Investigations in Science 7 September 22, 2017

Announcements:
The Medieval Times field trip forms have been distributed to students. The
forms are due to Mrs. Lazarick-Ward by October 6th. If your child needs another
copy of the forms, have them ask their social studies teacher for another copy.

Students have been earning Minion Bucks for positive behaviors. They have
earned them for things like: getting started on their warm up right away; cleaning
up their lab station; coming to class on time; participating in class discussions, etc.
We have had a Minion Store open on Fridays for students to cash in their minions
for prizes. They also can save them up for a bigger prize. Ask your child how many
Minion bucks they have earned so far and what they have done to receive them.

If you are still having problems accessing your myMCPS portal, here is a link
to help you: http://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/mymcps-classroom/index.aspx

Coming Up:
Topics:
Diffusion
Organelles

Dates:
October 6 - Early Dismissal

October 9 - Open House

What we did this week:

We began the week observing plant and animal cells. Students created
slides of an Elodea leaf and onion skin, then they observed a prepared slide of
human cheek cells. From observing all three of the slides they were able to
determine that plant cells are rectangular while animal cells are round. We started
having discussions about the functions of different parts of the plant based on
their observations. We will be going more in depth with the parts of plant and
animal cells next week.
On Wednesday, we took our assessment on the characteristics of living
things and the cell theory.
Afterwards, we began learning about diffusion and osmosis. Diffusion is the
movement of molecules from an area of high concentration to an area of low
concentration. Osmosis is the diffusion of water molecules through a selectively
permeable membrane. Selectively permeable means that some molecules can move
through the membrane while others cannot (think of a tea bag in water).
We then took a closer look at osmosis by completing a carrot lab: Honey, I
shrunk the carrots. The lab had two baby carrots, one beaker of fresh water, and
one beaker of salt water. Students weighed each carrot before putting the carrot
in the water (they tied a piece of string to the carrot before adding it to the
water). The carrots will sit in the water over the weekend and then students will
weigh the carrots when they return.