Have you ever wondered if something you ate really got digested? That wonderful thing your parents say to you when you swallow gum, "that's going to stay in your body for the rest of your life!!!" Well, in our Body Works unit, we are wrapping up the digestive system by learning how our bodies break down all different types of food and materials and use them for nutrients and squeeze every last drop of water out of them for energy. Now we are on to the Respiratory and Circulatory systems. We have already learned that our lungs are not just for breathing air in and out but that they are responsible for getting the oxygen molecules into our blood!!! We have observed the gas exchange that occurs when the oxygen molecules are passed into the bloodstream and the carbon dioxide molecules are passed back into the alveoli and head back out of the lungs as we exhale. It is exciting to be in science today!!!! Remember, if you find a current event article or see something on TV that pertains to class please write a summary of what you heard and why that is an important topic in health or the human body and you can get extra credit!!!
Stay tuned for the way blood flows through the body in our upcoming posts.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
The Body
Have you ever wondered what happens to your food as you chew it? As you swallow it? After that????
We are no longer wondering...we are learning the answers. We have begun our unit on Body Works. We have started with the digestive system and we are learning not only the parts, but also how they function. There are many vital organs that go into our everyday health and as we have found many of them are part of the digestive system. We will be learning all of the body systems as well as their structures and functions culminating with a poster sketch of the systems and how they fit and work together. During this unit we do lab work pertaining to the system we are currently working on. We have conducted our first digestive lab to discuss the ways that we break down food and we will be conducting another to further learn about mechanical and chemical breakdown.
We encourage the students to share what they are learning at home so be sure to talk with them about the body systems.
We are no longer wondering...we are learning the answers. We have begun our unit on Body Works. We have started with the digestive system and we are learning not only the parts, but also how they function. There are many vital organs that go into our everyday health and as we have found many of them are part of the digestive system. We will be learning all of the body systems as well as their structures and functions culminating with a poster sketch of the systems and how they fit and work together. During this unit we do lab work pertaining to the system we are currently working on. We have conducted our first digestive lab to discuss the ways that we break down food and we will be conducting another to further learn about mechanical and chemical breakdown.
We encourage the students to share what they are learning at home so be sure to talk with them about the body systems.
Buoyancy Bonanza!!
Our 5th graders have been challenged and have passed with flying colors. We have been learning about how variables are used to conduct and test experiments. We learned about how Archimedes discovered the principles of Buoyancy and we have put them to work in our classroom. First we discussed carrying capacity and why boats are built with a purpose and a limit to how many people and items they can hold. We then tested our own "boats" in the classroom and reviewed our results of our "passenger" tests. Our passengers being pennies were placed inside our floating "boats" and we counted the capacity by using the number of pennies the boats carried before sinking to the bottom.
This week we are finishing our boat challenge by constructing and testing our own home made boats. Each student was given a 12"by 12" piece of foil and constructed their own boat to hold as many passengers as possible. They came up with many creative designs and most have been holding well over 100 passengers!!!!!
As we wrap up this phase of construction we are now going to focus on the experimental design process as we head into our experimentation in the AIR!!! Flight will be our next step and the discoveries to be made are just as exciting as those we have had thus far.
This week we are finishing our boat challenge by constructing and testing our own home made boats. Each student was given a 12"by 12" piece of foil and constructed their own boat to hold as many passengers as possible. They came up with many creative designs and most have been holding well over 100 passengers!!!!!
As we wrap up this phase of construction we are now going to focus on the experimental design process as we head into our experimentation in the AIR!!! Flight will be our next step and the discoveries to be made are just as exciting as those we have had thus far.
4th Grade is Electric
Hello again,
We have begun our experiments with electricity and electrical circuits. You may have heard about our "glowing ball" and our Van DeGraff Generator. We have used both to demonstrate one of our two types of electricity. Static electricity is responsible for the wonderful things we experienced during our classes the last few weeks. We have also started work with Current Electricity. This as we have discussed is what we have in our homes, schools and businesses. We are very excited to continue to learn how many ways we use electricity and can save it and also learn how to create the circuits we use everyday ourselves!!!
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