Science News 12/1-12/5

AdVENTURE Science

Blogs: Weekly blogs resume this week. Remember, they are worth 30% of your final grade, so don't forget to do them.

5th Grade: Weather

• MS-ESS2-5. Collect data to provide evidence for how the motions and complex interactions of air masses results in changes in weather conditions.
• MS-ESS2-6 Develop and use a model to describe how unequal heating and rotation of the Earth cause patterns of atmospheric and oceanic circulation that determine regional climates.
• MS-ESS3-5.Ask questions to clarify evidence of the factors that have caused the rise in global temperatures over the past century.

We begin the week exploring the water cycle and play a fun game. The information we gather will be used to create a water cycle story. Once we know how water moves, we turn our attention to how weather is created and how it is different from climate.

6th Grade: Dirt on Soil 

• MS-ESS2-1. Develop a model to describe the cycling of Earth's materials and the flow of energy that drives this process.
• MS-ESS2-2. Construct an explanation based on evidence for how geoscience processes have changed Earth's surface at varying time and spatial scales.

We begin the week discovering the difference between weathering and erosion and provide evidence of the interaction between acid rain and several materials. Building on that background information we begin to examine the importance and value of soil as a renewable resource

7th Grade: Human Body Redesign

• MS-LS1-3. Use argument supported by evidence for how the body is a system of interacting subsystems composed of groups of cells. 
• MS-LS1-7. Develop a model to describe how food is rearranged through chemical reactions forming new molecules that support growth and/or release energy as this matter moves through an organism.
• MS-LS1-8. Gather and synthesize information that sensory receptors respond to stimuli by sending messages to the brain for immediate behavior or storage as memories.

We begin our human body exploration in earnest. For each of the body systems you study, you will be required to write a blogpost and suggest an area of redesign. Because of all this writing your class will not have a weekly blog due. What wonderful ideas will you come up with?

8th Grade: Chemistry-Bonding

• MS-PS1-1 Develop models to describe the atomic composition of simple molecules and extended structures.
• MS-PS1-2 Analyze and interpret data on the properties of substances before and after the substances interact to determine if a chemical reaction has occurred.
• MS-PS1-3. Gather and make sense of information to describe that synthetic materials come from natural resources and impact society.
• MS-PS1-4. Develop a model that predicts and describes changes in particle motion, temperature, and state of a pure substance when thermal energy is added or removed.
• MS-PS1-5. Develop and use a model to describe how the total number of atoms does not change in a chemical reaction and thus mass is conserved

This week will be primarily devoted to your investigation of a hazardous material. The chemical you choose will be the backbone of your final project, so choose wisely. What physical and chemical properties will you be able to uncover?