Mr Nelson's blog

Unfortunately, the science rooms will not be ready on schedule.  They will be ready to be used on September 9th, and the Smartboards should be installed by the 22nd.  Considering we will be working on science fair research for part of this time, the lack of labs should not disrupt the year’s curriculum too much. Until the labs are ready, I will be acting as a ‘floating’ teacher.  Each period will have a set room, but I will be moving from room to room throughout the day.  The following periods will meet in these rooms: 

 Period 3 - 209
Period 4 - LAR
Period 6 - 316
Period 7 - 316
Period 9 - 209
Period 10 - LAR

I look forward to having nice, new labs for the students to work in, but in the meantime I believe this class schedule will work out fine. 

I am very excited about the 2008-2009 school year.  The students will be walking into brand new remodeled classrooms on the first day of school. These new science classrooms include more table space for labs, new desks and chairs for the students, and a Smartboard in place of a whiteboard.
The first unit of the year will be on the plant and animal cell. This will lead into classification of living organisms.  During these units, and throughout the first half of the year, the students will be working on science fair projects.
I am very excited to get the year started and to get to know the 7th grade students at Lincoln Hall.

Next week we will wrap up our look at the different body systems by looking at actual systems working together during a short frog dissection unit.  The students will work in pairs to respectfully dissect frogs, looking at the interaction of different organs.
We will then end the year by discussing the reproductive system.  The students will learn the parts of both the male and female anatomy, the development of a zygote into a baby, and any legitimate student questions will be answered.

Over the next two weeks, the students will be learning about how the digestive system works.  This is an exciting unit because there are many different labs the students will participate in.  These labs will represent a variety of different stages in the digestive tract. Because we are moving into labs which contain some chemicals and food items, the students will be required to sign a lab safety sheet before beginning their work on these labs.  This safety sheet will go home for parents to sign as well, so that they know what is expected of their children in class.

For the last unit of the third quarter, we will go over the parts and functions of the heart and circulatory system.  We will focus mostly on the human heart, but  the difference between warm-blooded and cold-blooded animals will be looked at as well.

 There is a handout that much of the notes and assignments will be based on, if students are interested in downloading this handout, they may do so below.

The 7th grade science fair will run almost all day on Friday, January 25th.  Parents are invited and encouraged to attend and see their children and other children's work.  The best time for parents to come is from 11:30-12:48, as all the boards will all be set up during this time.  Parents can also come from 9:30-10:45, but the board will most likely not be fully set up until 9:45 or so.

If you are interested in coming, please check in at the office and then head to the seventh grade hallway on the second floor.  The displays will be in all the 7th grade rooms in that hallway.

 If you are unable to come on the 25th, the best boards will be shown off during the lighted schoolhouse on the evening of January 31st.

Here are the rubrics for the final two assignments. The final draft of the materials and procedures is due Thursday the 17th and is worth 42 points. I will be specifically looking for exact quantities of liquids and other materials.

The Display Board is due Wednesday the 23rd. It is made up of many smaller pieces, and is worth 100 points.

I am also including the directions for writing Results, Acknowledgements, and useful information.

After a long and hopefully relaxing break, we will return to work on science fair.  Now that the students have completed their experiments and have gotten raw data results, they will enter that information into excel and turn it into charts.  The students will all complete a couple of write-ups, and then will post all their information, along with the pictures they took during their experiments, on their display boards.  This will all be due by January 23rd, as they will share their experiments with the other students on the 25th.  We will do all the typing in school over the next couple of weeks, but the students will be responsible for putting their boards together at home.

Most students purchased a display board from the school, and they will be handed out after the first week we are back.  If a student did not purchase a board through the school, then they are responsible for getting one of their own. 

Students have been working on their experiments for the past two weeks, and it has been an exciting period of time.  As students have completed their experiments, they have been writing down their results. After winter break, the students will put these results into excel and we will turn their data into charts and graphs. Students will then write up conclusions to their experiments, and put all their information onto display boards.  These boards will be shared with the rest of the 7th grade on Friday, January 25th,
If any student is working on an experiment that takes a few weeks to complete, such as growing crystals or plants, then he or she will be allowed to work on it over winter break.  Otherwise, all the data from experiments is due at the end of this week.

Over the last couple of weeks, the students learned about the parts of the cell.  This was a difficult unit, as they were introduced to a lot of new vocabulary.  They took a quiz using laptops just before Thanksgiving break.  It was a new and interesting way of taking a quiz both for me and the students, and I am excited about the possibilities it brings in the future.  
This next week, we will be learning about the parts of the microscope.  Once they have taken a quiz on the different parts and functions on Wednesday, the students will be able to use the microscopes to view living unicellular organisms.  This will take us into the differences in life, and the different Kingdoms that scientists have grouped organisms into.