Students work on news article about Great Salt Lake and the salt imbalance. What is the problem? What is a solution? Article is to be shared with Mr. W via Google Docs and be in the form of an online article.
Causeway at GSL--the cause of the problem.
Students are assigned to groups and then divide the work on the Great Salt Lake (GSL) Project. Each student takes on either water, human impact, or salinity. At the end of the week an article will be produced using Google Docs about the problems at the GSL and a recommended management plan.
Finished the NOVA video on Making Stuff Stronger. Amazing part about placing spider genes in goats to produce the silk protein in milk!
Part III of NOVA’s Making Stuff. Class watches great episode on “Making Stuff Stronger.” There were truly some strange new discoveries like carbon nanotubes and goats that produced milk that had the protein for spider silk! Absent? Watch the video and take notes.
Continued work on the predator-prey activity (Smartboard notes 3-23-11) from yesterday. Homework on relative dating and radiometric decay is a good review for Friday’s quiz. Note the question and information about the release of radiation from the Japanese nuclear plant.
Simulated predator-prey activity. The three “environments” are shown below.
The prey were four different types of beans (split pea, navy, red kidney and lentil). One student was the game warden and distributed the prey in the environment. Others in the group were predators. Seventy five percent of the population was hunted and then each surviving bean produced three new offspring. A second generation of 100 beans was placed in the environment and 75% hunted again. Graphs to follow! Will be interesting to see the differences in the environments.
Students worked on and then scored a PSSA practice writing prompt. We discussed what made a good answer and how a score of 2 could be attained. Students then prepared the “prey” for tomorrow’s activity by counting beans and placing them in labeled bags.
The science of stratigraphy was introduced and three rules or laws were presented; the Law of Superposition, the Law of Original Horizontality, and the Law of Cross-Cutting Relationships. These three rules allow one to determine the relative ages of rock layers.
Student search National Geographic magazines for images of 3 different organisms (plant or animal). They described their physical and behavioral characteristics and how they are similar (unity of life) and different (diversity of life). Smartboard noted 3-7-11
Simulation to try after the pH quiz. Students also read the introduction to Ch 6 and wrote down the THREE goals for the chapter in their lab notebooks.
