Earlier this week a student asked me if they could study and report on anti-matter (and an anti-element) instead of a "regular" element as was assigned. Of course I was happy to oblige the student's curiosity, but since I didn't know much about anti-matter myself, I thought I wouldn't be much help to this student and I also thought about how much or how little information there might be on the subject.
It turns out that anti-matter is really fascinating. However, it is indeed the case that what we know about anti-matter is... not very much. There is plenty of speculation from physicists. And it appears we have some idea about a few anti-elements, such as anti-hydrogen and anti-helium. It was captivating to read Ethan Siegel's article from ScienceBlogs, http://scienceblogs.com/startswithabang/2010/11/22/why-making-neutral-antimatter/ in describing how to harness the efficient energy of antimatter and matter together in order to "fuel" our farthest human space travel. The curious question from my student promoted me to learn quite a bit more than I had expected to about the structure of anti-matter. I became aware of the existence of anti-elements, which, for me, was much more specific than general "anti-matter." It makes sense though. Nothing is 'just' matter. Everything is made of something. And each something is one thing on the periodic table. **Please post a comment about your own ideas and curiosity about anti-matter and atomic energy**
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Welcome to 8th grade and, to most of you, welcome back to my class. I am anticipating an exciting year learning about physics, graphing relationships, chemistry, balancing equations, astronomy, and geometric relationships of volume and surface area.
My priorities in school are to help you succeed at achieving the mathematical and scientific standards of eighth grade, feel welcome in our learning space, and be empowered to think critically about the world Hey there students... parents... anybody reading this brief article. The end of the trimester is quickly approaching and the grades for the chapter 5 and chapter 6 tests will be out tomorrow at school. Everybody will have the change tomorrow (and possibly longer if they need it) to make test corrections to these two tests. The importance is on learning the material, and by going back to previous work and fixing mistakes, learning and understanding are made stronger. Short day on Monday, March 7th, so be prepared.
We finished the Chapter 5 Individual Test on Thursday and students received their results for the Chapter 4 Individual Test. Despite the end of a chapter, the concepts that we learned in chapter 5--proportionality, probability, and the 5-D process--will come back again.
Having trouble getting comfortable with the 5-d process? Check out this video for extra support. With the first trimester over, and quickly rolling into our second, thank your for being a part of our classroom community so far. I have so thoroughly enjoyed meeting you and getting to know you. Though the day to day of school is similar to the day to day of anybody's work, those in our classroom community have persevered, collaborated, and engaged with the mathematical and scientific concepts and ways of thinking that we approach each day.
As we end 2015 and enter a new year, it is so common to make resolutions for the New Year. This year, I will be no different than that common practice. I have two resolutions going forward for the remaining of our school year. My first is simply a reaffirmation of my goal this year: communication. My aim is to communicate more frequently and more clearly with all of you, students, parents, and any others. To this end, I will send out a weekly newsletter on Mondays describing what we've done the past week and what we're doing in the upcoming week. I expect to also keep this website updated with students' nightly homework and long-term projects. As always, please feel very welcome to email me. It can be as formal or informal, long or short, as you like. My second is to transform our classroom living space into a collaborative setting for developing math practices and conceptual thinking, scientific exploration and systematic questioning, and a friendly space to exist together. Get ready for the New Year. The first week of school we'll be developing our communities core beliefs and common practices. I can hardly wait to see you all next year and I am looking forward to going further into math and, in science, genetics, natural history, and our human body. Welcome back to school after the weekend. We are entering into our second full week and finishing the first part of the first chapter of CPM. Remember, with math homework last week and this week, do what you can, challenge yourself to get it done, but don't spend more than thirty minutes on the math homework. If you are still having difficulty logging on to the e-textbook at home or you don't have a username and passcode, you can always check out a hard copy textbook from me for the night or take a picture of the homework using a mobile device.
We are spending science this week setting up our google accounts and becoming familiar with the chromebooks. We are in the middle of an introduction to scientific processes and scientific thinking. We will conclude general science practices next week. Get ready to jump into the micro world as our next section--our first unit--is cell biology! As always, feel free to send me an email through the link on the bottom right or on the contact page. Happy Trails... |
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November 2016
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