Thursday, November 19, 2009

Guest Speaker!

Today we had a guest Teacher. Mrs. Natalie Brown is a reservoir engineer. She talked to us all about her job and what she gets to do! She also taught us about how oil and natural gas are produced and how they figure out where it is and get it out of the ground. It was very interesting! She also brought a lab for us to do! It was a major challenge! But Mrs. M is proud to announce that her bright students all met the challenge head on and figured out the problem! I think the problem solving today would make Ms. D and Ms. H proud! You go scientists!


Oh What fun!
Mrs. M

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Week Twelve Vocabulary

Week Twelve Vocabulary
Novmeber 16 – November 20th
Your spelling and vocabulary test will be on Friday, November 20th . You will be responsible for knowing how to spell each word correctly and the definition for each word.

1. Carbon dioxide- a gas made of carbon and oxygen atoms that plants need for photsynthesis.
2. Dendrochronology- the study of trees that help find clues about the tree’s past.
3. Scar- dark spots in the tree’s rings that tell whether the tree has been damaged by fire of insects.
4. Tree rings- rings located in the center of a tree’s trunk. They tell the age and environmental conditions from present to past.
5. Environmental conditions- the kind of weather and surrounding in which trees have grown.
6. Igneous rock- rock formed from cooled magma or lava.
7. Sedimentary rock- rock that formed when sediments were pressed and cemented together.
8. Metamorphic rock- rock that formed when another kind of rock was squeezed and heated deep inside Earth’s crust.
9. Rock cycle- the process of rocks changing into other kinds of rock.
10. Fossils- the remains or traces of an organism that lived long ago.

Thursday, November 12, 2009

Wind, Water, Waves, and Ice...oh my!

Today we spent time in the lab! We were able to see the effects that wind, water, waves, and ice have on our Earth. These four important things are the reasons we have landforms and changes on our Earth! We blew "wind" through straws, sprayed "rain" on a hill, moved "glaciers", and even went to the beach and created waves! Here are some pictures from our experiments.




PS Check out our snazzy lab coats and goggles! We mean business in science class!


Just another day at the "beach"!

Mrs. M

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Weathering, Erosion, and Deposition!

Who knew learning about Weathering, Erosion, and Deposition could be so much fun! We had fun Weathering away gobstoppers in our mouths today! It was neat to see that every thirty seconds, our candy was a different color! It just proved to us that weathering was taking place!

After we had a tasty treat to "weather", we played the weathering, erosion, and deposition game! Each team had to weather away a peice of their leggo landform, crabwalk (erode it) to the other end of the room, and deposit it on the desk! It really showed how weathering away of rock makes it smaller and smaller, erosion is when sediment gets moved from one place to another, and deposition is when sediment gets dropped off to make new landforms! It was a fun game!
Just another absolutely wild and crazy day in science!
Mrs. M

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Lets get back on track...

Okay guys! Mrs. M is tired of testing! Now that our vocabulary and unit tests are out of the way...lets have some fun! Get ready because learning about weathering is TASTY!

love y'all so much!
Mrs. M

Monday, November 9, 2009

Week Eleven Vocabulary

Week Eleven Vocabulary
Novmeber 9 – November 13th
Your spelling and vocabulary test will be on Friday, November 13th . You will be responsible for knowing how to spell each word correctly and the definition for each word.

1. Weathering: The break down and wearing away of rock into sediment
2. Erosion: The movement of sediment by water, waves, wind, or ice.
3. Deposition: the process in which sediment is dropped in a new place.
4. Landform: a natural structure on Earth’s surface
5. Delta: a large flat area of land at the mouth of a river
6. Glacier: a large body of moving ice that stays frozen all year.
7. Sediment: bits of rocks, soil, sand, shells, and the remains of organisms.

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

A yummy Model!

What do these items have to do with science?


Well, we need them to make a model of the layers of Earth, of course!
The outside chocolate cookie represents the the crust, the cream represents the squishy mantle, the chocolate syrup represents the liquid iron outer core, and the m&m represents the solid iron outer core!
Yummy!

Just a delicious day of science!
Mrs. M