Your Science Missions!

Here are your Science missions for today:

1. Start a folder on the Google Drive for this Science unit.
2. Make a slideshow of the Big Ideas for your unit (listed at the bottom of this post and in our Daybook)
3. Fill in the K and W parts of a KWL on your Google Form (you might want to refer to your Big Ideas to help you with this). Before submitting your responses, check off the "share responses via email" box). After submitting your responses, have a look at how your classmates responded. Links to forms: grade 5s, grade 6s
4. Continue our brainstorm of 101 Ways to Conserve Energy. Make sure you don't repeat others' ideas!

BIG IDEAS

Conservation of Energy - grade 5s

1. There are different forms of energy and we use them in everyday life.
2. Some sources of our energy are renewable and some are non-renewable.
3. Energy transforms from one form into another, but cannot be created or destroyed.

Electricity - grade 6s

1. Electricity is generated in Canada in several different ways. Each of these methods have different effects on our natural resources and other living things.
2. There are two different kinds of electrical circuits that are composed of the same components. Each are used for different purposes.
3. There are two different kinds of electricity: static and current.
4. Energy comes in different forms and they can transform from one to another. Electricity is a form of energy.

Where Challenge

Hello Room 209 Scientists,

  Based on our favourite Scientist, Bill Nye, and his "Stuff Happens" series I have devised an exciting Science project for you to work on. We spoke very briefly about this in class, but here is a little more info about the Where Challenge to get your mind working....

  Earth Sciences Canada challenges kids all over the country to ask the simple question - Where?

  What makes your stuff? WHERE does it come from? Think about the things you use everyday, they don't just appear out of nowhere, although it might seem like that sometimes! Everything that we use, from toilet paper to pencils to computer mice to our chairs, use minerals, energy and resources to create!

  Your mission for this project is to select an item that you haven't really thought about before, but use regularly and then ask WHERE?

We'll talk a lot more in class about the expectations, but for now, get thinking!

Here are some links to inspire you:

The WHERE Challenge
How It's Made

We are going to do the WHERE Challenge as a class project, and when our projects are completed, with your parents' permission you MAY send in your project to enter officially.

Molly and I LOVE the How It's Made crayons video, check it out!

Grade 5 Science Big Ideas

All grade 5s now have a copy of this chart of Big Ideas in their Science duo-tangs

How do our Conservation of Energy and Resources Big Ideas tie into the themes and messages of "The Lorax"?

Class Survey - Furnace Type

To help out the grade 5s in Science, all the Room 209 students had homework on Tuesday night. They had to check at home to find out what kind of furnace their families have.

Here are the results of the survey:

Class Survey

Furnace Type

Oil: Ethan, Lauren, Melodee,

Gas: Daniel, Hunter, Camden, Erika, Fiona, Jackson, Kaleigh, Molly, Thomas, Millie, Haydon

Electric: Reilly, Shauna, Pat

Unknown: Finley, Gabby, James, Madi,  Sophia, Vickie, Jack, Laryssa, Liam, Miguel

Awesome Grade 5 Science by Melodee

We have been doing Science and it is about Conservation of Energy and Resources.

We first started out with a KWL chart. And the K stands for what we Know. The W stands for what we Wonder. The L stands for what we Learned.

Some of the things that I know about energy are:
-energy is really fast
-energy is in every living thing
-energy is sometimes in cars, too
-energy can make light
-energy is in electric cars and electric toy cars

Some of the things that I wonder about energy are:
-can a lightbulb be powered by a car?
-is energy in the sun?
-is there energy in plants?
-is energy in the wind?
-is energy in lava?

Next, we did the Glossary. And the glossary is about putting the terms and their definitions together and learning from that. I really like the word "biomass". It means plant and animal waste, like wood or animal droppings that can be burned for heat energy. I actually DO like that one. Another term that I like is "global warming". It means the slow increase of temperature around the world due to the increase of the amount of carbon dioxide and other gases in the atmosphere. Global warming is terrible to all of us.

Today was awesome, the grade 5s had a discussion on the carpet about Science. We started talking about a cartoon. We had a discussion about this comic that Shauna gave us it was about nuclear power, oil and coal and how it affects our earth. The oil is drilled from the water and the pipe broke and it's still spilling for almost two hours. Nuclear power plants can melt down and pollute the planet and kill entire towns. Coal mining is dangerous and it can blow up and people can die. At the end of the comic, there was a good thing, but funny thing at the same time. It was about a guy saying, "It's in my backyard!" because a huge windmill is in his backyard generating power for his house and he was annoyed by it. Even though windmills are very good for our planet becasuse wind is always there, he is annoyed by it which is pretty funny because the other types of enegy are really dangerous.

This cartoon made us think of many things and I had a LOT of ideas about it too. Like, I when I was younger, I thought of a car that had a solar panel on the top of it to store some of the energy in it to still drive at night. I think someone already invented it, though. Also, some superstars like Justin Bieber are very kind and help the earth by making people on twitter that follow him donate money to fresh clean water for countries that don't have it. I said that people in the future might get skin cancer because the ozone layer will be gone because of our pollution. People with very pale skin are more in danger becauuse they can get skin cancer more easily.

We talked about how important inventions are to help save the environment. We talked about the phrase "Necessity is the mother of invention". What that means is even if you want to create something, sometimes the best ideas come when you really need them.

-by Melodee