The following update has been written by the students of Room 301:
The Langevin Science Olympics took place on February 14. It was amazing! We had to work with our teams to complete four challenges: building paper bridges, making and firing catapults, building a tower with cups, sticks and cubes, and painting a rainbow using only primary colours. The day began with an opening ceremonies and ended with closing ceremonies. We sat with our team colours and watched a grade 9 challenge, a dance, the lighting of the Langevin torch and were treated to a special visit from Captain Langevin. We celebrate the Science Olympics to create, problem-solve, cooperate and have fun. On February 5, we were challenged to dream up an invention for pets. The invention had to help our pets get a daily workout. Most of us thought up a type of treadmill. We wrote about it but we did not build it. In school we have been playing splat. Splat is a math game. This is how you play it. First you see a number of dots on the screen (like 6), then a big splat comes over the screen and covers up a certain number of dots. Then you guess how many our under the splat. Click here for an example and to visit the splat web site: http://www.stevewyborney.com/?p=893 In Phys Ed we have learned how to play four corner hockey. It's so much fun playing hockey and it teaches people communication and teamwork. We have been building sound amplifiers and silencers. Most of us have partners. A silencer makes the sound quieter and an amplifier makes the sound louder. We learned that in solids, there are lots of particles packed closely together, so the vibrations travel from particle to particle more quickly. Particles in liquids are more spread out and gas particles are the furthest spread out. One pair of students made a silencer that almost completely blocked the music coming from Ms. Keet's iphone. This pair of students used layers of insulation, foam and cardboard. We also talked about sound that is funneled through a cone shape can amplify sound. Ask me about my amplifier building plans and construction. On February 21st, we went to Crescent Heights High School. Before we left, we brainstormed and recorded questions to ask the band members from that school. We went there to learn about instruments like the trumpet, percussion instruments and many others. We took a bus there and spent a half day talking to the high school students, asking them questions about their instruments and listening to them play. On Thursday, Feb 22nd, we had a classroom debate. We were debating about which of the children's rights was more important: playgrounds and recreation, opportunities to share opinions, the right to practice religion and culture, the right to non-discrimination or the right to be protected from things like abuse.
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Unfortunately, the weather did not cooperate on Monday and and we had to postpone our trip to Studio Bell. Although we did not make it out of the school this week, we managed to keep very busy.
We made several trips down to the school's learning commons to observe our rainbow trout eggs. The eggs transitioned from eyed eggs to alevin this week which was super exciting. Some of the students observed what appeared to be a conjoined twin - four eyes emerging from one egg. Sadly, many of our eggs were either unfertilized or has a fungus which required them to be removed from the tank. Please visit out FInS page on this Weebly site to read more and see photos of the eggs and alevin. We talked about how to select a "just right" book from the learning commons. It's important to select a book that is not too difficult (the five finger rule) or too easy. It's also important to select a book with age-appropriate content that's written about subjects we are interested in. We shared a lot of laughs writing Wacky Web Tales. Google Wacky Web Tales to try and write a silly story yourself. It's excellent review of parts of speech. We have continued to review spelling and grammar conventions and practice this regularly by correcting all the errors in Mrs. Keet's morning message. Students are also spending time proofreading and revising their own written pieces. During writing time, students do not have access to erasers but are encouraged to make their editing marks directly on the page. Not taking the time to search for an eraser and then erase has increased the amount of writing most students are able to produce. The students in Room 301 have many creative ideas and are proud to read their written compositions to their classmates. Students have worked through several problems in math as a large group, with partners and alone. Most recently, students worked with a money set to come up with as many ways to "build" one dollar as possible. They also worked with number lines to solve addition and subtraction sentences. The students have been exploring and investigating materials and how sound travels by working to construct a device that dampens sound. So far, their most successful devices have been able to reduce an amplitude by 20 dB (decibels). In a knowledge building discussion, students came to the conclusion that materials like foam and cork dampen sound, that the container needs to surround the noise-producer entirely, and that a lot of layers are all important. Students will have time to modify their devices and test them again next week. The Langevin Science Olympics are almost here! Students know their team colours and have been hard at work constructing our class flag. We are all excited for Wednesday, February 14, to put our science skills to work solving challenges! We visited the whale exhibit loaned to Telus Spark by the Maori people of New Zealand. In the exhibit, we enjoyed participating in a whale backpack adventure. Each group had a backpack and in their pack, they had materials and some pamphlets, models, photos and measuring scales. We answered the questions written on the pamphlets and completed the activities described. For example, we built phytoplankton models from buttons, pompoms, pipecleaners and toothpicks. Some of us tested our models in the water to see if they would float.
We also participated in a presentation in the theatre called Good Vibrations. We like watching a sound wave of fire. We also enjoyed the part where the presenter called up a volunteer from the other school to show how you can make wine glasses sing at a low, medium and high pitch. We also saw a giant oscilloscope on the big screen. Our visit to Telus Spark inspired us to investigate these topics:
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Room 301
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