hcescience's posterous http://hcescience.posterous.com Most recent posts at hcescience's posterous posterous.com Fri, 21 Sep 2012 14:03:00 -0700 High Line News: Breaking ground for the final section http://hcescience.posterous.com/high-line-news-breaking-ground-for-the-final http://hcescience.posterous.com/high-line-news-breaking-ground-for-the-final

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/high-line-breaks-ground-90m-extension-str...

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Fri, 21 Sep 2012 12:02:10 -0700 It's Elemental My Dear 6th Grader http://hcescience.posterous.com/its-elemental-my-dear-6th-grader http://hcescience.posterous.com/its-elemental-my-dear-6th-grader

The 6th grade students have been familiarlizing themselves with the elements of the periodic table of elements.  The students organized elements based on atmoic weight and number of valence electrons, and solved some periodic table puns.  

Try your hand at some of the puns the 6S students came up with:

1. Used to protect yourself from the sun. __________, _____

2. You can "dig" for it. ____________ , _____

3. A code. ___________ , _____

4. What they do to a knight. ___________ , _____

5. Awesome song featuring Sia. ___________ , _____

6. Something dentists love to give kids. ___________ , _____

7. Graphite alternative. ___________ , _____

8. First place medal. ___________ , _____

9. First planet. ___________ , _____

10. Poison. ___________ , _____

11. A smart person. ___________ , _____

12. Superman's Home. ___________ , _____

13. Superman's weakness. ___________ , _____

14. President _______ B. Hayes. ___________ , _____

15. Great mathematical genius. ___________ , _____

16. Last planet. ___________ , _____

17. 5 cent coin. ___________ , _____

18. Carbon+______ = Carbon Dioxide. ___________ , _____

19. Bright color. ___________ , _____

20. What pennies are made of. ___________ , _____

21. ________ Music Awards. ___________ , _____

22. Midwestern tradition. ___________ , _____

23. What hit the iceberg. ___________ , _____

24. Found in the land of Oz. ___________ , _____

25. A brother of mine. ___________ , _____

26. What you breathe. ___________ , _____

27. What's in a pool. ___________ , _____

28. What makes your bones strong. ___________ , _____

29. Transportation. ___________ , _____

30. Type of gem. ___________ , _____

 

Stay tuned for the answers!!!

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Fri, 14 Sep 2012 09:09:12 -0700 Periodic Table of Cookies http://hcescience.posterous.com/periodic-table-of-cookies http://hcescience.posterous.com/periodic-table-of-cookies 6th graders created an organization system for a variety of "cookies" based on the properties of the cookies. Ask your students why this table of cookies can be called a "periodic" table?

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Fri, 04 May 2012 09:20:00 -0700 Yeah for Earth Day http://hcescience.posterous.com/yeah-for-earth-day http://hcescience.posterous.com/yeah-for-earth-day

Last Friday, the Healthy Hunter Committee hosted a thought provoking Earth Day assembly.  To begin, the HCES Green Team of 4th and 5th graders, led by high schoolers Penelope and Jenna, performed a skit on alternative energy and shared their video on solar energy.  Next Steve Ritz from The Bronx Green Machine gave an inspiring presentation on urban farming and growing healthy food and healthy communities. Check out Steve and his students in these two videos.

 

 

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Tue, 01 May 2012 06:08:11 -0700 Paper Clip Creations http://hcescience.posterous.com/paper-clip-creations http://hcescience.posterous.com/paper-clip-creations The paper clip take-home challenges are pouring in. It's only 9am and we have already heard a plethora of creative ideas.

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Thu, 26 Apr 2012 09:25:09 -0700 6S Pilobous Fungus Lab Day 1 http://hcescience.posterous.com/6s-pilobous-fungus-lab-day-1 http://hcescience.posterous.com/6s-pilobous-fungus-lab-day-1 Today 6S students worked in groups to begin to culture their Pilobous fungus. Ask your student to explain the procedure. (It involves rabbit dung.)

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Transferring the Pilobolus to the Petri dish.

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Field of view sketches...

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Wed, 14 Mar 2012 20:27:00 -0700 New Species of Frog Found in NY http://hcescience.posterous.com/new-species-of-frog-found-in-ny http://hcescience.posterous.com/new-species-of-frog-found-in-ny

Screen_shot_2012-03-15_at_12

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46739932/ns/technology_and_science-science/#.T2FsX5jv-xI

Check out this site to hear the "throaty croak" of the Southern Leopard Frog!

http://www.enature.com/fieldguides/detail.asp?recNum=AR0034

 

 

 

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Wed, 14 Mar 2012 09:28:00 -0700 Ms. Macaulay's Favorite Fungus http://hcescience.posterous.com/ms-macaulays-favorite-fungus http://hcescience.posterous.com/ms-macaulays-favorite-fungus

Today, 6th grade students heard a portion of a lecture, "A Visit to the Mushroom Planet," given at Cornell by mycology professor, Dr. Kathy Hodges. (6S will get a chance to hear this tomorrow)  As part of the lecture, students got a glimpse of the weird world of mushrooms, including the largest fungus (actually largest living organism) in Malheur National Forest in eastern Oregon and my personal favorite, pilobolus!  Ask your student to tell you about pilobolus.

Here is pilobolus in time lapse...

Here's an article about the Oregon fungus...

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=120049&page=1#.T2DKlzsc_io

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Wed, 14 Mar 2012 09:18:00 -0700 Middle School Robotics http://hcescience.posterous.com/middle-school-robotics http://hcescience.posterous.com/middle-school-robotics

Today we had two visitors from the middle school robotics team come and visit the 6D science class. They presented about their upcoming competition, their research/experimentation with food safety (the competition's theme) and the middle school robotics team in general! Everyone got to handle the robot!

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Wed, 07 Mar 2012 11:19:00 -0800 6D Performs Original Songs and Poems about Natural Selection http://hcescience.posterous.com/6d-performs-original-songs-and-poems-about-na http://hcescience.posterous.com/6d-performs-original-songs-and-poems-about-na

Inspired by the lyrical work of Richard Milner, students in 6D put their research on Darwin and natural selection into poetry and song.  Enjoy...

Josh...

Elias...

Memo(29).m4a Listen on Posterous

Eilam...

Memo(27).m4a Listen on Posterous

Astra...

Memo(26).m4a Listen on Posterous

John...

The_Darwin_Song_2.m4a Listen on Posterous

Emma T. ...

Memo(28).m4a Listen on Posterous
Julia...

Science_Extra_Credit_song.m4a Listen on Posterous

 

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Mon, 05 Mar 2012 13:01:00 -0800 6th Grade Paragraphs Due This Week! http://hcescience.posterous.com/6th-grade-paragraphs-due-this-week http://hcescience.posterous.com/6th-grade-paragraphs-due-this-week

6th grade students have been working on re-writing the third paragraph of their natural selection essay.  6D's re-writes are due on Wednesday, March 7th.  6S's re-writes are due on Thursday, March 8th. 

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Fri, 02 Mar 2012 18:04:50 -0800 Great Article: NYS had one of the oldest forests in the world!!! http://hcescience.posterous.com/great-article-nys-had-one-of-the-oldest-fores http://hcescience.posterous.com/great-article-nys-had-one-of-the-oldest-fores

http://news.discovery.com/earth/devonian-forest-mapped-120301.html

One of the earliest forests in the world was home to towering palmlike trees and woody plants that crept along the ground like vines, a new fossil find reveals.

The forest, which stood in what is now Gilboa, N.Y., was first unearthed in a quarry in the 1920s. But now, a new construction project has revealed for the first time the forest floor as it stood 380 million years ago in the Devonian period.

"For the first time, we actually have a map of about 1,200 square meters (12,900 square feet) of a Devonian forest," said study researcher Chris Berry, a scientist at Cardiff University in the United Kingdom. "We know which plants were growing where in this forest, and how they were interacting."

NEWS: Fossilized, 'Pompeii' Forest Discovered Under Ash

Fossil forest

The fossilized forest floor contained three types of enormous plants. The first, known as the Gilboa tree or Eospermatopteris, was once thought to be the only type of tree in the forest; quarry workers have been carting specimens out of the area since the fossil plants were first discovered. This tree was tall and looked like today's palm trees, with a crown of branches at the very top.

But an even stranger specimen lurked in this ancient forest. Amid the towering Gilboa trees were woody creeping plants with branches about 6 inches (15 centimeters) in diameter. These giant plants, known as progymnosperms, seemed to lean against the Gilboa trees for support, perhaps even climbing into them occasionally, Berry said. (Top 10 Poisonous Plants)

"Those trees were covered in little branches which sprung out in all directions and made a sort of thicket on the floor of the forest," Berry said. "That was a big surprise."

The researchers also found a fragment of a third type of tree, lycopsids, which would later dominate the Carboniferous period from about 360 million to about 300 million years ago. They reported their findings Wednesday (Feb. 29) in the journal Nature.

Understanding an ecosystem

The new view of the ancient forest is changing paleontologists' understanding of what the landscape looked like. The earliest researchers thought the forest was in a swamp, but Berry and his colleagues, including study leader William Stein of Binghamton University in New York, now believe the forest stood in a flat coastal plain near an ancient shoreline. It was probably buried and preserved when a river channel shifted, bringing in loads of sand to cover the forest floor.

Before the forest's death, it was probably chock full of millipedes and insects, Berry said. As they grew, the Gilboa trees shed branches, which would have littered the forest floor and created a perfect habitat for creepy-crawlies.

"I've spent 20 years trying to imagine what these plants were like as individuals, and yet I really had no conception of them as an ecosystem," Berry said. "Going to Gilboa and sitting in the middle of the forest floor, you could almost see them growing out of the ground. … The fossil forest came to life in front of my eyes in a way that has never happened before."

More broadly, a deeper understanding of the forest helps paleontologists piece together the ecology of the very earliest forests on Earth. The Devonian period marks a time when plant life began to shift from small, scattered vegetation to large-scale forests, Berry said. Plants remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and during the Devonian forest boom, carbon dioxide levels may have dropped from 15 times that of today to modern levels.

The arrival of forests changed the way the whole Earth system worked, Berry said. He and his colleagues are using the Gilboa site to understand how this ecosystem flourished.

"We've gone from knowing about plants to knowing about a forest," Berry said. "That's really been the breakthrough for me."

More from LiveScience:


Copyright 2012 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Fri, 02 Mar 2012 11:16:00 -0800 WOW!!! The Puzzle is Completed http://hcescience.posterous.com/wow-the-puzzle-is-completed http://hcescience.posterous.com/wow-the-puzzle-is-completed Congrats to all the 2nd-6th graders who worked on the Element Puzzle! Everyone was so careful that no pieces were even lost...what a feat!

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Wed, 29 Feb 2012 16:46:00 -0800 6S: Natural Selection in Poetry and Song http://hcescience.posterous.com/6s-natural-selection-in-poetry-and-song http://hcescience.posterous.com/6s-natural-selection-in-poetry-and-song

Inspired by Richard Milner, the singing Darwinian scholar, students wrote songs and poems about natural seleciton. 

Here is Richard Milner:

http://video.nytimes.com/video/2009/02/09/science/1231547271297/darwin-in-son...

Here are the scholars of 6S:

Jane...

Memo(25).m4a Listen on Posterous
Maria...

Memo_2.m4a Listen on Posterous

Leander...

Memo-1.m4a Listen on Posterous
Rosa...
Memo-3.m4a Listen on Posterous

Alexa...

Memo-4.m4a Listen on Posterous

Olivia...

Memo-5.m4a Listen on Posterous

Daniel...

Memo-6.m4a Listen on Posterous

Lilah...

Memo-7.m4a Listen on Posterous

 

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Mon, 13 Feb 2012 10:24:00 -0800 Darwin-in-Song http://hcescience.posterous.com/darwin-in-song http://hcescience.posterous.com/darwin-in-song

Check out this great link:

http://video.nytimes.com/video/2009/02/09/science/1231547271297/darwin-in-son...

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Tue, 03 Jan 2012 12:05:00 -0800 Take Home Challenge #2: HCES Pigeon Watch http://hcescience.posterous.com/take-home-challenge-2-hces-pigeon-watch http://hcescience.posterous.com/take-home-challenge-2-hces-pigeon-watch

In the wild, all members of a species usually look similar. Robins, for example, all have gray backs and red-orange breasts. All crows are black. But the pigeons we see around the world are a different story. They show remarkable color variation, just like cats and dogs. Why? They are all descended from the blue-bar Rock Pigeon (see “color morphs” page).  For hundreds of years humans bred pigeons just for their colors, homing instincts, or racing abilities. 400 years ago many of these special breeds escaped into the wild and became the ancestors of the pigeon flocks that we see today.

Wild pigeons adapted to life in cities, in parks, on beaches, and on farms, and their populations continued to have individuals of many different colors. 

Pigeon_Poster_Take_Home_Challenge_2.pdf Download this file
Take home challenges are completely optional and we invite anyone to participate.  Anyone who completes all of the challenges this year will receive a special science prize.  The challenges can be found hanging on the science room door!

 

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Tue, 03 Jan 2012 11:27:00 -0800 Black Swallowtail Emerges! http://hcescience.posterous.com/black-swallowtail-emerges http://hcescience.posterous.com/black-swallowtail-emerges

In November, a 4th grade student brought a chrysalis into science.  He identified it as a black swallowtail.  We put the chrysalis into a butterfly tent and waited and waited and waited.  Typically a black swallowtail spends 9-11 days in the chrysalis, so after more than 1 month we had given up hope.  THEN...this morning as Ms. Stearns and I were teaching the 3rd grade, we noticed a beautiful black butterfly fluttering around the tent...It's a BOY...WOW!  It's too cold to release it outside, so we are working to create a habitat in the classroom.  If anyone wants to donate a small plant of fennel, carrot, or parsley, please bring it to the science room ASAP.

 

http://www.butterflygardeningandconservation.com/butterfly/st/black.php

 

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Fri, 09 Dec 2011 09:31:00 -0800 6th Grade Classification Test on 12/16/11 http://hcescience.posterous.com/6th-grade-classification-test-on-121611 http://hcescience.posterous.com/6th-grade-classification-test-on-121611

Sing along as you study...

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Wed, 30 Nov 2011 11:57:00 -0800 New Science Notebooks http://hcescience.posterous.com/new-science-notebooks http://hcescience.posterous.com/new-science-notebooks

Students are slowly transferring their working into their new science notebooks.  The new notebooks are structured to have many layers of organization that will help the students keep track of their work and keep a record of the concepts covered.

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Thu, 03 Nov 2011 13:35:00 -0700 Take Home Challenge http://hcescience.posterous.com/take-home-challenge http://hcescience.posterous.com/take-home-challenge

Just a reminder that the Take Home Challenge is due tomorrow.  Each child should bring his or her display board to the science room at some point during the day tomorrow, November 4th.  I am so excited to see all of the cool experiments that have been going on for the last month!!!

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