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

Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Fossil Fuel Formation

Today we made a foldable to help us remember how fossil fuels are formed. It is important that we know what the three fossil fuels are and that Coal is formed a little differently than oil and natural gas. So naturally, we sang a song to help us remember!

Fossil Fuels Song!
(to row, row, row your boat)
Oil, coal, and natural gas
we use them everyday.
These three fossil fuels
are formed in special ways.

Oil comes from animals and plants
plus time, pressure, and heat.
Natural gas in the same way and
coal is formed from peat!



Here are some pictures of our foldable!



Love,

Mrs. M

Week Ten Vocabulary

Week Ten Vocabulary
Novmeber 2nd – November 6th
Your spelling and vocabulary test will be on Friday, November 6th . You will be responsible for knowing how to spell each word correctly and the definition for each word.
This week there are several review words!
1. Pangaea- super continent
2. Plate tectonics- the theory that Earth’s plates move.
3. Crust- the outermost layer of the Earth
4. Mantle- the middle layer of the Earth
5. Core- the innermost layer of the Earth
6. Fossil fuels- nonrenewable resources found deep in the Earth, formed by the remains of ancient plants and animals. Coal, Oil, and natural gas are the three fossil fuels
7. Coal- a fossil fuel formed by the remains of ancient plants
8. Oil- a fossil fuel formed by the remains of ancient plants and animals.
9. Natural gas- a fossil fuel formed by ancient plants and animals. It is a flammable oderless gas.
10. Sedimentary Rock- Rock formed by compacting sediment where fossils are found.