Mr. Mansour’s Classroom Blog

After you have completed the survey, go to this site.

http://www.mineralszone.com/minerals/

Today, Creighton Nursing students visited our class and taught the 7th graders about the tongue.  It was a great extension of our unit on cells.

Please go to the following site to practice measurement of volume. Answer the question, then click on the block labeled “ml” to unhide the answer. After you’ve got the answer, click on the “ml” block to rehide it and then clcik the question mark at the bottom to set a new question.

capacitymill via kwout

This week we’ll be starting work on our science fair projects.  Our main goal for this week is to choose a project/experiment that fits the objectives of the project.  There won’t be any “volcano” projects unless the students comes up with an experiment that has a clear independent variable and a measurable dependent variable.  Once they’ve chosen an appropriate experiment they’ll begin their research.  Most of the research will take place under the guidance of Mr. Lindley and the paper writing will be directed by Mr. Franklin.  The science fair is scheduled for April 24.

Since this is the final week of the quarter, I’ve got tests and quizzes in several of my classes.  The 8th grade is wrapping up their mini-psychology unit with some memory and cognition work.  Their test is Friday and they’ve been alternating between memory and career tests on the computer and reading about famous psychological experiments with me.  The 7th grade will be dissecting worms on Wednesday and testing over the dissection on Friday.  In the 6th grade, we’ll be reviewing and identifying rocks to prepare for our geology test Thursday.  After that, we’ll all need a break.

Here are some pictures of the biome dioramas the 6th graders made a couple weeks ago. It took me a while to get the pictures, but here they are.

We’ve been using the freeware program Audacity a lot during our sound unit to test different frequencies and the limits of human hearing. (The students certainly have a higher range than me, but I’m not too far behind). It works on PCs and Macs.

Another great site that has some cool samples of different sound frequencies is Ergonomics 4 Schools.

The 8th graders are studying wave energy and we’ve spent the last couple weeks learning the ins and outs of sound.  Currently the students are working on podcasts covering the topics we have learned about in class.  They’ll be recording the podcasts this Friday and next Monday.  I’ll post the link to the page once they’ve completed them.