Second Week of School

     After a long Summer it is always so hard for me to transition back into school time. During Summer my brain does not do work so I guess school is a nice break for my usually lazy brain. The first week of school was super hectic so we were not required to blog.  The first week of school we started a lab about baking cookies which would some how refresh our brains on the scientific method and use of variables. I thought this lab was going to be fun at first but then I realized I was going to be blind folded and a bunch of people who I "TRUST" are going to be giving me directions. That did not sit well with my brain that was still half asleep. For this lab to be considered a learning experience and, not just baking cookies, we had to change the amounts of one ingredient. The ingredient we changed was our independent variable. Our group changed the amount of baking soda and halved the amount.

    On Monday one group member brought back the cookies from being baked over the weekend and we filled in our data table. When tasting our cookies we found that what we varied didn't really change anything. For some reason our cookies were salty and I take none of the blame because I was blindfolded. Tomorrow we will find the density and hopefully finish the lab. In addition to the lab, we also took notes on a brief introduction to unit one and completed our note cards in class.

      Tuesday is usually not my favorite day of the week, but science class this Tuesday happened to be pretty fun. To start the class we finished our note cards adding the words precision and accuracy. This was a review from last year but Mrs. G did a demonstration  to help us remember the difference between the words. A volunteer shot foam dart bullets on to a bulls-eye and after they were shot we had to determine if they exhibited accuracy or precision. The shots were so off that they did not really represent either. After our crash course on precision and accuracy we finished our cookie lab. All the groups calculated their cookies' density and shared our results. Last year I vowed to improve time management with my studying so that is what I hope to do this week.

      On Tuesday we started a new lab. Mrs.G must really like cookies because in this lab we are comparing the creme in Oreo cookies. You probably have all seen the double stuffed Oreo in the grocery store, but are they really double stuffed? This is what we are trying to figure out in this lab. By comparing regular Oreos with the double stuffed version we will try to determine if it is really double or if it is a rip off. We collected data from both cookies by weighing a cookie, a single wafer, and the creme. The results showed that the double stuffed version is significantly higher, but is it double? Through this lab we are are getting practice with our variables , which we so need, and learning how to collect proper data. In this lab we finished about half way and will continue to work on it during the week. If any of you were wondering ...I did not eat the cookies we used for our experiment . Would you eat cookies 8th grade boys have been touching with out washing their hands first?

      On Wednesday we did some review for the upcoming test that was on Friday. This review was not super detailed but we reviewed some of the key things on the study guide. For our science starter we reviewed varibles. I have a good understanding of my variables but I could always use some extra help. In addition to the review we worked on some lab questions for our Oreo lab. If the double stuffed Oreos have less than half the filling I won't really be that mad because a cookie is still a cookie. I hope I do good on my test tommorrow and am going to study the heck out of my notes.

On Friday  we took our science test. I thought the test was very easy because it was mainly a review. It wasn't has hard as I thought it was going to be and I studied very hard the night before so I hope I get a good grade.

Another thing I had to include in this blog is the upcoming Science Olympiad year. We are all super stoked just putting together the team so I guess it shows what lies ahead. With all our hard work we put to the table it was definitely worth it last year.

Dart gun demo

Oreo cookie lab

Blind folded cooking

I can't believe the year is over!

This year in science has been even more awesome than last year. We did so many spectacular things this year that I don't even know where to begin! But I shall try to capture it all in this final blog.....

At the beginning of the year we started out with Chemistry. By the end of the unit we were all like mad scientists in action.
We studied the periodic table and even made our own, out of cereal boxes. Each person had an element to contribute. This was a fun class project and it helped me learn some new facts about our elements along the way. We also made our own Bohr model of an element. I am glad I did not get an element with tons of electrons and protons. In this unit I realized how small an atom is and how even smaller its nucleus is.

We did lots of crazy science experiments that you probably shouldn't try at home. Even the chemicals had warnings on the box! One of my favorite labs we did in chemistry was the lab we did to test the chemical and physical changes of experiments. This lab was one of my favorites because it involved many stations. Each station had a chemical or physical change and we had to determine which one it was. One of my favorite stations of this lab was the baking soda and vinegar. The two chemicals combined exploding in a plastic bag and creating a pretty cool chemical change. I would advise doing this experiment outdoors. We could surely tell you the difference between a chemical and physical reaction from all the labs we did with them.

One of my favorite days we had in the chemistry unit was mole day. This day celebrated the unit of mole which is 6.02x10^23. We celebrated the day with mole day themed food and created t-shirts to wear. I had the honor of making the hats for mole day! Mole day was the first time I had tried guacamole.  We even paid a dollar to play human whack-a-mole with the teachers being the moles. The whole day was like a mole day party in celebration of a pretty cool number.

We did some things this year that most middle schoolers would be afraid to do. Even I thought that some ideas were a little crazy but with some convincing I eased my way into believing it would work. We dunked a live person in water to determine their volume and density. This is a perfect example of one of the skeptical labs we did. In the end it worked but it resulted in someone getting wet.

When we went into our physics unit I was very nervous because I did not want to solve long equations to find out how a ball rolls. I enjoyed physics much more than chemistry because we were less likely to get blown up in physics and we learned why and elephant and a feather do not land on the ground at the same time. Thanks to air resistance they don't!

I was wrong about people getting blown up because for one our labs we broke a cinder block on Mr.Simon's  chest. This demonstration proved that if force is applied evenly throughout the cinder block that the cinder block will not crush someone's internal organs.

DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME

One of my favorite labs we did was the Egg Drop lab. This was one of my favorite labs because we got to watch a helicopter go up into the air. At first when I heard the idea for this lab I thought Mrs.G was insane. I thought there was no way that an egg could survive a four story drop. Our group was not successful at first with the saving of the egg. Our device to enclose our egg broke and was very heavy. We started brainstorming and came up with the idea to use two car wash sponges to sandwich the egg inside. This idea ended up saving our egg from the helicopter drop. Surprisingly most of the eggs dropped did survive. Sometimes physics seems to make the impossible, possible. One thing I learned from this project is that when constructing a device to protect a falling egg, the number of layers doesn't matter, it's the effectiveness of each layer that matters.


This year was also a big year for Science Olympiad!! We did better than we ever imagined by swooping up a first place trophy at Regionals.  We spent a ton of hours preparing and studying for our events. At the end of States we took home a fifth place trophy and our teacher/coach extraordinaire Mrs. G, earned a coach of the year award for the entire state! One thing I hope to improve on next year in terms of Science Olympiad is getting first in all my events and hopefully the team will move on to Nationals next year. Our pink shirts rocked! Pink shirts will rock again in 2016!!!!

The last few weeks of school we had our final for science. The Chemistry portion of the test was a lot harder in my opinion than the Physics part of the test because physics was a lot easier for me. Overall I did okay on the final but I definitely hope to improve next year.
Towards  the end the year we took a trip to defy gravity to relieve some stress and defy gravity. I had lots of fun and am excited to see what they have planned for us next year. We also had the annual boat regatta which unfortunately I could not attend. I heard it was lots of fun and congratulations to the winners.

           

 

My outlook on science changed throughout the year because of the constantly changing and thought provoking labs we had each week. One week the labs seemed practical and the next we I thought we would need a safety permit or  a waiver to participate. One goal I have for next year is to take first place at state in all my events. I plan to work even harder next year at science and science olympiad. The thing that I am most looking forward to next year is the field trips planned. I am sure that Mrs.G has created some great learning opportunities for next year...she never disappoints!!!!.

Hope everyone has a great summer and I can't wait for science camp and Earth and Science next year!!!!

Review Week

    On Monday to review for our test on Wednesday and our final, we used Kahoot to review questions on the scientific method for our final. I had some difficulty with the questions about variables but after looking through the folder I began to remember all the knowledge I lost. We got our large folders back with all the junk from our binders. Just looking through the binder gave me anxiety of all the stuff I had to cram in before the final. The folder has determined my weekend plans. After Kahoot we took another assessment from the text book. I got an 8 out of 10 right which was pretty great. I hope for the best results on my test ( I hope I do not fail).

On Tuesday we reviewed for the test on waves. We went over our study guide we did last Friday. I do not think anyone got much of this study guide done last Friday because they were too excited for paintball. One thing I need to review is diffraction. Diffraction is when sound waves move through a slit and transfer into another area. An example of this is when you are in another room and sound waves move through the vents.
After we reviewed for the test we played grudge ball. This game is always a fun way to help us review because it motivates us to answer the questions right. If you answered a question right on a test and was rewarded with throwing a ball into a hoop, I think a lot more people would want to take a test.

On Wednesday we had our test.I thought this test was a lot easier than the quiz.The one question I had trouble on was the question where we had to solve for two equations. I think I re-did the the equation seven times and got the same wrong answer every time. By the end of the quiz I thought I did well until I saw my grade. I did not just do well I did GREAT!!!!

On Thursday we used Kahoot to do a review through multiple chapters. The questions were mostly based around Newton's Laws. I thought this review was a good run through the basics of mass and velocity. After Kahoot I felt like I was about to die. I did not know how one person could feel so terrible. I do not think even science could explain the way I felt that day. I felt so sick I had to leave in the middle of science class so I do not know what happened the rest of science class. If I had to take a good guess we probably reviewed through some of the past chapters.

On Friday we

One thing I need to improve on this week is taking my vitamins so I do not miss all the fun things we do in science class. Overall this week was just an average review week and I can not wait until finals are over so the stress is replaced with fun.

Looks like they had fun while I was gone

Reflection and Refraction

On Monday we reviewed in class for the quiz on Tuesday. We used Kahoot again to review for our science starter. One thing I understood better after the review was how to find the amplitude of a wave. I wrote down everything I needed to remember or missed in class to help with the quiz so at home I knew what to review. One thing I needed help with was frequency, but eventually I began to understand after having it explained to me in guided study.

On Tuesday we had our science quiz. After the review we had the day before I was well prepared. While taking the quiz I had trouble with the question solving for frequency when we were given the period.  With some application I began to figure it out. After this Quiz I have a better knowledge of waves which will increase by the time we take the test.

On Wednesday we had a field trip in Social Studies so we did not have science class.

On Thursday we used Kahoot to review some of the science topics. I enjoy using Kahoot in class because we have to answer the questions as fast as we can. It is very satisfying moving up on the leader board. After that we started to dive into learning about reflection and refraction. To help us learn about reflection and refraction we did some demonstrations. Mrs.G put a glass rod made out of Pyrex into a beaker and poured in Wesson oil.  Magically the rod began to disappear. This was because the glass and the oil had the same reflection ability so it seemed that it had dissappeared but really our eyes could not see it. We also filled a glass container with water and put an arrow behind it. The water made the arrow point the other way. After our demonstrations we used the assessment questions in the book to review for our test next week.

On Friday we worked on our study guide. I remembered the material from the past quiz and the new stuff we just learned. Most of the questions were application questions. One thing I need to improve on this week is learning how to apply the material we use to the problems and equations.

We also went to play paint ball on Friday to celebrate science olympiad. I did much better this year than last year and luckily was not shot by Mrs.G.

Intro to Waves

On Monday we did not do very much. We talked about Science Olympiad most of the time and then watched a very cool video regarding a wave pendulum. So excited we placed fifth in the State!

On Tuesday we started our new unit on waves.  I learned that an oscillation is one full wave. Another important thing we discussed was the different parts of the wave. The top of the wave is called the crest. Another important part of the wave is the trough. The trough is the bottom part of the wave. The trough and crest are between a line which is the equilibrium. To demonstrate the wave we made a model with duct tape, wooden skewers, and gummy bears. To construct the model we taped the tape to two ring stands across the room. We then, put the gummy bears on the wooden skewers. We attached the skewers to the tape. After we constructed it we applied a disturbance(energy) and watch the wave form.

On Wednesday for our science starter we used Kahoot. For Kahoot we had to answer a series of questions about waves to help us review. I thought this was very fun and I hope we use this program in the future. To help us understand some of the wave terms we did a worksheet. In this worksheet we used a slinky to represent waves. We stretched the slinky and measured it. Then we timed the oscillations it took. After that we found the average speed.

On Thursday we used Kahoot again. I did not know some of the terms because we had not reviewed the whole chapter yet. One term I learned was the Doppler Effect. The Doppler Effect is when there is a noise but it is moving. You remain stationary so the noise begins to get louder than quieter. One example of this is a Fire Truck. The sirens are making noise and it is moving. You remain stationary so the noise begins to increase then decrease. We also finished our worksheet. After this worksheet I had a better understanding of terms such as amplitude, frequency,and wave length.

On Friday  Mrs.G was not there. Mr.Batten was our substitute and he gave us a worksheet to do. This worksheet was very challenging and required some research. Most of the topics covered on this list were more advanced versions of the material we had already learned. With some application and research we were able to complete the worksheet. Overall, I understood most of the worksheet except a few select questions.

One thing I can improve on this week is double checking my lab data tables to make sure that all of the units are filled in correctly .

Slinky Lab

Kahoot

Wave Model

Egg Drop Project

On Monday we finished our lab on kinetic energy. In this lab we calculated the kinetic energy of objects such as a marble,tennis ball,and golf ball. We finished collecting our data that we started last week. We consistently dropped the balls from different heights and calculated their velocity,potential energy, and kinetic energy.

On Tuesday we finished our calculations. This alone took up the majority of the class because we still were collecting some of our data. We partially started our graph but ran out of time at the end of class. We did not have to finish this lab though because we had to move onto our egg drop project.

On Wednesday we did a demonstration in class. In this demonstration a person dropped two balls that looked the same but they were made of two different materials. Both balls were dropped at the same time and there was a dramatic difference. One ball seemed to bounce and the other just hit the ground and did not move. The energy of each ball was not created or destroyed but took a different form. Have you ever noticed how when you drop a ball it never comes back to the same spot you dropped it from. That is because the energy may be transformed into heat or sound. We learned this lesson to help us understand some of the physics going into our egg drop project. Our egg drop project is a project where we will have to construct a contraption to hold an egg and not have the egg break when dropped from various heights. After finding out what the project was we got into our groups and made a checklist of what we needed to bring. 

On Thursday we started constructing our egg drop project. Our group members brought items such as memory foam, silicone swim caps,bubble wrap, hot glue, a container and marshmallows. We started out by gluing the foam around the exterior of the container. We then cut a block from the foam to sit on the inside and cushion the egg under impact. We wrapped a silicone swim cap around the outside to hold the foam steady while in motion. We used silicone swim caps because that type of material has the ability to bounce and flex.    

On Friday we worked on finishing our egg drop project. To begin our group started on filling some of the holes we missed the previous day with memory foam. We found that our design was good but needed something to stabilize the egg. We came up with the idea of ooblek. Ooblek is a mixture of cornstarch and water. It has the ability to be solid and liquid. We thought if the egg was submerged in the mixture then the ooblek would absorb most of the shock caused by the drop. It took a while to finish the mixture. We had to measure the water and cornstarch exact. After it was done we tested a raw egg in the mix. The egg kept rising to the top. We filled a bag with ooblek and put it on top of the egg. It finally stayed down and sunk to the bottom. 

One thing I need to improve on is remembering to log my Science Olympiad hours. I always do the hours but forget to log them.

For this link it is some cool things you can do with ooblek http://www.sciencebob.com/blog/?p=608 

 

New Unit and Lots of Prep for SO

On Monday we started the week out by reviewing for our test on Tuesday. This test was on centripetal acceleration, work, force, power, and the material that was on our quiz. We started by completing the last of our study guide questions. This helped me review the topics I had trouble on in the past. It also helped me to apply the concepts a lot better. After we reviewed our study guide we played grudge ball. During the game I wrote down the questions I didn't understand. Some of the topics were easier than others. Grudge ball definitely lives up to its name because everyone has a grudge against each other by the end of the game. To play grudge ball each team has the same amount of x's on the board if you get a question right you can erase the other team's x's.

On Tuesday we had our test. I understood most all of the questions and after the test I felt like I had done well. I guess my instincts were right because I got a 99 on the test! The one point I missed was because I put a direction on a scalar quantity. I thought because in the problem an object was falling meant it needed the direction down. Overall everyone seemed to do well on this test so we must have all studied very hard and understood the material.    

On Wednesday we started unit three conservation of energy and momentum. To start out the unit we did the unit vocab to understand some basic terms before reviewing the vocab. I was familiar with some of the terms before reading the definitions.The two terms I was mostly familiar with were potential and kinetic energy. I learned many new things while reviewing notes but one thing that stood out to me was mechanical energy. This is when all the energy is combined.

On Thursday we started a new lab. This new lab will teach us about kinetic and potential energy. To test this we are testing both types of energy on a golf ball, tennis ball, and a marble. Our group tested the potential energy and part one of the kinetic energy.  We tested potential energy from different heights. We tested it from the floor, the desk, and a group member's head. To test the kinetic energy we dropped the balls at different heights. We did heights ranging to .5 of a meter to a full meter. We tested each trial three times and then took the average.

On Friday we didn't have school because it was a teacher workday.

This week I think I can definitely improve on getting ready for Science Olympiad and telling my brain that it is not over until after states. These few weeks we haven't really practiced for long periods of time for picture this but on Monday we will have lots of time to practice.