The Declaration of Independence

Recently in class we've been learning about the Declaration of Independence and the Revolutionary war. Both John Adams and George Washington visited our class and taught about specifics on these topics.

As for science, we will be advancing our concepts on earth science as we actually create our own fossils after Thanksgiving break.

In math, we have moved past exponents and are currently learning about algebraic expressions. Soon, students will be using the foundational algebraic skills to solve various algebraic expressions.

In reading, we will soon change from reading literature and go back to reading informational text. Writing has combined topics from social studies to allow students the opportunity to not just polish up their writing skills, but also reinforce the concepts learned about American history.

The Rock Cycle

This week in science we are reviewing the rock cycle.  Students made sedimentary rock sandwiches, drew diagrams of them in their notebook and labeled youngest and oldest layers.  Next, they combined their group "rock" into one large sedimentary rock.  This was wrapped with plastic wrap (to keep things clean) and then heat and pressure (sitting on the sandwich and a microwave) were applied to make the sedimentary rock into something new...metamorphic rock.  This was then opened and analyzed.  Again, students drew a diagram of this "new" rock.  It is funny, as although every student wanted so much to eat their sedimentary rock, hardly any wanted anything to do with the metamorphic rock.

Dry Ice Lab

To further capitalize on the big day of October 31st, students made their own drink for our Nevada Day party, using both math and science.  After reading about the history of rootbeer and how to make a 5 gallon recipe, students used their math skills to convert the recipe so that we only made 2/3 of it.  Since it was carbonated using dry ice, we saved some and incorporated teh dry ice into a lab before lunch.  Students learned about sublimation (going straight from a solid to gas) and other unique properties of dry ice. 

The rootbeer turned out great, but due to the -103 degree dry ice, which did a fantastic job of carbonating the beverage, it also froze the bottom half of our drink.  This didn't seem to matter to many students, as they soon learned that "slushy rootbeer" tasted great!