Posterous theme by Cory Watilo

Natural Selection

1/31/13

This week the 6th grade students learned the 4 basic parts of Darwin's theory of Natural Selection.

1. Overproduction

2. Inherited Variation

3. Struggle to Survive

4. Successful Reproduction

What parts of Natural Selection are addressed in each cartoon?

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Biome Beginnings

1/31/13

This week, as part of their social studies country study, the students in 3M began a science unit on the biomes of the world.  To start getting familiar with terminology and basic information, we played a rousing game of Biome Bingo!  Ask your 3M student how to play!

3K will play Biome Bingo on Monday!

Biomes

Heart Rate Monitoring

1/31/13
As part of the circulatory system study, over the course of this week and next week, the 5th graders will each get a chance to monitor their heart rate in real time. The heart rate monitor wirelessly connects to the computer, displaying their beats per minute as well as graphing their heart rate over time!

(download)
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Take Home Challenge #2: The Longest, Straight Flight

1/24/13

This week students in grades 3-6 have been testing out the paper airplanes they engineered as part of Take Home Challenge #2.  So far the diverse array of paper airplane modifications has been remarkable!  As more classes fly their planes, we get to see what modifications seem to work the best to meet the challenge of the longest, straight flight. 

Here is a glimpse into the work leading up to this week:

Each participant constructed a paper airplane.  Next they modified their paper airplane and tested out each modification before settling on the model that would achieve the longest, straight flight.

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Each participant submitted data sheets revealing their trials and the schematic of their best plane.
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We set up a tournament for 3rd-6th grade participants. 
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Here are a few video clips of students in 3M and 5Me participating in the airplane challenge.
Click here to download:
IMG_0535.MOV (3 KB)
Click here to download:
IMG_0537.MOV (4 KB)
Click here to download:
IMG_0524.MOV (4 KB)

Intellectual Property and Patents

1/22/13
As a prelude to the Invention Convention, 3rd grade parent, Monjula Donepudi of the Ludwig Cancer Research Center visited science to speak about how to protect intellectual properties with trademarks, copyrights, and patents. The students were intrigued at the idea of obtaining patents for their own inventions.

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