Tuesday/Wednesday, November 18/19, 2014

We used the first 20 minutes of class to finish Concept Mapping with our groups.  Our concept map was to have between 20-25 words on it from the Unit B vocab.

Next we worked on Activity 23 by reading and doing the Stopping to Think questions as well as the Analysis questions.

Finally, we did a Kahoot to review for the test and also had time in some classes to watch student made Instructional Videos for Unit B.

Monday, November 17, 2014

Today was a Late Start Day. First, we watched Bill Nye "Heart" while Mrs. McCabe stamped Unit B vocabulary pages 3-5.

Next we started Concept Mapping the Unit B vocabulary words. We will finish this next block to review for the test at the end of the week.

Thursday/Friday, November 13/14, 2014

GUEST BLOGGER: Jasmine from Period 4

Today in science, we got our Activity 27 index cards back, and then watched a video about how alveoli and capillaries in the lungs interact to help students with rewrites. Then we had twenty minutes to work on vocabulary since all of it is due on Monday.

Next, we did activity #22 where we took our pulse and experienced what our heart did by pumping blood with our hands using the pressure bulb (the black one). 

We kept squeezing the bulb with only one hand for one minute to see if we could match up with what our heart can do in one minute. It was hard!

Afterwards, we finished up activity #23 by doing the analysis questions.

Video of a Complete Heart Transplant!

From IFL Science: Heart disease is the number one cause of death around the globe. While approximately 50,000 people are candidates for transplants, only about 5,000 are performed each year. 

The first heart transplant surgery was in 1967 in Cape Town, South Africa. After a 25-year-old woman died in a car accident, her heart was given to a 55-year-old man. Unfortunately, the man died only 18 days later. Rejection was common in early surgeries with most patients not lasting more than a couple of weeks, so not many were performed. In the coming decades, meticulous tissue-matching and improved medications increased survival rates.

Today, recipients of donated hearts have a survival rate of 90% after one year and 74% after five years. As research involving replacement organs from stem cells continues to progress, those numbers will hopefully increase.

Potential recipients undergo psychological evaluation for the surgery and they are also given a variety of tests regarding tissue type and to make sure they are healthy enough to sustain the new organ. Once a donor heart becomes available, recipient selection based on a number of factors, including time on wait list, prognosis, and proximity to the available donor organ.

When everyone is ready to proceed with the transplant, the recipient is put under general anesthesia and connected to a cardiopulmonary bypass machine. After the blood has been completely diverted from the heart, the old heart is extracted and replaced with the donor organ. After the new heart is sewn into place and the blood is brought back to the heart, the heart will be shocked into beating. Before they close up, the surgeon will monitor the heart is functioning properly without any leaks. 

Quite obviously, the following video that shows this process is graphic, yet totally amazing. I mean, you’re watching someone’s heart get cut right out of their chest, so please view with discretion. 

Wednesday, November 12, 2014

GUEST BLOGGER: Malia from Period 4

Today, in class we worked on Activity 21, where we had to see which type of pump moves water the best. So we conducted an experiment where we had to get a bucket of water and see which pump, the black......

or the blue.....

moved the water into the empty bucket the best. 

The whole class agreed that the black pump moved the best because it trapped the water on one side when you squeezed it, and when you squeezed it again then it let the water out on the other side to the dry and empty bucket. We took turns and saw that the blue pump just takes the water and then when you let go of the pump, it releases the water back into the same bucket where the water originally came from. 

After we did that for 14 minutes in total (7 minutes for each pump) we talked in class and wrote down what we observed on pg. 26. Finally, we had a towel to soak up the water that got on the table and cleaned up.

Thursday/Friday, November 6/7, 2014

GUEST BLOGGER: Helen from Period 4

Today in science, we wrote an index card for Activity 17 Analysis Question 3 and Ms.McCabe stamped tables 1, 2, 3, and 4’s what is surface area, surface area notes, Super Size Me, activity 15, and activity 17. She will be stamping the rest of the class next class. 

We got our old index cards back and discussed them. After that, we played the circulatory game (activity 18). We each got handed a role to play (blood, heart, liver, lungs, stomach and intestines, kidneys, or leg muscles). We then collected the waste, nutrients, oxygen, and carbon dioxide cards needed. Every job has a special function to do to keep the body alive. If an organ ran out of something, it died. 

During the first round every organ died fairly quickly. 

The second time we changed somethings to make the body more effective and “alive” for a longer period of time. After the activity, we discussed what we learned by filling in Part 2 of Activity 18 and the analysis questions.

Tuesday, November 4 & Wednesday, November 5, 2014

After we wrote down our homework in our agenda, we studied for the vocab quiz while Mrs. McCabe stamped page 2 of vocab. Then we took the vocab test.

Next, we watched this video of an experiment done to show the impact of smoking on lungs (pig lungs were used), and then we finished Activity 17 by reviewing the data we collected Monday and completing the second table and analysis questions.

Finally, we read an article called "Teens, Tech and Trends Article" and completed an Analysis worksheet to help us identify the author's claim and evidence of her argument. This worksheet and the one we did last unit entitled "Driven to Distraction" will eventually be used to formulate an argument in an assignment about whether technology helps teens learn.

Watch The European Space Agency Land A Spacecraft On A Comet!!

(from IFL science): The European Space Agency's Rosetta spacecraft has had quite a remarkable journey since it was launched in 2004. After traveling throughout the solar system for a decade, Rosetta finally met up with its target, Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, in August. In the time that has followed since, Rosetta has been observing the comet and preparing to launch Philae: a 100 kg (220 lb) robotic lander that will be the first human instrument to make a soft landing on a comet’s nucleus. This historic event has been scheduled for November 12.

Rosetta will launch Philae early Wednesday morning. It will take a gut-wrenching seven hours for the lander to travel 22.5 km to 67P/C-G and land at Agilkia, the targeted area on the head of the comet’s nucleus. After Philae lands, it will deploy harpoons that will hold it securely to the comet’s surface. Next, it will make observations and get oriented before sending the information back to the Rosetta orbiter, which will then be relayed back to Earth. It takes nearly half an hour for information to be received from Rosetta, so confirmation of the lander’s success is expected to come in around 11:00 am EST.

Philae contains a suite of ten instruments that will sample the nucleus, generating a great deal of data about its composition and structure. The data could reveal what role comets may have played in the presence of water on Earth, as well as any influence comets may have had on early life.

Slooh Community Observatory will be doing a live webcast discussing Philae’s landing beginning at 2:00 pm EST on November 12. The event will be hosted by Slooh astronomer Bob Berman alongside Geoff Fox, in addition to many guests, including ESA scientists from the Rosetta mission. Use #SloohRosetta on social media to join in the conversation.

The comet is extremely dim and will not be visible with amateur telescopes even when it nears the sun next August. Slooh’s observatory in the Canary Islands will be providing real-time footage of 67P/C-G during the webcast.

“This is the most exciting spacecraft mission since Cassini reached Saturn a decade ago,” Berman said in a press release. “Comet 67P is heading toward its encounter with the Sun next summer, and as it does its ices will sublimate, pebbles and dust will be released -- some as dramatic geysers from the comet’s surface --, and now we have a spacecraft right there sending us pictures and videos of the whole thing. It’s unbelievable -- and this makes the attempted landing on its surface critically important, and nail-bitingly perilous.”

You can tune in to Slooh’s broadcast here: 

Monday, November 3, 2014

GUEST BLOGGER: Max from Period 4
Today, we started class by writing a notecard for Activity #15 analysis question #3. We also worked on vocabulary for Activity 15.

Then, for the rest of class we did Part 1 of Activity 17. This was a lab where we poured BTB color in cup A, B, C, D, E of a setup tray. 

Then we blew air from a dropper into cup B...

...and then with cup D and E we blew into the BTB with a straw. 

BTB turns from blue to green to yellow when CO2 is added. We then recorded what happened to the BTB in each cup on page 21 of our science notebook in the table.

We will finish the rest of the Act 17 tables next class.

Thursday/Friday, October 30/31, 2014

GUEST BLOGGER: Aaron from Period 4
Today we finished watching Super Size Me for the first 20 minutes of class. After the movie, we finished the questions that went with the listening guide and reviewed the answers. 

Next we spent the last hour on Activity #15. We read the pages from the SALI text, did the Stopping to Thinks, and worked on vocabulary. We learned about the digestive system such as what the small and large Intestines do, then did the Analysis Questions as a class.