuary.
Check out the Field Trips page for photos from each class.
The trip on 10/14 was wonderful. The students were a mellow group of paddlers that learned the technique of paddling very quickly. The guides were impressed with the students ability to listen on and off the water.
For all three of these trips the mouth of the estuary was closed. This resulted in some unusual conditions including the water level to be too high for us to land on Penny Island. The salmon waiting at the mouth of the river to come upstream to spawn have created some entertaining feeding shows from a Sea Lion just off the beach at Goat Rock. We have been able to get off the kayaks at the very north end of the estuary since there is a beach there where normally there would not be. The water agency was scheduled to breach the mouth of the river yesterday. If this did actually happen today (10/15), conditions will be very different for our trip tomorrow!
ESTUARY STUDIES
As we embark on our studies and field tip of the Russian River Estuary we have been looking into how people might influence food webs. We looked at plastic debris effecting the feeding preferences of albatross and collected trash on campus to look at the impact we may have on this issue. We will set up phytoplankton experiments this week (9/30) and use the following data base and lesson from the university of Miami to introduce us to the excel program and mercury accumulation in sharks.
http://rjd.miami.edu/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Mercury-Data.xlsx
LIGHT
We have begin our unit on LIGHT. Visible light is part of the electromagnetic spectrum and is an important component to the success of life on Earth.
NURSERY
On Tuesday 9/10 students had their first visit to the nursery. Our coordinator Misty Fiddler gave them a tour and a brief introduction into the activities they will be doing.
While the students were with me on Tuesday, (9/10) we went into the nursery and used a camera to capture images of different leaf types. Back in the classroom we then used our images to sketch and identify characteristics of leaves. This activity combined some of what we have learned in our light unit and plant identification.
This Tuesday (9/17) while the students were with me we used another optical tool, a microscope to look at sediment samples I had gathered from the Russian River. The organisms I was most interested in the students seeing were single celled and also had an association with the nursery...what were they?