April 26

Blogging Challenge

We’re getting a late start on this, but I know some of you are ready for it; so, better late than never. I want to offer students the opportunity to start to improve their own blog. The Blogging Challenge is set-up to help you do that.  If you click on the link in this post, or on our sidebar, it will take you to the first challenge. Focus on the blogging assignment for each challenge. The challenges are broken into weekly assignments. Do the Week 1 assignment, then 2 and so on… Good luck and let me know if you have questions. I can’t wait to see your blogs transform.

April 12

Littering

Lately I have seen a whole bunch of trash like aluminum cans, plastic wrappers, grocery bags and a whole bunch of other stuff on streets, my apartment complex, and even some trash on the school grounds too. I personally think that people that litter all over the sidewalk and the school grounds just don’t care about the environment. When people litter it hurts the environment and it also hurts the animals and things that live on the planet too. When I see people litter I just sit there for a minute or two staring at them in disgust. Just thinking, ” Wow I wonder how much that person really cares about the world they live in.” Sometimes I pick up the trash and throw it away or recycle it. Other times when I am with my mom and we have to go somewhere, I regret not picking it up. Please leave a comment about what you think about littering.

By Reilli

April 12

Ducklife

Kids in our 5th grade class seem to be interested in a series of games called Ducklife. It’s about where you have a duck; you train it in different skills like running, swimming, etc.In Ducklife, you have one duck that’s yellow. You get coins from doing training. There’s a shop that you can buy stuff in.You can race when your duck is good enough. In Ducklife 2, there is another skill. Can you guess what it is? Yup, you guessed it. Climbing! There are also more races+a championship. If you beat Ducklife 2, you can edit tracks. In Ducklife 3, you choose a duck. A strength duck, an athletic duck, and a flying duck.Once you beat the championship, you evolve into a bigger duck. You evolve 3 times.  If you beat the champion duck you become king of the ducks. In Ducklife 4, there are different levels. The first is grassland. You have to do running training. If you beat a certain duck, you get an invite to the tournament. If you beat the tournament, you advance to the swamp level; and so on. In all the Ducklife games if you win a race, you get 50 coins.  I’ve talked to some kids about Ducklife, they said it’s fun. Why don’t you check out Ducklife and write how you feel about it.

By Trevor

April 2

Fish Club

In March students started Fish Club. It’s a club that involves students managing a system and learning more about Environments. This particular environment is a freshwater aquatic environment. The class is learning to manage the different variables of this complicated system in order to keep our fish alive. Our aquarium is an 80 gallon rectangular prism.

Golden Mystery Snail

In the last week we’ve hit a couple of obstacles that may prevent us from keeping our fish healthy. The Fish Club team noticed our nitrate and ammonia levels were rising. Also, Fish Club has spotted at least 2 fish with Ich. So, we’ve had to do some research. What are nitrates? How do they form? How do we get rid of them? What’s Ich? How do we get rid of it? To help our class connect the dots I’ve created some links with some information that should help us understand the answers to these questions better.

Nitrogen Cycle (Note: The graphic on this page helps us understand the Nitrogen Cycle in a simple way from the fish’s perspective.)

Ich-Ichthyophthirius multifiliis

We’ve started to test the water weekly to manage the aquarium system and basically keep an eye on things. Our general observation is that our water quality has varied quite a bit. For instance, the nitrates have been between 40-80 ppm. We have decided to run an experiment in an attempt to improve it. I’ve presented a question to the class…What might stabilize our aquarium water quality? Some of the students had the idea of changing the water? I asked, “How often?” We discussed it further and decided that we will change the water 2 times each week and conduct a 20% water change each time. This might help us keep the toxins built up in the aquarium out. Our experiment will be a controlled experiment. In other words, the only change that will be made to the system will be a water change. The class will follow a specific procedure. We will try and build it on Monday when everyone returns from break. Hopefully our fish will be alive when we return. If you think you know how the toxins were able to find there way into our tank, I’d love to hear from you. Why have the ammonia and nitrate levels increased?

 

 

April 2

Read Aloud

Today we started a new Read Aloud. The class is very excited. I honestly don’t know much about it. I’ve heard the title thrown back and forth in conversations for a while between students in the classroom. It’s “The Hunger Games.” So far all we know is that Katniss, the main character, has volunteered to represent her District in the Hunger Games in order to save her little sister. What are the Hunger Games? That is a bit complicated. Each year 1 boy and 1 girl ages 12-18 are chosen from their district to compete in the games, an all out battle in which there is only 1 survivor. After reading the first 4 chapters, you probably have lots of questions brewing in your mind. Feel free to list them below. Also, what general thoughts do you have about our Read Aloud at this time?

Adapted from Overstock.com