Fig. 1 - Ice Heated to Boil Over Time

Today's lab involved taking data over a 20 minute period.  We wanted to see if the addition of salt made water boil faster.  Half of the class boiled ice and the other boiled it with the addition of a 1/2 teaspoon of salt.  The graphed data is due Monday and should somewhat resemble the line graph above.  

Question:  Why the peaks and valleys before the 5 minute mark??

Here are the vocabulary words for Chapter 2 that will be on Monday's quiz. These are important words that will come up throughout the year:

DNA
Carbohydrate
Heredity
Homeostasis
Consumer
Decomposer
Producer
Asexual Reproduction
Sexual Reproduction
Cell
Stimulus
Protein
Lipid
ATP

Be sure to check out the oven-roasted potatoes tomorrow in the cafeteria. We made them in class today using potatoes, garlic, and onions from the GCS farm.....ok, AND some dried herbs from around the world.

The potatoes were dug up by some of Ms. Fitzgerald's youth services summer day camp students and stored in the root cellar until now.

Here is the site from today on metric system size and scale.

http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/begin/cells/scale/

Brooke shows off her experiment as she tried to figure out whether slugs prefer onions or lettuce. Today, many groups realized that slugs will generally pick foods that are dipped in Red Bull.

Today we set up our experiments to gain a better understanding about what slugs prefer to eat. As you can see from the table, there were many different variables to choose from.

Dan carefully cuts his square of lettuce.


These guys can't wait to see if slugs prefer lettuce that has been "enhanced" with Red Bull. To see a list of today's experiments, click here.

Today we began our observations for our inquiry investigation into the feeding preferences of slugs. Tomorrow, we will conduct a variety of experiments. In the end we will learn more about the scientific method, but more importantly - how scientists learn about the world around us.

Members of 4th period get to work on the 1st lab of the year - understanding the scientific method.

Members of Food, Land, and You spent some time in the garden today picking produce for the cafeteria.
Tyrone with a handful of the ~500 peppers Viola planted.
Jon samples a fresh tomato.
Here is the class before we prepped and washed today's harvest. All produce is organic and grown within 100 meters of the school's cafeteria.

A future scientist at work!

Today we had great classroom discussions about science and the world around us. I loved hearing your insights! We also worked on observation skills with some flowers. Here, Abbey and Kye demonstrate what good observation skills look like.

Welcome new 7th graders! I'm looking forward to a great year of science and learning. I hope you had a great 1st day getting back into the routine.