In mid-April, 7th grade students in Mrs. Markert’s ELA classes will begin to participate in Book Clubs. Book Clubs involve students reading the same book, in small groups or as a whole class, and writing about and discussing with peers a variety of textual elements (characters, vocabulary, plot, theme, conflict, etc.), as well making predictions, connections, and inferences. For Book Clubs, students are required to participate in whole-class discussions, to participate in small-group discussions, and to read the assigned pages to prepare for the next day's discussion. Some groups will be assigned a specific book while other groups will be permitted to select their books from an approved list. Some of the book options are pictured below. 

In Mrs. Lifsitz science class, we are currently trying to figure out why the biodome, created by scientists and engineers, ran out of energy. The biodome was created in the 1990’s, it was an enclosed system in which 8 people lived for a few years until energy started to run out. The idea being, to create something that could be placed on other planets and allow human life. The biodome did fail and we are trying to figure out one of the reasons it did. In this unit we focus on energy transfer and matter cycling through an ecosystem. We started with looking at producers which make energy storage molecules so as we look at the process, we are growing plants and discussing the roles of each plant part in this process (structure matching function). We started by germinating fast plant seeds in petri dishes, which was very successful. We then put our seedlings in soil quads. Unfortunately, our plants died over the weekend so we will grow them again after break with our self watering systems that just came in! 

Students recently wrapped up Topic 2 with their unit assessment (centered around Proportional Relationships).  After a few PSSA mini-lessons, students will then be engaged in Topic 3, which explores the link between percentages and proportional relationships.  Students will be exploring real-world applications of the content including areas of interest rates, commissions, and tax rates. Many different tools will be added to the students' toolbox throughout this unit, as each problem can be approached using multiple methods.