Ugly Holiday Sweaters Spotted at Skate Night

Check out these ugly sweaters spotted at Kate's Skate!

Tips for Conducting a Science Fair Experiment

Experiment time! Here are several websites with tips on how to perform a great experiment.

Chemistry.about.com

Wikihow.com

Building Ziggurats

6th graders worked hard last week during the two half days in building Sumerian ziggurats and courtyards. Here are some pictures. 

Even working out some numbers to try and make each layer in the ziggurat proportional. 

Great work students!

Creating a Bibliography

A bibliography or works cited page lists the resources a person uses to write a paper or essay. The bibliography should be on a page by itself, follow MLA guidelines, and should be in alphabetical order. There are several websites that can help students create the citations needed for the bibliography. Here are two:

Easy Bib

Citation Machine

Example:

History Read to You

There are countless resources on the Internet for students and adults to learn just about anything. The following website contains many pages on the history of our world. The author of the website even provides a link to hear him read each lesson out loud. This is a great resource for students who enjoy books on tape or would like to know the proper pronunciation of different, more complex or foreign words or would rather listen to help them focus on comprehending or understanding the topic.

The home page can be found here: http://www.mrdowling.com/.

The unit on Mesopotamia can be found here: Mesopotamia

Block 1 Rainbow Lab

Food Assignment Example

Here is an example for the food assignment that is due Friday. Looking forward to learning about where many different foods came from!

5 Themes of Geography Songs

Now online your favorite song from class, "People Move" by Lodge McCammon! The video is actually a playlist of five videos, one being the whole song and the other four explaining the lyrics and movements to the song.

Also added is another catchy video strictly about the five themes of geography, check it our below as well.

Some Vocabulary Definitions- Scientific Method Unit

More Help With Variables

Here is a repost breaking down variables in a science experiment:

Typically in a unit on the scientific method, the biggest hurdle for students is understanding and identifying the different types of variables in a science investigation or experiment.

A variable is anything that could change during an experiment. This post will walk through the different variables. Also be sure to check out a a future post on writing and understanding a hypothesis as that will also help gain a deeper understanding of this concept.

Independent Variable - Also called the manipulated variable. This is what the person doing the experiment changes or what is being tested or the attempted solution to a problem.

Ex. 1 - A person is experimenting with how fast sugar dissolves in different temperatures of water. The person has three cups of water at three different temperatures. The independent variable is the different temperatures of water.

Ex. 2 - A person is testing different stain removers on grass stains. The different stain removers would be the independent variable.

Ex. 3 - You are having trouble waking up in the morning (major problem) so you decide to find a solution. You try different types of music as your wake up song in the morning. The independent variable would be the different types of music.

What do you think? Make sense? Let's move to dependent variable.

Dependent Variable - Also called the responding variable because it responds or depends on the independent variable (rock and roll song with a major drum solo, you wake up and get to school on time, light classical music, sleep till noon.) One of the best ways to identify the dependent variable is to find what is being measured or observed. In other words, you are looking for the results.

Ex. 1 - In example one, a person is experimenting with how fast sugar dissolves in different temperatures of water. The time that sugar dissolves depends on the temperature of the water. The time that the sugar dissolves is also what is being measured. This means that the dependent variable  is the time the sugar dissolves.

Ex. 2 - In example two, a person is testing different stain removers on grass stains. How clean the stain is or in other words how much of the grass stain is gone is the dependent variable.

Ex. 3 - In example three, the dependent variable would be the time it takes you to wake up in response to the type of music being played on your alarm clock.

Good review so far? One more variable to go.

Control / Constant  / Standardized Variables - Variables that should stay the same in order to have a "fair" experiment.

Ex. 1 - Sugar / water experiment. Control variables would include the type of sugar, the amount of water, the cup used. These are all variables that should be the same in every trial.

Ex. 2 - Stain removers. Control variables would include the type and size of the stain, how long the stain remover sits, and what the stain is put on (like a t-shirt).

Ex. 3 - Alarm Clock. Control variables would include the loudness of the alarm, how long the snooze button is set for, and the time the alarm is set for.

Here is a link to an online quiz on variables. Give it a shot, one of the best ways to learn this is by lots of practice.

Sea Floor Spreading

Greek gods and goddesses

Greek myths were a main part of the Ancient Greeks storytelling ways. Check out some of these websites to review the major gods and goddesses of Ancient Greece.

Rick Riordan's Website

Interactive Quiz

Power Point Review for Quiz

Building Molecules

Practice building molecules with some of these different interactives:

Click to Run

This interactive shows how the electrons of the atom line up as the molecules are bonded together.

Building Molecules With Lewis Dot Structures

Here is another website called Molecularium where you can build and learn about different molecules.

There are also many videos that show what different molecules look like including these:




Comment on what molecules you built and include the molecular structure.
Example: Water - H2O 

Field Trip to Discovery Place

We will be headed to Discovery Place on Friday. Check out some of the interesting exhibits and displays that you will see.

Discovery Place Home Page

Main Exhibit "101 Inventions that Changed the World" video preview




101 Inventions Website

Hubble IMAX - Includes a link to a video trailer

After our visit to the museum on Friday feel free to comment on what you found most interesting.

How Small is an Atom?

Check out this video on how small an atom is and comment on what you found interesting. It may be helpful to watch the video a couple of times.

Holiday Doors

The sixth graders and the rest of middle school did an amazing job decorating the doors before winter break, even drawing tours from elementary and primary classes. Congratulations to Mr. Meyer's and the rest of the Tigers for having the winning door. Here are pictures from the sixth grade classrooms.