Welcome back from a well deserved December break! (minus two days last week of course) When a new year comes around, it's always a good time to step-back & reflect. Each person in this room should be celebrated - the past year has brought victories & accomplishments to you. They may be big victories that you have a lot of pride in, but they may also be small victories that seem insignificant. Either way, these moments of courage, hard work, patience, and/or understanding have helped shape you into who you are right now. You've also struggled this year. Whether these struggles were really difficult times or were minor setbacks, you've found a way to push through and you're here today. These struggles have also shaped you into who you are right now. A "struggle" is really just the difficult moments before freedom - with persistence & help you can overcome these struggles now and in the future. Now that it's a new year, you have a fresh start - What are you now aiming for? How are you going to see it through? This week, we'll be ending the Astronomy unit as we finish collecting data on the Earth Seasons Lab. Then we will begin our next major unit on Weather & Climate - very exciting times...with a new weather station on the roof of DMS and developments about climate change everyday, we are bound to make connections & discoveries others haven't. Stay curious & keep looking for answers! -Mr. Bowles Business: 1. Tides & Moon Phases Quiz retakes this week ONLY - schedule a time with me 2. Eclipses & Seasons Flashcards due Wednesday 3. Earth Seasons Lab due Wednesday (in Google Classroom) After school help available Monday, Thursday, & Friday. (before school help upon request) Don't know how it happened so fast, but it's our last week before December break! Last week, we looked at the difference between a solar and lunar eclipse - figuring out where the moon needs to be in relation to Earth to create either type. The Sun is the only source of light in the solar system - so if the moon casts a shadow on us, then the sky goes dark in the middle of the day and the stars come out. On April 8th, 2024 this will happen during a total solar eclipse which will start down in Texas then head northeast to cross New England. The next time a total solar eclipse passes over this area, you'll be 65 years old (& I'll be almost 100!), so seize the day! Where do you want to be during the 2024 total solar eclipse to get the full experience? We will also be taking the time to figure out what causes the four seasons. After completing some research, you'll be creating your own lab to recreate the seasons. The point of this is to collect data from the lab as evidence that the seasons actually occur for specific reasons. If you have not taken last week's Gravity, Tides, & Moon Phases Quiz (3 bars), please arrange a time with me outside of class to complete it. These quizzes will be graded and in PowerSchool this week (corrections are a possibility to raise your grade - more details to come). After school help is available Tuesday & Thursday this week (before school help available upon prior request). Stay curious & keep looking for answers! -Mr. Bowles On Friday, we ended the week by comparing a partial lunar eclipse with the first quarter moon phase. They both look the same from Earth - the right half of the moon is bright, the left is dark - but they happen for different reasons. It was your group's job to use the Sun, Earth, & Moon provided to try to figure out why they look the same. This week we'll be looking for similarities & differences between each other's idea, then try to come up with a common model to explain why using your ideas.
On Wednesday there will be a 3 bar quiz on Gravity, Tides, & Moon Phases. This quiz will include everything from the gravity flashcards and the current flashcards on ocean tides & moon phases. Your Tides & Moon Phases Flashcards are due the day of the quiz. Don't forget, using the study strategies I provided to you in the beginning of the year will help you be more efficient with the time you have left before the quiz. Put the time in, use the strategies, & you'll see the benefits. There's 1/2 day on Thursday, during which only blocks 4-7 will be seen. I will be out on both Thursday & Friday for Sources of Strength training. Stay curious & keep looking for answers! -Mr. Bowles Hope you all enjoyed break and got some time to relax. Incredibly, a third of the school year will be over this Wednesday, meaning that the first trimester will be closing that day. There's still some time to complete any missing work or resubmit work with a low grade. If you're willing to put in the work, then I'm willing to raise your grade. Remember that this first trimester is 33% of your total grade for the year - this grade can help or hurt you as we progress through the year. You will also be completing a self-assessment for the end of the trimester based on attendance, positive contributions, & organization, which will help determine 10% of your total grade. See me with any questions. This week you'll be receiving the peer feedback on your tides & moon phases animations and be updating your Thinglink & Google Site with the work you completed last week. This peer feedback is anonymous, so will likely be more honest & critical of your work - a close (not necessarily negative) analysis of your animation. It will be important to use this feedback when reflecting on this assignment. As we near the end of the Astronomy unit, we will be doing labs & creating models to figure out how eclipses & seasons actually happen. After school help is available Monday, Thursday & Friday this week (morning hours upon request). Stay curious and keep looking for answers! -Mr. Bowles Our main focus, inside and outside of class, this week will be on the Tides & Moon Phases Animation. You'll have two full class periods (Monday & Thursday) to finish up the animation, then one more class (Friday) to write up the explanation & prepare your Google Slides presentation. The whole project will be due NEXT Monday (11/25) BEFORE school (8 am).
So... "What about Tuesday & Wednesday's class?" you might ask - Mr. Bowles was asked to go to a two day conference in Worcester this week, meaning that he won't be in both days. On those days, you will be learning about how sea level rise is affecting tides and humans in different parts of the world. Keep in mind that the first trimester closes December 4th - the Wednesday after Thanksgiving- meaning that all incomplete work needs to be handed in by that date. Check in with Mr. Bowles if you have any questions. After school help is available Monday, Thursday, & Friday this week. Stay curious and keep looking for answers! If you haven't already checked PowerSchool, the Gravity Vocabulary Quiz (2 bars) grades have been posted. You will get a copy of your quiz (Google Form) in your email on Monday. If you got lower than an 80% on the quiz, you may do corrections to bring your grade up. Just schedule a time with Mr. Bowles before the end of the week.
Last Friday, was the last in-class day for the Astronomy Independent Study. Many students are on the verge of finishing their research, so the rest of this assignment will be truly "independent". Graded check-ins will still be completed, so be ready to teach Mr. Bowles about your topic. Instead of doing an in-person graded check-in, it will be digital. More details on this to come... Lastly, this week will be dedicated an in-class project during which you will create an animation that shows how and why ocean tides change AND how the phases of the moon relate to the tides. To animate the tides, you can use one of two different tools - Google Drawings/Slides OR Stop Motion. The project description is posted in Google Classroom and will be previewed in class on Monday. After school help is available Wednesday, Thursday, & Friday this week (and before school upon prior request). Stay curious and keep looking for answers! As we head into this week, think about how you can best prepare yourself for the Gravity Vocab Quiz (2 bars) on Tuesday. How can you study most effectively and efficiently with the time you have left? Which studying strategies discussed in class (or even your own strategies), will you use for last minute preparations?
Monday's class will be an "Amnesty Day" - a time for you to make up missing work, work on your Astronomy Independent Study, or even finish up the gravity flashcards before they are due on Tuesday. With only a month left until Trimester 1 closes, regularly checking your grades in PowerSchool is very important & is the first step towards being a responsible student. The second step is to follow up with teachers when your grade is lower than you want it to be. Put in the time & effort in now to start the year off on the right foot. This week we'll continue with the ocean's tides by looking at how the height of tides is related to the phases of the moon every month. After school help will be available on Monday & Thursday this week. Morning help is available upon previous request (email the night before). Stay curious & keep looking for answers! Last week, we finished up the Gravity Playlist by using your work with simulations to write your first claims in science this year. You supported those claims with evidence you gathered using the simulations and backed that evidence up with well-established scientific theory & reasoning. Learning to persuade others through your writing will convince them that your experiences and evidence are worth listening to. This is an important skill to have, no matter what profession you go into.
This week, we'll begin preparing for our first quiz (2 bars, next Tuesday - 11/5) and discuss strategies people use to study effectively. Memorizing and taking exams comes more easily to some, but understanding how you study most effectively and being successful on exams are skills that everyone can learn. We'll also begin looking at phases of the moon, lunar/solar eclipses, & how gravity effects on ocean tides this week. Stay curious and keep looking for answers! Last week, we finally came together as a whole class and discussed what we learned about how gravity can be manipulated. The videos you made of the simulations helped you explain what variables (ie. mass) can change the amount of gravity an object has. This week, you'll take what you learned to do your first formal writing assignment - using a style of writing called Claim, Evidence, & Reasoning. You will use the simulations & all the work you have created (Thinglink & simulation videos) as resources to help you build a graphic organizer in preparation for this writing assignment. You will have two full class blocks (both Monday & Tuesday) to complete this. Then on Thursday, you will have the whole block to work on your writing assignment (using your graphic organizer as a resource). The whole assignment is due at the beginning of class on Friday. On Wednesday, I will be out at a conference at Gillette Stadium - at which students from 8th grade last year will be presenting their work from science class. After school help is available Monday & Thursday this week and before school help is available upon prior request. Stay curious and keep looking for answers! Last week, you took your own understanding of how gravity works and used a simulation to explain it. This week you'll be expanding your understanding of gravity when you use a PhET Simulation called My Solar System by University of Colorado Boulder. Then with all of the experience you've gotten using simulations, you'll bring that knowledge of how gravity works back into the real-world by using balls & marbles of different size and mass & a spandex table cloth. After school help is available Monday & Thursday this week and before school help is available with prior arrangements (email the day/night before). Stay curious and keep looking for answers! |
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March 2020
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