November 30

Today Mr. Finley was very nice and let us redo our cell labeling quiz. On the homework last night the first thing he said was to go over the things you don't know. He expected us to do that so it could help us on the quiz! He is the best!

We then opened our homework which was to make a slide for our activity. Everyone opened their slide and put it into one presentation. To add each slide to one presentation you have to open each slide seperately. You can just drag the slide onto the whole presentation.
The basic thing we are doing today is putting all the slides togather and looking at them and making them readable and understandable for 3rd graders.

He also showed us tricks to do on notebook.....
If you bring up a shape you can change the colors.
You can animate it by going to properties. There you can look at all the things you can to with it.
If you go to page recording you can make it record and when the presentation comes up it will play just as you draw/type it.
If you draw on the smart board you can right click and recognize it and it will show up as if you had typed it. It you had a question and answer you could send the answer to the back and that is where your answer would be.

You click the picture tab on the side and then it gives you the list. In the Lesson Activity tool kit it has a lot of cool things in it. You would go to activities like multiple choice
Ther is image match where you can draw words in and swee if you are correct.
Ther is note reveal where you can pull to see the answer. YOu can use all of these tools to make quiz things for your presentation. THEY ARE VERY COOL!!!

The picture that is up is an example of a multiple choice quiz that you could use

RK

11/29/10

In class today, Mr. Finley checked our homework and we had time to study for the quiz. After that,we took the quiz on the parts of the cell. After we took the quiz, we got together in groups to create a smartnotebook presentation on the characteristics of life.

*** This isn't my graded blog!!! ***

M.K.B.

Charateristics of Life

Sadly Mr. Finley could not give us a pop quiz today :( But the good news is that we have a quiz on Monday that's harder! The quiz is on labeling cells and knowing where they are. Today in science class Mr. Finley lit a candle and tyred to prove that fire can reproduce, and he proved it right that fire can reproduce. Today we looked at a slide show and took notes on it. a lot of us did not finish so it is now homework yay! In the slides it talked about how all living things share some basic properties. for instance, all living things share Cellular Organization, reproduction, Metabolism (obtain and Use energy), Homeostasis, Heredity, Responsiveness, Growth and Development, and Adapt through evolution. the slide also gives examples and definition of each part of characteristics of life.
Mr. Finley said something about are homework that we did on wed. He said something like "for your homework you did last night on seeing if you agree with the book and you think the facts, and that there are only 4 characteristics in living things, but if you didn't agree with the book and you think there are more then 4 characteristics then ,you had to give me more examples and reasons why." He also said to think about the 4 characteristics because we are doing more with them on Monday after the "Pop Quiz"
*REMEMBER WE HAVE A POP QUIZ ON MONDAY ON LABELLING CELLS AND KNOWING WHAT THEY ARE. THE CELLS YOU HAVE TO LABEL ARE THE ANIMAL CELL AND THE PLANT CELL SO STUDY HARD AND GOOD LUCK ON MONDAY!*

Tuesday, November 23 2010

At first today Mr. Finley told us about the blog rubric. It is now up and running so bloggers should use that to help with blogging. If you think your blog does not correct, you can change before the November. Also, we now have to write two comments on the blog. This does not mean that we need paragraphs. You can ask questions, answer questions, and/or add information forgotten by author. Sentences like, "I like this blog," is not allowed. November and December have been grouped together so you need two comments during the rest of this month and next month.


We then talked about the two websites we had to write the critique on. If you did not write down any new parts in either of the websites then that is something you would want to do. We then went around the room and listened to what people liked or disliked about the two sites.

Some things they said were:

• The cells alive gave a good dicription of the different parts
• The cells alive broke it down
• Cells alive was eye catching
• some people liked how Inside of a cell zoomed in with a video

These sites are now resources we should use. These are located in the cells page on the school website.

We then got books dealing with the characteristics of life. The book is "Cells and Heredity." We went to pages 9 and 10. We read them and then answer this question:

• We argue that four characteristics of life is not enough (the books states so). Through your own research, see if you need to add any to the list they have. If you do, list what they are and what they mean.

Most people did not finish so Mr. Finley is going to scan these pages onto the computer and post them on his website so that we can complete it for homework.

Blog by: Mark J Van der Merwe

Animal and Plant Cells

Today in class we first went over the science questions we did in class on Friday and for homework over the weekend. With our groups we went over the questions. the questions were, for the grass lab, why did our grass have to be very thin? And what is a cell? Why is it considered building blocks? Our group got the answer for why did our grass had to be very thin, because if the piece of grass was very thin, you wouldn't be able to see all of the cells as well as you did with the thin piece of grass. Our group answer for what is a cell? And why is it considered a building block, is a cell is what makes up all living things, and the reason why it is concidered a building block is that if you see a group of cells in the microscope, it looks like bricks holding the specimen you are looking at togeather. For the onion lab the questions were, why didn't we see any chloroplasts in the onion? Our answer for that was because the onion was grown underground, it doesn't need the chloroplasts because chloroplasts need the sun to produsce the energy into that cell, and underground there is no sun. For the second question, we were told to make a table compareing animal and plant cells.

My table's table was,
Animal: nucleus, mitochondria, and it has a cell membrane.

Plant: has a cell wall, chloroplasts, and a vacuole.

Both: are living things, and both are cells.

We wrote all of our combined answers on a white board and shared it with the class. We found out that we needed to add that, cells are also building blocks because they all work as one unit and that every thing depends on every thing else. Next we went over the charts that we made to compare and contrasting the animal and plant cells.

Our Class' chart was:

Animal: Had to dye the cheek cell, are bigger than plant cells, were more circular.

Plant: had cell wall, viens were seen, most plants have chloroplasts.

Both: had nucleus, have cell membrane, have mitochondria.

We have just discovered that the reason there was no chloroplasts in the onion skin because the skin is underground, oppose to the onion leaves, which means that the chloroplastsare in the onion leaves.

By: VF!!

Today in class we worked on Onions cells. Then once you had finished finding the cells you had to answer two questions for grass cells, and one question for onion, and then you had to make a graph based on the animal, and the plant cell. In my group i had so much trouble trying to find cell, when Mr. Finley came over he told to make sure that the measurment for the hieght was as high as your pinkie finger. When we did that we noticed that it was so much better t0 see the cells. As the process for the clips with the onions, you have to have a very small sliced piece of the onion, and then you had to put one small drop of iodine, and then we put it under the microscope, and explored looking for cells.

Onion Cell

The first thing we did in class today was we discussed our homework. Our homework was to make a list of the same and different things that are in a cell. We did a plant cell and animal cell. Here are some of the things that are in common: Lysosomes, Necleus, Cytoskeleton, Ribsomes, Cell membranes, Mitochondria, Golgi appalatus, and Endoplasmic reticulum.The just plant things are cell wall chloroplasts vacuole. The next thing we did was we labled our grass sketches from yesterday. We noticed that we can see the middle of the piece of grass (the line down the middle) and when we switched to high power we saw it alot bigger. You could see the water droplets on it. Then we re-drew what we noticed.

Something I learned was we didn't fully click in the high power, therefore I couldn't see anything. I also learned the difference between plant cells and animal cells. Animal cells don't have cell walls. Finally, I noticed that I could see more on low focus than on high focus.

Period 4 November 16, 2010

We are working on our cheek cell lab. We had to make a new slide because they had dried out.
Answer the following questions in your notebook once you have found something on your microscope-
-Draw the cells at high and low power
-Why is the blue methylene necessary?
-Why can the dye get inside the cell?
-Is the cell made up of parts? How do you know? Do you know the names of any parts?(If yes, label your diagrams)
After viewing the cheek cell some of the groups were able to go outside and find a piece of grass. They came inside and ripped the grass into a smaller piece. (above: cheek cells)

They put it on a slide, and with a transfer pipette they put one drop of water on the grass. They put the glass cover slip on top and observed it. The groups drew what they saw on high and low power.

-Sara Misiukiewicz

Friday Period 4

Today during class, we started off by having our microscope experts share their knowledge with us. Caroline, Claudia, Chloe, and I shared vocab and how to use the microscope properly. We told them everything from starting on the lowest magnification to what the different parts are and how to use them.

After the people presented, we talked about the order of multi cellular organisms. We looked back into our notes to to try to figure out the correct order again. Below is what we configured.

Multi Cellular Organisms

Organ System

Organs

Tissues

Cells

After reviewing this, Mr. Finley taugh us how to make a wet mount slide for our experiment for the day. Before he made the example, he said we would be studying our cheek cells under the microscope today. He told us that we are always loosing cells in our mouth when we eat of scratch our skin. Mr. Finley also told us that most of the thing that float in the air are dead cells. Next, Mr. Finley made the example He made it in the following order.

-He swabbed his cheek and put it on the slide

He dropped one drop of methionine

-Then he put on the cover slip.

- Finally he put it under the microscope to focus it and observe it.

When he was finished with the slide, it was our turn to make one. Unfortunately, because of time, class ended before we could really get into looking at our cells under the microscope. People also voted to do it again on Monday instead of trying to catch up. What a shame. Lucky for us, one group was able to focus it rally quickly so we could take a look. (see pic. above) This was a great learning experiment for us about how to use dry mount slides.


By, C()L!N F()R83S

Period 4 Blog-

Today in class we finished our tests and discussed the HW and continued learning about microscopes. We also viewed looked at pieces of string under a microscope connected to the SmartBoard.

In reviewing the online microscope lab homework, we discussed several important points. When you looked into the microscope you saw a backwards, upside down "e" with a red ring on it. When you zoom in, you would see less of the of the backwards, upside down "e" with a red ring on it. When you try to move the slide away, the slide moves towards you and when you try move the slide towards you, it moves away from you . When trying to move the slide to the right, it goes to the left, and when trying to move the slide to the left, it goes right. Also, remember when looking at a specimen object through a microscope, always start on the lowest objective power first, then you may increase the power. Also, there are four objectives on our online microscope; 4, 10, 40, and 100.

^^The online microscope we used.^^

After we went over the important microscope things and the homework for the normal microscope users, we viewed three pieces of thread under under a microscope connected to the SmartBoard. We were able to see what you would see through the oculars of a microscope, on the SmartBoard screen.Matt demonstrated how to move the slide and adjust the coarse adjustments on a microscope. We saw that the string that we thought was a single string, was actually composed of twisted string. We proved that you can focus on different layers of a specimen, however you cannot look through.

If you were absent and need to view the online microscope lab again, this URL will there. http://www.udel.edu/biology/ketcham/microscope/scope.html

Tim S.

Period 4

11/11/10

Microscopes

Today in Mr.Finley's Science class (Period 4) we got in deeper detail with MICROSCOPES! When we came in to class today we took out our microscope homework so Mr.Finley could check if we did it. Then Mr.Finley asked us to rate ourselves on a scale from 1-10 (with 1 being bad and 10 being the best) of the confidence you had in your answers for homework. Then we had to also rate ourselves on our skills on microscopes.
After we rated ourselves Mr.Finley said "For those of you who rated yourself 6 or lower you are going to do a virtual lab on microscopes. But for the others you are going to use the real microscopes and present your knowledge to the class on Thursday or Friday."
So, then the beginners did a Microscope simulation on the computer where they went over the different parts of the microscope and learned how to use them. After that, they answered questions on what they learned, but what ever they didn't finish they must do for homework!(DUE THURSDAY!)
For the more advanced group they actually worked with microscopes! The people in that group made a DRY SLIDE by taking a slide and cut a tiny piece of paper out with writing/print on it, from the recycling and put it on the SLIDE. Then they took some LENS PAPER and cleaned off the COVER LENS so that they could see clearer through the cover lens and also, so there were no smudges. After they cleaned the cover lens they put the cover lens on top of the piece of paper with writing. But, they had to be very careful and only grab the sides of the cover lens and of the slide, so they wouldn't get any finger prints or smudges which would ruin the observations. What made this SLIDE and DRY SLIDE was that after they put their piece of paper down, they didn't put any water or liquid to see the thing your observing better and to keep the cover lens on the slide and prevent it from slipping off. They had NO liquid and made it a dry slide! So then, the group made their DRY SLIDES and put them under the microscopes and observed with first the SMALLER MAGNIFICATION LENS and then the BIGGER MAGNIFICATION LENS and see the difference. Also they adjusted the diaphragm light source to get more light, or less light shining from under the slide. That group observed, took notes and drew pictures of what they saw through the microscopes

CL<3

The Universe and Organisms

We started class off by watching a video. The video was about the solar system and what it's made up of - in song. After the video, we had to answer a few questions about the video. What is the main ideas(s) behind the video and how can this concept explain the structure of multicellular organisms? The main idea of the video live is that we live in a giant universe and our "huge" universe may be only part of space that is never-ending. Our concept of multicellular organisms is that everything comes from something smaller, just like us. For example, we are made up of cells, which are made up of atoms, and so on. As a class, we came up with a ton of complex diagrams as to how everything is broken down from the human body to cells. But what comes in between them? I think that's the real question. We broke down the human body starting with organisms and talked about your bodily systems, including organs, tissues, and ending with cells.

Lab Reports

Today during class, we disscussed our lab repots. We watched a how-to video on creating tables on Microsoft Word. Mr.Finley told us that the lab reports are due on Thursday by 11:59 pm, so don't forget to e-mail your lab reports to him. After that, we played a game in class.

-C.C.

Blog

Today in class we went over the pop quiz that we took with the sub a long time ago. Then we started to talk about what a stereoscope was. A stereoscope is a devise that magnifies and looks at Macroscopic objects. Macro means large objects or things you can already see with your eye. People use stereoscope also to look at bacteria colonies or mold/fungal colonies. Each circle would count as a colony in a Stereoscope. After we talked about a Stereoscope we are going to watch a movie. He wants use to describe what we see and how does bacteria reproduce.

What do i see- I see bacteria growing and growing. It is splitting in 1/2 again and again, before it splits up it gets bigger, they are reproducing/ making more. Also the more bacteria the faster they multiply. In 1 second the bacteria increased by 2.

How does bacteria reproduce- Bacteria reproduces by doubling and making more.

Binary Fission- Binary means two and Fission means to split.
OK so after that we started to talk about bacteria shapes[3] and arrangements[3]. That was what we are going to start in class tomorrow. So in conclusion we are going to be starting a weird project tomorrow.