Halfway? REALLY?
It just seems so crazy to think that tomorrow is the last day of the first semester! That thing they say about time going by faster as you get older is so true. I know I'm not really that old, but it's funny how teaching can make me feel young and old at the same time; young because the kids just have some much contagious energy, and old because it wears me out by the end of the day! Reflecting back on this semester, I would say that energy level is one of the biggest changes from last year to this year. The seventh and eighth graders were, as a whole, much calmer than the fifth graders of this year. Of course, as I've mentioned to a few of my colleagues, the students are pretty much just bigger versions of their third-grade selves (having taught this group of students two years ago).
With the first semester coming to a close, we are also wrapping up our unit on Earth's systems. The students did a great job of meeting the goal of the main standard we worked with, which was to develop a model that showed how the systems interact. There is an additional standard that we are going to be addressing to finish out the unit (even though we will need to use a bit of the second semester): the students will be graphing data related to the distribution of water on earth. This week we looked at percentages of water found in oceans, glaciers/ice caps, groundwater, and surface water. To give the students a visual of the differences, I gave a demonstration using water in graduated cylinders that matched up with the percentages of each water source. Starting out with 1000 mL of water, the students were rather stunned when I pointed out that the largest cylinder, now at a whopping 965 mL after the water was distributed, was ocean water. We then proceeded to make a chart of the data and create circle graphs. Next, we are going to look at how amounts of water in different areas of the US change over time. We are going to use satellite data that tracked water mass changes in the US over a ten year period. How the satellites collected the data is pretty cool, and I think the students are going to find it fascinating. Once we examine the data, then the students are going to work in teams to graph the data for one year, and we are going to combine all the graphs to make one long graph. I'm going to have the three classes each study a different location in the US (east coast, central, and west coast) so that they can see the differences between the areas. Combined with our new understanding of the fact that very little of the world's water is freshwater, this should help their understanding of why it is important to conserve water! Looking forward to this next set of lessons. Here's a video that shows how the satellite data was collected:
With the first semester coming to a close, we are also wrapping up our unit on Earth's systems. The students did a great job of meeting the goal of the main standard we worked with, which was to develop a model that showed how the systems interact. There is an additional standard that we are going to be addressing to finish out the unit (even though we will need to use a bit of the second semester): the students will be graphing data related to the distribution of water on earth. This week we looked at percentages of water found in oceans, glaciers/ice caps, groundwater, and surface water. To give the students a visual of the differences, I gave a demonstration using water in graduated cylinders that matched up with the percentages of each water source. Starting out with 1000 mL of water, the students were rather stunned when I pointed out that the largest cylinder, now at a whopping 965 mL after the water was distributed, was ocean water. We then proceeded to make a chart of the data and create circle graphs. Next, we are going to look at how amounts of water in different areas of the US change over time. We are going to use satellite data that tracked water mass changes in the US over a ten year period. How the satellites collected the data is pretty cool, and I think the students are going to find it fascinating. Once we examine the data, then the students are going to work in teams to graph the data for one year, and we are going to combine all the graphs to make one long graph. I'm going to have the three classes each study a different location in the US (east coast, central, and west coast) so that they can see the differences between the areas. Combined with our new understanding of the fact that very little of the world's water is freshwater, this should help their understanding of why it is important to conserve water! Looking forward to this next set of lessons. Here's a video that shows how the satellite data was collected:
Mindfulness thought for the week: A single act of kindness throws out roots in all directions, and the roots spring up and make new trees. --Father Faber
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