Congratulations to all the 5th graders who participated in the 6th Annual Solar Boat Regatta today at Hilo Intermediate school. You did it! You got all your boats to run and it looked like you had a lot fun doing it.
Special congratulations as you were awarded the Community Contributor Award. I’m most proud of you for this award. This award it giving to the school who demonstrates teamwork, cooperation, school spirits and the spirit of Aloha.
Other awards included Best Use of Recycled Materials to Naniloa, Cherelle, and Ka`ohinani and Best Engineering to Kyra, Tabitha, and Malia. Congratulations!
Currently Mrs. Ah Hee’s 5th graders are conducting a pilot on 1:1 iPads in the classroom. Taking full advantage of students having iPads, I asked them to bring them to science class. The students used the iPads to showcase their understanding of of how fuel is generated, transformed and distributed for the masses to use.
Traditionally, the class would have been assessed by having it written and drawn in their notebooks. However, using an app called Educreations, students could do the same task but make it digital and include an audio recording.
Using this opportunity to see how iPads could be integrated into a science curriculum we learned a lot about this process. We came upon some challenges, but the student quickly rose to the challenge and helped to fix it. If it couldn’t be fixed, the students were patient and flexible enough to try another way. Content was still displayed using the iPad and app, however most of the struggle came with the limitations of the app.
So as the students completed the best they could with these limitations, myself and the students agreed that using this particular app for this particular assessment wasn’t the best. And being a pilot, these are the types of conclusions we are hoping to figure out now.
Mahalo nui to 5B for their hard work in preparing their formative assessment on this topics, being patient when challenges arose, helping each other, being respectful to each other and most of all allowing me to learn from you. I truly appreciate the experience of this 1:1 iPad pilot. I look forward to hopefully trying it again.
Join the world for EARTH HOUR 2013 on March 23 at 8:30 p.m.
Around the world millions of people in hundreds of countries shut off their lights to show their support for global climate change awareness. Take action by showing your support for a better future. See this year’s official Earth Hour 2013 video.
What will you do?
Want to learn more about Earth Hour 2013, click HERE.
You may know our 3rd trimester will be beginning shortly. I know how very excited you are all about starting your solar boat project. Before we do however, there is some science content that we’ll be exploring that connects to your solar boat project.
You will be taking a pre-assessment on alternative energy sources and another survey on the solar boat project. Please be thoughtful and reflective on your answers. This will help me plan the lessons and the solar boat projects.
Please click HERE (clicking on the red will take you to another page for the survey) to get the first survey you need to complete today in class. If you do not finish in class today you will need to complete on your own time. If it is not turned in today by 12:30 p.m. it will be considered late, yet still needs to be completed.
Let’s see how many of you actually read this whole message by sending me a comment on this post that says, “I read the whole post.”
I look forward to working with you and learning with you on this project. It’s probably my favorite project to do with students.
Here’s the survey for the solar boat. Click HERE in order to be directed to a new page for the survey. Please be honest and reflective on your responses.
This is due today at the end of class, 12:30 p.m. If you do not finish by the end of class you will need to complete on your own time and it will be stamped late. Please use your time wisely. If you have read this whole message leave me a comment on this post saying, “I’m so happy it’s Thursday.”
What does a cooking recipe, origami instructions, diagram of a chart stand, and a house plan have in common? They are all instructions on how to make something. Just like these examples, organisms have a recipe too. It’s called DNA. DNA is like a recipe to create an organism. The DNA provides instructions on what color eyes, hair color, hair texture, skin color, nose shape and other features of an organism.
In fifth grade, the students are learning about heredity, or how traits and features are passed from one generation to another. Wonder why you have black hair and your mother has brown hair? Why does your brother have straight hair and your hair is wavy or curly? These are all traits that have been passed down from one generation to another.
In this activity being shown, the students are creating their own “recipe” for a dog. They are rolling to see which type of trait the DNA will have to make in their dog. Traits like fur color and texture, body type, tail type, legs and ear shape.
Aloha e 5B. I’m sorry I can’t be with you today in class due to a cold. Running nose and stuffy sore head. Your class assignments are to be done on Edmodo, however, just in case that Edmodo is down I have provided you with an alternative. Here are the assignments, movie, and links to do the assignments.
Assignments #1:
Using the dictionary in class (one’s next to my desk), define the following words in your notebook: biodiversity, organism. Make sure you create an appropriate title and add the date.
Assignments #2:
Watch the biodiversity video below. Use the worksheet to to record your answers. Turn in the worksheet. Make sure your name, date and class is on it. The video is is below.
Assignment #3:
Read the article and respond in your notebook on the 10 Threats to Biodiversity. Just list them in your notebook. The link is below. Make sure your responses is on a new page with an appropriate title and date.
While the 5th graders were learning about the causes of climate change and how it relates to global warming, they also took a look at signs that nature is giving us that the climate is changing. In a mini research project, students got online to the Environmental Protect Agency website for kids. Here pairs were given a sign to research, such as increase temperatures and melting ice caps. With the information they gathered the pairs created a small poster that would be a script for their voki. A voki is an animated talking character. The students can customize the look and voice of the character that relays their message. Come back soon as I’ll be posting their voki’s for you to see. In the meantime, check out the 5th graders as they worked hard on their research.
Now that we’ve looked at what is climate change and global warming, how do we know it is occurring? What are the signs that warm us that the Earth’s climate is getting warmer?
Our next activity will have you working in pairs to become “experts” in the signs of climate change. Using the information from the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) website, each pair will take a sign of climate change to research.
Each sign of climate change is divided into three short sections: What’s happening now?, What will happen in the future?, and What it matters?. Your task to read through each section for your sign and come up with one sentence that sums up the information.
After you have your information, please create a small poster that has the following:
Title (sign you were researching)
Names, date, class on the back
Write out each question (What’s Happening Now, What will happen in the future, Why it matters) and put the answer to each question underneath in a different color
There are two groups who will be focusing on Effects that global warming has on people. These two groups will be researching health & plants, animals and ecosystems. The question they will have to research is What’s at stake?.
Health group will have three topics under What’s at stake.
Plants, Animals and Ecosystems will have two topics under What’s at stake.
As we are exploring how humans impact the Earth, one of the biggest concerns is Global Warming. This is a “hot” topic in the scientific community. Just by the name, global warming, you can guess that it has to do with how warm the Earth is getting. However, what is it? Why is it important to learn about it? Here is short video on global warming and the greenhouse effect.
Today we’ll also be signing into my online classroom in Edmodo. This is a new web 2.0 tool that we will occasionally be using throughout the year. I’m new at using this tool and so we’ll be learning together how we can use this in our science class. I’m really excited to show you this new web 2.0 tool that I’ve love to use in science. I hope that you enjoy it too.
One of the new web 2.0 tools that the teachers learned at our in-service yesterday was Tiki Toki. It is an online customizable timeline. Here participants can add “stories” to the event timeline. In our class today, we’re going to try it out. See the sample below of our Birthday Timeline. We’ll be adding our birthday to the timeline. This way, we can see if anyone has the same birthday. Click on the link below to get to the site.
This year’s 5th graders are starting off the school year exploring how humans are impacting the Earth. Many of the students shared that people are harming the Earth in different ways, such as throwing trash on the road, cutting down trees, and hurting animals. Many others also include that there are people who are helping the Earth by picking up the trash that others throw away, saving the animals, planting trees and more.
So it seems fitting that one of our first experiments this year is looking at water pollution. Students observed a demonstration of how materials that are thrown or emptied into our grass or yards can end up in our streams, rivers and eventually our oceans as runoff. Some such items that aren’t so obvious is car soap, plant fertilizer, pet and farm animal waste, and motor oil. The 5th graders reaction was priceless as I could here the “EWW!!” and “Yuck!!”.
Student conducted an experiment about how some of these pollutants affect the animals in the ocean, which most pollutants end up. Using feathers to represent sea birds and vegetable oil to represent motor oil or crude oil, students observed the differences between feathers in clean water and oiled water. They were then asked to save the “bird” by cleaning the feather with soap and water. No easy task as the oil sticks to the feathers.
This is what scientist and volunteers do when there are oil spill accidents around the world. They try to save the animals by washing it away with soap and water. One student said, “Oh, that was hard (to get the oil off).” My response was, “Can you imagine cleaning a whole bird with many feathers and that is alive and moving around?”
I hope that the students gained an insight of how these and many other pollutants can hard innocent wildlife. I look forward to sharing more experiences with my students in this exploration of how humans affect the Earth.
Check out 5B, Mrs. Ah Heeʻs class as they try to save their feathers.
Here is Mrs. Paiʻs class trying to save their feathers.
