Monday September 28th - Properties of Water Day 1

Today we brought together our knowledge of Basic Chemistry to the properties of water.  Here were the daily questions:

We then went into some notes / drawings / activities to understand the chemistry of Water
***NOTE:  I encourage you to watch the following Khan Academy Video if you missed today's discussion / demonstrations:

Then we used our "cups of water" to build 5 water  molecules

 And then you diagramed that on your desks!!

Friday September 25th - Basic Chem and Water Intro DQQ - Finish up basic chem notes

BEFORE the daily question quiz I had you watch the following crash course as a nice review / introduction to the properties of water.

We then took our daily question quiz.

AFTER that we did finish up notes on the different types of bonds:

Thursday September 24th - Basics of Chemistry

Reminder:  DAILY QUESTION QUIZ TOMORROW!!!!  (Intro to water and basic chemistry)

Yesterday we had a daily question extravaganza about the properties of water.  While water is CRUCIAL to life and have many "life giving" properties, we need to have a basic understanding of atoms to start.  Today's daily questions were to see what, if anything, you remember about the parts of an atom.  I was encouraged to see that while you may have not remembered it ALL, many of you could talk through some of the parts:

Then on to our first set of notes for this section:

Wednesday September 23rd - Daily Question Extravaganza!!!

     Today we spent the entire period going through a variety of Daily Questions that introduce us to the wonders of water.
     You used the KEYSTONE Finish Line books (Book pages available here) to search for answers to both yesterday and today's daily questions.
     Here are some screen shots of the questions and then a screencast of our discussion follows.

The answer to that last one is A (Cohesion allows droplets to form, and adhesion keeps the droplets on the needles)

Tuesday September 22nd - Chemistry of Life Pre-Test

FIRST on your agenda today - go to Study Island - Login -- Go to "my classes" - Click on Biology 2015-2016

There is an assessment called "Chemistry of Life Pre-Test" - Take this.

Once you have finished the pre-test -  grab  a KEYSTONE Finish Line book

 - you will use pages 26-28 to answer the following Daily Questions (Please put these in your notebook - you can start a new section of Daily Questions)

Monday September 21st - First Round of CDTs

Happy Monday All!!!!

Today we took our first CDT

This test is to show your progress throughout the school year.   It assesses how well you are doing on each section of the Keystone Exam content.  I expected pretty low scores since well....... we haven't learned it yet!!!

I WAS impressed though with your baseline scores.  This shows me you guys came in with a pretty solid background.  That is encouraging for sure!!

Those of you who did not finish today will finish that up tomorrow and we will all take a Study Island pre-test for the next unit - Chemistry of Life.

Friday September 18th - Daily Question Quiz

Click below to take your Daily Question Quiz!!!!

https://docs.google.com/a/ellwood.k12.pa.us/forms/d/1aVxQg9SZ6YH986Pel56ndnF-ppnVB53CRBwXOu6HbuQ/viewform?usp=send_form

***Adapted version: http://goo.gl/forms/ddJXUbQm6x 

Thursday September 17th - Wrap Up Organelles

Today we used the daily questions to really wrap up the function of different organelles.  These past 3 weeks have really just been an introduction to how life is made up, how cells act as the fundamental unit of structure AND function in living organisms.

Here were today's Daily Questions:

Screen Cast:

I then used the following Crash Course to wrap up our conversation over the last 2 weeks.

TOMORROW:  Directed Reading and Active Reading need completed (graded simply for completion) and the "Cell Structure / Function Questions" will be turned in and graded for correctness.

Wednesday September 16th - Finish Up Organelles

We made it through a relatively "Rough" part of the the year.  It seemed like a ton of just "fact" that doesn't seem important whatsoever....  I promise it will all become clear as the year goes on!!!  Today's Daily Questions:

And discussion around them:

We then continued through the different organelles and filled in our Directed Reading as we went.

Tuesday September 15th Back to the grind

Friday the 11th and Monday the 14th I was away from school.  You guys worked through a Directed Reading worksheet that went along with the book and then Monday took your Daily Question Quiz.   We were back in action today 

The Active reading and Directed Readings will be due on Friday - these will be for completion only.  The questions that went along with these readings will be graded for correctness.

Here were today's Daily Questions

The rest of the period we discussed the following notes but only filled in our Active Reading / Directed reading based on them.  No need to do this twice.  Different classes are in different spots - but here is where many of the classes got to.

Missed the last couple days?   Here is a really good podcast that describes:

1.  Why Cells are the size they are.

2.  Difference between Prokaryotic and Eukaryotic Cell

3.  Major Organelles of a Eukaryotic Cell.

Thursday September 10th - Cell Structure / function Discussion 1

Reminder - DAILY QUESTION QUIZ TOMORROW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Today's Daily Questions were based off of the active reading that we worked through yesterday.

Here is a Screencast of our discussion around these questions:

We then went into a discussion about cells.  Many of these slides simply aided in discussion - only the LAST of these slide did I have you write in your notes.