Fabi's Reflection Post

Hey everyone!
Thanks once again for a great 4th quarter blogging!
It was even better this time because we've all become blogging masters.
I liked blogging because I was sick for a couple of science classes and the blog helped me in catching up. I'm glad we're doing it again next year. Sometimes blogging was challenging. For example, when posting comments, I found it hard to include science in my writing. I liked blogging more this quarter because we could comment on the 6th grade blog as well and it was fun to find out what they're doing. Also, I learned a lot from reading the scribe posts on the 8th grade blog, and am looking forward to doing it next year. I also enjoyed blogging because a lot of people included videos and pictures that were helpful. Some of the information on our blog helped when studying for the science quest, and some of the reminders were useful as well. Sometimes, when I hadn't brought in my organizer, I checked the blog for help. Overall, I'm glad we came up with the idea of a blog!

Science class on Tuesday May 3rd and Thursday May 5th

Hello seventh graders!!!

Tuesday was the day we had to take the entire machine we've been building in class down, while Mr. Boulai filmed us. We had the sixth graders come in to see our creation and a couple teachers, too. The Simple Machines unit is finally finished.

Thursday's class started off with a few reminders. The first one was about blog comments.

All comments for this week must be posted by tomorrow at four o'clock. Please make sure that your comments are longer than one or two sentances. Also, remember that in your comments you must include compliments, suggestions and science!!

Another reminder was that our field trip to Bodies Revealed is coming up, and you have to make sure to bring both the money and the signature by Monday May the 17th, otherwise you will be spending the day with Mr. Houlis.

Finally, today we got the rubric to our new project, which is due Thursday May 13th.

In case you loose the rubric, it will be on moodle.

In our cell project we have to create models of animal or plant cells, which shows the various organelles and their functions. We have to use everyday objects to create a representative model of an animal or plant cell. For each organelle, you should choose objects that symbolize or represent the organelle's function. Then, we must create a table which lists each organelle you have represented in you model. For each organelle, state it's main function, what you used to represent it, and the reason you chose the object you did to represent it.

After we got this assignment, we got a packet about cells. This can also be found on moodle.

This packet talks about the different parts of cells.

We learned that:

A plasma membrane has the job of protecting the inside of the cell from the outside enviornment, and that it controls the movement of water, nutrients and wasts into and out of the cell.

A cytoplasm is everything in the cell except for the nucleus.

A nucleus is the control center of the cell. It is one of the largest organelle and it has DNA (Deoxyribonucleic acid) which contains all the genetic information.

A nucleolus is located inside the nucleus and is responsible for making ribosomes.

An Endoplasmic reticulum is a network of membranes throughout the cytoplasm of the cell. When ribosomes are attached it is called the Rough ER and when there are no ribosomes attached it is called the Smooth ER.

A ribosome is an organelle that helps make proteins. Some ribosomes are found in the cytoplasm, but most are attached to the endoplasmic reticulum. They also make proteins to be exported from the cell for work elsewhere in the body. Ribosomes are made in the nucleus.

A Golgi complex or Golgi apparatus is an organelle in the body responsible for sorting and correctly shipping the proteins in the ER. This organelle is named after the Italian physician Camillo Golgi, because he was the first person to describe this organelle in the cell.

A Mitochondria is the cell's powerhouse. It packages the energy of the food into special molecules. Every type of cell contains a different number of mitochondria. Mitochondria cells can be leg muscle cells, heart muscle cells and brain cells.A vesicle is a small vessel that help store and transport products produced by the cell. It transports material such as waste, outside the cell in a process called exocytosis.

A vacuole may look empty but it contains large amounts of water and stores other important materials such as sugars, ions and pigments.

Lysosomes are found mostly in animal cells and have the job of digesting things. It might be used to digest food or break down the cell when it dies.

The chloroplast is found only in animal cells and it is a cell organelle where the photosynthesis takes place.

Our homework was to highlight all the important things in the packet. We were allowed to take Ms. D's markers but we are to return them!!!

Next we learned that M r s. G r e n stand for:

M: movement

R: respire

S: sensitivity

G: growth

R: reproduces

E: excerete

N: nutrition/NRG

All living things must have all of these in order to be alive!

This is the easy way of finding out if something is alive or not.

Then, we learned about the six kingdoms:

Animals

Plants

Fungi

Protists

Monerans

Archeabacteria

We also looked at tree man. To see some pictures of him, follow this link:

www.hemimy.net/2008/04/15/ded-koswara-the-tree-man-undergoes-treatment/

Next scribe is.......................... Iva

Reflection Post-Fabi

This quarter's blogging experience was an interesting one. I liked it better than the first one because we didn't have to make major comments, and because we could comment on the eigth grade, seventh grade and Canadian blog. I liked reading the comments from other people that commented on my scribe post, because none of them included criticism, and most of them were helpful and nice. When I was sick one day, I used that day's scribe post to find out what I missed. Altogether, blogging this quarter was great.

Science Class Tuesday 16th

Hello Seventh Grade!!!

On Tuesday Ms. D reminded us that we only have three weeks left for blogging, so everyone has to make sure they are ontop of their comments. All blog entries must be completed by April 1st at 4 p.m. Don't forget that you have to post two comments on the seventh grade blog, one on the eight grade blog, and one on the Canadian blog!

Next, we had a couple minutes to prepare for our presentations on the six simple machines! We went through every machine exept for the pulley. During the presentations, the students that were watching had to take notes!!!

After the presentations, Ms. D let us know that there is quiz coming! The quiz is going to be on work, power and simple machines, so don't forget to study and brush up on your formulas!

Toward the end of the class, we got our homework assignment, which is random science question number eight. We have to find out who invented the zipper, and write the answer in our lab notebook!

Bellow you can find a video about simple machines. Instead of width the creator of the movie calls it "thickness". I hope it helps you understand the simple machines!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ca1h6f2hcz8&feature=related

HaVe A gReAt St. PaTrIcK's DaY!!!

Fabi"s Reflection Post

So far, blogging has been very fun. I enjoyed reading everyones scribe posts, and when I missed a science class, our blog was very helpful. I think in the future we should explore blogger together, because when I was doing my scribe post, I had some trouble with uploading, copy-and-pasting from a word document to blogger, and editing. Other than this, I think that the blog is going well, and I understand how to use it now. Anyone who is absent will surely consider our blog very useful. Also, we can use the blog to study for any tests or quizes, because it goes through all we've done in every science class!! Altogether, I think our blogging adventure went really well, and we should continue doing it!!!!

Thursday 21 Science Class

Hello seventh graders!

Today Ms. D was only present for the beginning of the class, enough to tell us about a couple of dates.

1st.....Tomorrow, we will be working on the lab and writing a reflection post, which is a post explaining what you liked about the blog, what you struggled with, what you think you should work on etc.

2nd... A rough copy of our lab is due this Tuesday coming up! Feel free to talk to MS. D is you need help.

3rd The final copy of the lab is due Thursday!

Ms. D also passed out the results from the tennis ball acceleration / deceleration graph and paragraph, which was the last grade this quarter except for the blog. Some of us got the results for our scribe and blog posts today, but not all!

For the rest of the class, Mr. Tim, the substitute teacher taught. We did work on the lab today. First, we watched a short video called Physical Science in Action, which was about gravity, forces, Isaac Newton, mass, weight, Galileo Galilei, air resistance and acceleration

After the movie we had a discussion with Mr. Tim in which we revised pretty much everything about forces, gravity friction, distance, speen, weight and mass. Mr. Tim taught us that the strongest form of friction is static friction, and the weakest form of fluid friction is friction.

Next, we learned an interesting fact about Isaac Newton? We learned that after Newton spent a lot of years on the principles of gravity, he went to present his theory to the public. People laughed at him and denied all he had worked on. Becuase his presentation method was dropping an apple and Explaining that the apple was attracted to the center of the Earth, the others made up as story in which Newton got hit on the head with an apple while he was sitting under a tree, and it stuck ! But that's really not when Newton first thought about gravity!

Then we started discussing about black holes, which led to watching a few video clips on Stephen Hawking, a man who spent most of his life on black holes. He has a breathing which has paralysed him completley, except for a muscle underneath his right eye, which he uses to communicate with. Here are some links to movies on Stephen Hawking:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjBIsp8mS-c

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YxxbXgo7IVw

The next Scribe is ......Viktor!!!!!!!!

Thanks! Have a great rest of the week!