Long Day, Short Day

We are beginning our winter MAPS testing, which means...block scheduling!  I enjoy block scheduling because I feel like we can get a lot done in a class period.
During these long classes, we are going to focus on relationships in an ecosystem and animal monitoring techniques.  First, we are going to be taking a closer look at some ecological vocabulary words to help us define relationships in an ecosystem.  For those of you out there who are getting your science notes off of the blog you're in luck!

Niche- an organism’s role in an ecosystem

Symbiotic relationship is one in which two organisms from different species interact.

The next 4 vocab words are examples of symbiotic relationships:

Competitive Relationship is the struggle between individuals or different populations for a limited resource.

Mutualism- interaction between two species that benefits both

Commensalism- relationship between two species in which one species benefits while the other is not affected

Parasitism- is a relationship between two species in which one species benefits while the species it depends on, its host, is harmed

We are also going to begin to discuss animal monitoring techniques.  I'm sharing an excellent video segment from 60 minutes -http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7300063n&tag=contentMain;cbsCarousel

about observing jaguars!  Good stuff!

So, we'll have two long days of block scheduling and Wednesday (hopefully we won't get too much snow) will be an early out day, where I will begin to outline the big aspects of the final project.

Sources...

One of the most dreaded things when working on a research project is to cite your sources!!!

I know I always dreaded it, but I also had to go about it the hard way.  I had a small, narrow book that had 2 or 3 examples of how to cite sources in every kind of context from a book to an online journal to a newspaper article.  I would look at the book, then apply my own source to it and hand type in every source making sure not to miss any periods!

You have it so easy!  Some sites GIVE you the citation at the bottom of the page!

Check out the example from Animal Diversity Web --

However, every year I have students fail at this because they did not keep track of their sources.  For when the citation is not just given to you, there is a website called Easybib.  Easybib is really, truly easy!

Just choose the type of source you are trying to cite and Easybib does the work for you!  The most important thing to remember is to copy/download/export your citations into a word document to save in your student folder for later.  The BIG thing to remember when working with Easybib is to put the date that you ACCESSED the site, not today's date!  


Click here for a quick tutorial on easy bib.

What NOT to do?

Your bibliography should NOT look like this....

  

http://www.kidsplanet.org/factsheets/chimpanzee.html

http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/mammals/chimpanzee/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chimpanzee

Your bibliography SHOULD look like this:

"Chimpanzee -- Kids' Planet -- Defenders of Wildlife." Defenders of Wildlife - Kids' Planet. Web. 27 Jan. 2011. .

"Chimpanzees, Chimpanzee Pictures, Chimpanzee Facts - National Geographic." Animals, Animal Pictures, Wild Animal Facts - National Geographic. National Geographic, 2011. Web. 27 Jan. 2011. .

Jane Goodall's Wild Chimpanzees. Dir. David Lickley. SlingShot Entertainment, 2002. Film.

Videos...

Being able to watch video of an animal is one of the most immediate ways we can learn more about animals.  You get an immediate sense of the animal's movement and instincts seeing them interact with their surroundings.
I would encourage you to check out some videos to help you go deeper with your understanding of your animal. You know many sites to check for videos.  I would also encourage you to try out Discovery Education - which is a website for students & teachers that has clips from many of your favorite Discover Channel shows.  It does require a login (mpcs4271) and password (AEA10).  Also, Animal Planet has some excellent clips as well.  You Tube also has some great stuff, but like Wikipedia, remember that anyone and put up video that can be manipulated.
One last thought, video is ALSO a resource.  So, you also need to keep track of videos that you watch and get information from.

Beginning Animal Research...

Technology today!
First, students will be taking a technology survey for the district.  So, any students that are absent need to make up the tech survey.
Next, we need to dive into research about our animal.  Let's focus our research on:

• r  Physical description of the animal (including lots of adjectives)
  r  Biome description (where does the animal live) – climate, other animals, plants
  o   how is the animal you chose suited for the biome
  r  Could you make a food web for your animal? What does your animal eat?  What eats your animal? What type of animal is it (carnivore, omnivore, herbivore)?
  r  Behaviors – what does your animal do in a typical day?
  r  Relationships with in their animal community
  o   Families – mother/child/father/siblings
  o   Leaders in the communities – alpha male/female leaders
  o   Predator/Prey Relationships
  r  What are its limiting factors?  How does it get food, water, and shelter?  Are there any other factors that are threatening this animal’s population?
  
  
  Don't forget - so important - KEEP TRACK OF YOUR RESOURCES!!!!!!

Who survived?

Continuing on from our lesson from yesterday, we are going to how many bears can be supported in "Bridge Forest."  Yesterday we learned and studied about the American Black Bear and created a food web as a class.  We got our information off of a great site, Animal Diversity Web.  I also showed the students some of the basics of Diigo to help them with their note taking and organization.  Diigo allows students save all of their book marked websites in one place and highlight and leave notes for themselves that only they can see right on the website!  I offered to all classes that I could create a free student Diigo account if they want to try it out.  So, far though...no takers!
My students then "turned into bears" and collected as much food as they could in about 20 seconds. Today, we are going on focus on how much food a black bear eats in a day and how many bears could actually live in the forest.
After our discussion, each student will get a processing point at the last point that they left off with for Level of Science Comprehension to extend our understanding about this topic.

Food Webs & Food Chain Implications

We will be extending our knowledge about food webs with a short senteo quiz today.  On Friday, we learned about how food webs are set up using pictures and arrows.  The main purpose of the food chain is to show the exchange of energy in an ecosystem.  The arrow points from one picture to a picture of the object that received the energy.  For example, a plant receives energy from the sun, so the arrow would go from the sun to the plant.

Food chains are more linear form of showing energy exchange in an ecosystem.  They are great for showing predator/prey relationships, but then what happens if the line of energy is interrupted? Today in our lesson, we are going to explore and discuss this idea with the activity called bears in the forest.  From this we will also better understand energy flow in an ecosystem and the idea of limiting factor, which is any factor that limits the growth of a population in an ecosystem

Lastly, I want all of the students to keep thinking about what animal they would like to focus on for their animal study.  By Wednesday, hopefully all students have made their selection of an animal that lives on land at least 70% of the time.  And remember the more obscure the animal is that you choose the more difficult the journey will be for you.

The big discovery...

Jane Goodall was made famous by a big discovery.  Yesterday, we were able to observe this discovery on our video.  One day while Jane was observing the chimpanzees, she observed one of them taking a stick, stripping the leaves off of the stick, then climbing up in a tree and sticking the stick into the hole of a termite mound.  As they drew the stick out, many termites were stuck on the end of the stick, which they then ate!  Jane nicknamed this practice "termite fishing," but she also saw them practice this technique with army or fire ants.  With this, Jane observed chimpanzees using a stick as a tool.  Using tools was something that, at the time, was thought of to be only a human action.  With this discovery, many believed we needed to redefine man.

More notes on the video will be posted later today.

Today, we will finish the video and work on food webs.
A food web shows the flow of energy in an ecosystem.  Pictures and arrows are used to show the flow.  The arrows go from the picture of one object to the picture of the thing that gets the energy.  For example, if we had a picture of a plant and the sun, the arrow would go from the sun to the plant because the plant gets energy from the sun.

Behaviors Cont.

We viewed our first chimp yesterday!  Yesterday our note-taking focused on physical description and behaviors that we observed.  At the end of class yesterday, we reflected on our observations as a class.  Students pointed out some excellent physical descriptions focusing on adjectives that gave an excellent visual image of the chimpanzee some of the following are my favorites:

• frumped, hunched and slouchy to describe their walking appearance
• wrinkly faces
• Long, muscular arms with shorter bowed legs
• coarse, thin hair covering most of their body except their face and palms of their hands and feet
• no tail!

We also observed some behaviors and interactions between the chimpanzees and baboons.

• They love to play!  Their play looks like: chasing, wrestling, somersaults, climbing trees (looking like climbing a ladder), swinging in trees, playing "king of the mountain" in the tree and throwing other monkeys out
• We also observed mother/child relationships - children cling to the mothers back and front side to travel, children observe mothers behaviors to learn new things
• Also the alpha male - Frodo- is the leader of the community.  Frodo rules with brute force.  The other chimps in the community show respect to Frodo by participating in social grooming, which is the process when the chimps pick through the hair looking for and removing bugs.

At the start of class today, students are going to participate in a quick write journal entry to create both a visual description of the chimpanzee and describe one behavior they observed yesterday.

While watching the video today, we are going to continue to focus on behaviors and look out for the chimpanzees role in the food web of this community.

Chimpanzees

We have two focuses today.  First, we are going to review our descriptive paragraphs.  I cannot stress enough how important it is to read and reread and correct your written work.  Even I review my work (and I need to do it more often since Jenna caught a mistake of mine yesterday!).  Let's start today by focusing on a few things like capitalization, using correct punctuation, and incorporating adjectives.
Secondly, we are going to continue on with the video.  We will focus our "virtual field trip" notebook on getting a physical description of the chimpanzee and making notes of their behaviors in the wild.  A big part of Jane's life was just observing and recording the behaviors and actions of the chimpanzees.

Reflecting on writing & introduction to Jane

I've looked through the biome essays over the weekend and saw a couple of things to keep in mind the next time you write a five paragraph essay.

1. Really think about your thesis!  The thesis is the heart of your essay and determines what each and every paragraph in your essay will be about.  Please make sure your thesis outlines what you will cover in your essay.  I had a few groups that created thesis sentences that were actually introduction sentences.  
2. Introductions are so important!  They will either hook your reader or not. This is why we call the first sentence of an essay the hook!  You want to grab the readers attention in some way to make them want to keep reading.  You could create a visual description (of a biome for example), you could ask a question, give an interesting fact, or a quotation.
3. Think before you capitalize.  Capitalize the first word in a sentence.  Capitalize a person's name.  Capitalize the title of a book.  But, don't capitalize biomes, seasons, or animals.
1. For example, look at this sentence -- In the Desert, Snakes burrow under the ground during the Summer season to avoid the heat.

Today, I'm introducing you to Jane Goodall.  She is a remarkable scientist (specifically ethologist), who started off with no science background at all.  Her research revealed remarkable insights to humans about our understandings of chimpanzees and all animal species in general.  I had the fantastic opportunity last year to hear Jane speak in Minnesota.  And I'll be sharing some of her insights along the way.  Today, if our short time permits, we'll begin watching Jane Goodall's Wild Chimpanzees, which was a movie created for IMAX theatres.  

As the movie begins today, we will focus on note taking about the biome.  What does it look like there?  How would you describe it to someone else?  Thinking about these questions, I'm going to ask that you write a descriptive paragraph about this biome to share with the class tomorrow.

Wrapping up our essay...

Today we'll be moving from the outlines to paragraphs.  I want stress the importance of rereading your written work to look for fluency from individual paragraph to individual paragraph.  

Some things to think about:

• Are all of the paragraphs focused around the thesis?  
• For Example: If your thesis talks about adaptations and your paragraph about animals only lists 5 animals that live in that biome, the person who wrote that paragraph may need to make some changes.
• Read the work out loud to your whole group.  If it sounds choppy, then something in the sentence/paragraph needs to change.  
• If the reader pauses but there is not period there, do a double check to make sure that you don't have a run-on sentence. 

If your group wants extra points on this assignment, print off a copy of the Titanpad, read it out loud, and mark changes (and make those changes) on the copy and hand it in.  This shows me that you're taking time and thinking about what you are writing and I will reward that.

Biome Swap!

The biome swap has begun.  Each group will draw a new biome to dive into to complete their understanding about biomes.  As a group, you will swap notes and the mini presentations and collaboratively write a 5 paragraph essay.  Five paragraph essays are the heart of important writing you will do in the future (college applications, SAT writing, etc.).  It is really good to practice, practice, practice!
We are going to use everyone's favorite web 2.0 app called Titanpad!  We love Titanpad in 8th grade science!  As a group, you'll work on an outline for your essay, then divide up the paragraphs and write your paragraph.  You'll post your outline and your essay to Titanpad due at the end of class on Thursday.

Short day & catch up...

Since the snow interrupted our schedule today, we are going to take advantage to get caught up.
Our objectives today are:

1. Finish up the textbook page presentations
2. Get back with your original biome group to "bulk up" your maps
3. Self-evaluate your biome page

If we have anymore time, like the speedsters in 7th period, we'll discuss where this project is going next with the Biome Swap.

Share it Out...

Today, we are going to take a look at our textbook pages we created.  I'm going to be dividing up your biome groups and you'll be in a group with people from all different biomes.  You'll share out the pages you created to your new group members, who will be creating either a mind map or mind sketches over your biome.

A mind map is an organizational strategy we have done before (remember mindmeister?).

A mind sketch is a new way of note taking.  Instead of writing down bullets or notes, sketch a quick image.  The images should end up flowing together to help you to remember key ideas about the biome being presented.  Whichever option you chose, just make sure that you are clear because you will be reporting back to your group.  

Everyone is their own author of their textbook page and different authors may present different types of information.  So as a biome group, you'll swap information to get a clear view of the different biomes.  With your biome group swap, you'll add to your mind map or mind sketches.

Tomorrow is 1/11/11 - the nexus of time (aka Seinfeld reference) and we'll change things around and shake things up to build on our understanding of different biomes.

Last work day...

Here we go!  Last work day today.
Let's try to keep in mind the following things:

1. everyone needs to post their found information to the wiki in the format we discussed
2. textbook pages are DUE MONDAY
3. the pages can be sketched or done on the computer, but MUST BE IN YOUR OWN WORDS AND IN YOUR NOTEBOOK.  Meaning I'm not going to let you go to the library to print them off.
4. The rubric that you will be evaluated on is on the 8th grade website.  Use it to help you get a good grade!

More research, more time...

Students seem to be getting the hang of using the wiki.  I love seeing students teaching each other and teaching other teaching associates!
We literally used every single second of class in 2nd period in fierce concentration!  We were bell to bell today!
Hopefully as students start wrapping up research they can begin their textbook pages.  Again check the 8th grade website for the rubric.

Beginning Research...

Today, we began research over the biomes using the wiki sites to post our notes.  I shared some great websites to help students find information on the 8th science wiki.
My favorite is Operation Conservation, created by a teacher for her students to do a webquest about biomes.

After students find information, they need to share this information with the group members by posting their finds to the wiki sites for their biome.

A new textbook...

To kick off today's class, students were assigned one of the following biomes to research: tundra, taiga, temperate deciduous forest, grasslands, savanna, chapparal, or a specific type of desert.

We also discussed how textbooks have changed.  We viewed several pictures old verses new textbooks and focused on specific ways textbooks are changing.  This is the basis for our biome assignment.
Each student will work with a group to create a "new" textbook page for their lab notebook about their assigned biome specifically focusing on the three parts of a biome: climate, animals, and vegetation.

The pages are going to be evaluated by including required information, quality & depth of the information, the visual aspect of the pages, and the overall presentation.  See the 8th grade website for the specific rubric.

Beginning definitions...

Today we took a technology survey and a pretest over biomes.  All classes have a good understanding of the desert biome, but lacked in applying knowledge about the other biomes.  Most classes had no idea what the taiga biome is and asked questions about it.  Levi even said it was his favorite word today.  Tomorrow we'll begin learning more about the biomes.  But today, we got a basis with some definitions to keep in mind. 

Biome: an area with a specific climate and specific animals and plants inhabit this area. 

Climate: weather averaged over time in an area. 
Vegetation: plants from a specific region

Tomorrow students will be assigned a biome to research with a group.