Moving to Google Classroom

By popular demand, most assignments have been moved directly into Google Classroom. Check it out!

Peer Notebook Evaluation

Due Today: Notebook Peer Evaluation

Read over the Inter Active Notebook Scoring Guide on p.5 in  your notebook.

Reflect on your own progress.
Log in to Google Classroom.
Write your reflection on p.92 in your notebook.

When you finish, turn in your notebook to the box and pick out someone else's to grade.

Heredity and Genetics

This month we continued to grow Brassica rapa and study their traits, pollinate their flowers and investigate the probable outcomes using our knowledge of genetics.
We solved many Punnett Squares and calculated probabilities.
Mr. Swaggerty helped us to use genetics to determine how to put together our fuzzy friends, the Fuzzensteins!

Evolution Unit

We have been busily investigating Mendelian Genetics with our Fast Plants, exploring the factors that lead to natural selection, Darwin's Theory, and the multiple lines of evidence that scientists use to determine evolutionary relationships. We have put together some branching diagrams for canines, pandas, and plants, too!

This week we have been exploring the evidence of life on Earth in the past.  Each day in class, we have travelled back in time to explore the fossil evidence of the era and have made illustrated postcards from our "trips."

Fast Plant Data

We are collecting data on our fast plants. Use the form in Google Classroom to describe the traits in your plants!

Photosynthesis & Light

Today we used our red filters to decode the hidden messages in our color coded mosaics.
How is this related to leaves and photosynthesis?

Which frequencies of light are reflected and absorbed by leaves?  How do they capture this energy?  What do they do with it in the process of photosynthesis?

We are modeling the leaf structure and diagramming the flow of molecules and energy through a leaf, explaining the mind-blowing magic of photosynthesis, turning air and water into the molecules that make up all of us!

Plants without Seeds and Plants with Seeds

Last week we examined closely how seedless plants get nutrients and transport them in their tissues to produce energy.  We looked closely at the structures that have helped them to adapt on land after comparing them to ancestral forms of algae. We compared and contrasted mosses and ferns in lab, both of whom use spores for reproduction.  On Friday, we started growing our own seed plants.

This week we are looking at the germinated sprouts and examining what is in a seed!  Bring your curiosity and powers of observation to class daily!