The Plant Rack

In Mr. Willis’ class there is a rack with a bunch of plants on it. Mr. Willis’ class and Ms. Peterson’s class planted them. The plants from Mr. Willis’ class are on the top and the plants from Ms. Peterson’s class are on the bottom. We planted them about one month to two months ago. Some plants are much bigger than others. There is a light on the rack above the plants to help them grow and there is a timer to turn off the light. We water them about twice a week. All the plants are in little cups with the person’s name who planted the seed. Now they are bigger, so we put them in bigger cups so they have more room to grow. At the end of the year when we can’t take care of the plants anymore, we pick all the plants and give all of it to the cafeteria. Some of the plants that are planted are basil, spinach, flowers, onions, beans, herbs and mostly lettuce.


Carly

President Barack Obama

Hello Class,
Today in class we watched the video "Yes We Can" with Ms. Peterson's class. Think about what you saw in the video and the discussion that we had after watching it. Then post a comment that responds to the following questions:

1. What connections can you make between the celebration of the life and birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on Monday and the inauguration of Barack Obama on Tuesday?

2. What does President Obama mean when he quotes the Declaration of Independence saying, "We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal" ?

3. What does "Yes We Can" mean to you?

Be thoughtful and be sure to edit your comment with your partner before posting,
Mr. Willis

The Flying Balloon

In Ms. Peterson’s Science Class, we were taping different kinds and colors of balloons to a string to see if they could get across the room. We were experimenting with how a balloon can show Newton’s Third Law of equal and opposite reactions. We used circular balloons with colors of purple and yellow (but we blew them up so that they almost popped). In the yellow balloon, we put five pennies inside of it. We also used a long and skinny green balloon, and two long and wavy yellow and green balloons. The purple balloon went all the way across the string. The yellow balloon went half way across the room because of its weight. The long green balloon went, well, stayed where it was, and the yellow and green wavy balloons went all the way across the string. We changed the experiments by putting the pennies in one balloon and using different kinds of balloons. A question that I still have is, “Why did different kinds of balloons go different distances?”
By Zachary

Pulling On A Blanket

We were pulling on a tablecloth and trying to keep the water bottle on the table. We were in science work shops in Mr. Willis’s class in Pinnacle house on Monday. There were three people in every group.
It was hard but we did it. The peoples name in my group were Nevin, Danielle, and Sophie.

By Danielle and Sophie

Cold Weather Science

Hello Scientists!
Thanks for braving the sub zero temperatures this morning to see one of my favorite experiments. I have some ideas why this happens, but I would love to have somebody research why water turns to a gas in the cold! Here is the link to today's video: Experiment

I realize that the video from Thursday could not be viewed so here is the experiment from Friday morning when it was -20 F! I'll keep working on the other one.

Marybeth's Science Class

This is Marybeth teaching her science class about Newton’s 2nd law. She was giving us the definition to some words about Newton’s 2nd law. She was also going through the definition and words with us. People were answering some questions that Marybeth asked us. Some of the words were mass, hypothesis, questions, data, speed and friction. Then we did an experiment with Lego cars. We made a ramp and first we had the car go down the ramp without any mass (magnets), then we added 5 more magnets, then we added 5 more magnets on the Lego cars. We measured how far the car went with no mass and how far the car went with 5 masses. And at last we put 10 masses on the Lego car. We found out that it actually went farther with mass on it. I was surprised because I thought it would go farther without it.

By Hanna & Alex

Thailand again

Hello Travelers,
I assume that since you stayed longer than expected in Senorita Memoe's room today chatting with her guest you enjoyed your time! I would love to hear about your conversations. Please post what you thought of your visit, why you feel that way, and what you learned. What tradition did you remember? Thanks for sharing,
Mr. Willis

Here is a link that has lots of panoramas of Thailand! http://www.thailandresor.se/qtvr/
Here is another! http://www.thai-la.com/pano-files/index-thai-2004.html

Playing Bingo

This is a picture from Marybeth and Mr. Popoli’s science group together setting up our bingo sheets. We were setting up these bingo sheets by adding things that are part of Newton’s Second Law. The words we wrote were: hypothesis, experiment, data, mass, velocity, speed, force, motion, and question. We had to put them at least 2 or 3 times in any box. Then when we got bingo we would stand up and yell “BINGO!” Marybeth would say the definition and we would say the word out loud that matched the definition. I got bingo 12 times because I filled my whole page. I am sitting next to McKenna with the striped shirt helping her fill it out. She was done by the time we started playing. She liked to stand up and yell bingo. We had a lot of fun and I could tell McKenna was having fun because she was laughing, smiling and rolling on the floor. We had fun playing bingo.

By: Laura

Space

Hello Astronomers!
I've enjoyed talking so much with you over the last two days about space topics. Be sure to visit the space weather site linked on the blog for some great photos of recent Northern Light activity. I would like to see someone do some research that explains why these happen and post it! Here is a great link that has many amazing photos about galaxies and stars. Be sure to visit the gallery tab and type deep field in the picture search box!
http://hubblesite.org/
Here is another site that has a moon phase calendar and some other helpful night sky information:
http://stardate.org/nightsky/moon/
Here is another link for an animated model that shows more about our talk about moon phases:
http://www.astro.wisc.edu/~dolan/java/MoonPhase.html

So, have fun exploring and please post a comment about what you looked at and your reactions, questions, and suggestions of places for us to look!

Mr. Willis