Second graders (pictured: Mrs. Woolley's class) are investigating how the Sun's position changes throughout the day. How do you do that in a 45 minute class? You use the Skyview app on the iPads to track the Sun's orbit throughout the day and use flashlights to create your shadows! After an all-class example, students worked in groups to gather data that we'll graph next week to use to help Mylo/Suzi/Angelina solve a problem about shade at the playground.
Our friends Mylo/Suzi/Angelina have found a bunch of "weeds" growing in their school garden! Where did the come from? How does the form (shape) of something affect its function (purpose)? Mrs. Friend's class is finding out by learning how plants are pollinated, and taking a crack at how farmers might help them.
Kindergarten is continuing to study how engineers consider structure (shape) and function (job) by examining the human body. Did you know that our fingers each have three bones, but our thumbs only have two? Does this structure change what our hands are able to do?
Mrs. East and Mrs. Colley's class demonstrate the model we made in class to take home.
I love getting outdoors and experiencing nature. I like to canoe lazy rivers and raft wild ones. I like to go hiking with my dogs and camping in the forest. I also love mountain biking! A lot of my friends do too, including Mrs. Dean. I can ride up hills better than she can, but she is so fast on the downhill that she is better than me overall. She also volunteers with Little Bellas, a mountain biking club for girls.
Little Bellas brings together girls ages 7 to 16 with female mentors in programs which use mountain biking as a vehicle to teach the importance of teamwork, goal-setting, and fostering a healthy lifestyle. Mentors and girls ride together at local trail networks, focusing on improving skills as well as participating in team-building activities. The program is organized around a curriculum that builds upon previous skills, and girls are broken up into groups based on age and ability. After the group ride, the groups participate in games that incorporate that day's skill focus. The next session starts in February and you can sign up here: http://littlebellas.com/register/#fndtn-woodstock-georgia.
Mrs. Dean (center) and me (right) with some friends at the top of Mouse Loop Trail in the Tsali Recreation Area overlooking the Smoky Mountains.
Welcome back to school everyone! I hope you all had a wonderful Holiday Break and are coming back refreshed and ready to learn! I usually spend time in Florida visiting my parents, brothers, cousins, etc., but this year I hit the road. Overall I got my National Parks passport stamped at 5 different locations! Some of the pictures I took are below!
Surrounded by mountains, no water feeds into Death Valley, and very little rains here.
Spent the night 2 hours SE of Death Valley in Ridgecrest, CA on an empty 326-acre property.
Public art on Route 66 headed to Palm Springs, CA.
Joshua Tree pictured on the right.
The nearly 100-year old Hoover Dam, supplying water to 3 states, is part of the Colorado River Watershed.
The dam will cease to work if the upstream intake towers of Lake Mead fall below 950 feet high. Over the last few years the lake continues to set records for new lows as drought plagues the American southwest.
I took special tour of the inside of the dam. This is from a vent about half way up looking out at Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge.
This is the best dam picture I took, sorry it isn't very good.
Petroglyphs.
These turbines make an excellent source of alternative renewable energy in the desert.
Driving through the desert it started SNOWING on the way to Las Vegas.
My friend Beckie and I are posing for a lineup.
At over 1100 feet tall, the Stratosphere Tower overlooks the Las Vegas "Strip".
After the trip out west I went with some friends to Charleston, South Carolina for the New Year celebration. This Live Oak, nicknamed "Angel", is the oldest living organism east of the Mississippi River at 1500 years!
This is the view from Fort Moultrie, a part of Fort Sumter National Monument, overlooking the channel the British once used to attempt to capture the Port of Charleston.
Look in the foreground... there is a dolphin swimming! Fort Sumter is pictured across the channel.
Fort Moultrie was a big part of both the Revolutionary and Civil Wars. Throughout the years the artillery was updated to fight in the World Wars, but the fort never saw action.
In 4th grade we have been studying one of my favorite things, the National Parks. After researching / reviewing climate, Native American history, European exploration, and previewing ecosystems the students will use Green Screen by Do Ink and Aurasma to create videos about their chosen NPS site.
Fourth-graders and their families can visit all of the NPS sites for free this school-year through the "Every Kid in a Park" program. The students are taking home their passes before the holiday break, and I hope you all can explore some of our local parks (Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area, Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield, or Martin Luther King Jr National Historic Site). I'll be out west for the holidays and hiking around both Death Valley and Joshua Tree.
(CNN) - "Zoo Atlanta's roly poly black-and-white furballs of cuteness, formerly known as Cub A and Cub B, have new names. A naming ceremony on Monday revealed that the giant panda cubs will go by the monikers Ya Lun and Xi Lun. Together, the names mean 'Lun Lun's elegant and happy daughters.'
The pair are the sixth and seventh offspring of mom Lun Lun and dad Yang Yang. The ceremony marked 100 days since the birth of their second set of twins. The 100-day naming celebration is a Chinese tradition that the zoo also followed with the cubs' five older brothers and sisters."
The pandas at Zoo Atlanta are part of a program to help other pandas around the world. Loss of habitat (where an animals lives) has caused panda populations drop in China, where they are from. These panda twins will eventual travel back to China, but you can visit them for now, or watch them on the Zoo's Panda Cam!
The tail of a 99-million-year-old dinosaur, including bones, soft tissue, and even feathers, has been found preserved in amber, according to a report published today in the journal Current Biology.
While individual dinosaur-era feathers have been found in amber, and evidence for feathered dinosaurs is captured in fossil impressions, this is the first time that scientists are able to clearly associate well-preserved feathers with a dinosaur, and in turn gain a better understanding of the evolution and structure of dinosaur feathers. - National Geographic, Kristin Romey
Who does this kind a of work? Paleontologists! Learn about them here:
We finished the semester with a big in the Thursday Green Paws class by making elephant toothpaste. Jimmy Kimmel's version in the video below is a little more intense, but we still pulled it off :-)
You can make your own by following Science Bob's recipe: https://sciencebob.com/fantastic-foamy-fountain/
Our Kindergarten students have been studying engineering, structure and function by reading different fairy tales and creating projects from them. After making towers (Jack & the Bean Stalk) and houses (The 3 Little Pigs), it all culminates in designing / creating / testing their own paintbrushes so the stories can continue at home!
I don't know of any other popular music group that embodies STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Math) like OK Go. All subjects are on display in their latest music video, "the one moment". The entire thing was shot in 4.2 seconds and then slowed down at different rates to match the music. Check it out!
Our Kindergarten students have been studying engineering, structure and function by reading different fairy tales and creating projects from them. After making towers (Jack & the Bean Stalk) and houses (The 3 Little Pigs), it all culminates in designing / creating / testing their own paintbrushes so the stories can continue at home!
Our Kindergarten students have been studying engineering, structure and function by reading different fairy tales and creating projects from them. After making towers (Jack & the Bean Stalk) and houses (The 3 Little Pigs), it all culminates in designing / creating / testing their own paintbrushes so the stories can continue at home!
I enjoyed this paper and thought you all might too! The booklet, The Process of Science: and its Interaction with Non-Scientific Ideas, is a guide for teachers, students, and the public.
The booklet was written by Matt Bobrowsky for the American Astronomical Society and was published in 2007 by the American Astronomical Society.
Download the electronic version of The Process of Science. You will need a PDF viewer such as Adobe Acrobat.
Our Kindergarten students have been studying engineering, structure and function by reading different fairy tales and creating projects from them. After making towers (Jack & the Bean Stalk) and houses (The 3 Little Pigs), it all culminates in designing / creating / testing their own paintbrushes so the stories can continue at home!
We just wrapped up paleontology in 3rd Grade, first with a skull study, and then making our own plaster casts that the students each took home!
Our Kindergarten students have been studying engineering, structure and function by reading different fairy tales and creating projects from them. After making towers (Jack & the Bean Stalk) and houses (The 3 Little Pigs), it all culminates in designing / creating / testing their own paintbrushes so the stories can continue at home!
Our Kindergarten students have been studying engineering, structure and function by reading different fairy tales and creating projects from them. After making towers (Jack & the Bean Stalk) and houses (The 3 Little Pigs), it all culminates in designing / creating / testing their own paintbrushes so the stories can continue at home!
Our fourth graders explored simple machines such as wheel and axles, levers, the inclined plane, and pulleys. They investigated the effects of balanced and unbalanced forces on the motion of an object. Angelina, Mylo, and Suzi go on a field trip to the zoo and are faced with the design problem of how to rescue a trapped tiger. Using our VEX kits students then applied their knowledge of forces to devise a way to rescue a heavy zoo animal while keeping it safe throughout the process.
Our fourth graders explored simple machines such as wheel and axles, levers, the inclined plane, and pulleys. They investigated the effects of balanced and unbalanced forces on the motion of an object. Angelina, Mylo, and Suzi go on a field trip to the zoo and are faced with the design problem of how to rescue a trapped tiger. Using our VEX kits students then applied their knowledge of forces to devise a way to rescue a heavy zoo animal while keeping it safe throughout the process.
