Science

6th Grade

January began with a big Engineering Design Challenge related to our Strange New Planet (SNP) investigation from the beginning of the year.  We are planning to send a Lander to the SNP and have to deal with entry through the planet's atmosphere, descent to the ground and landing. This is called EDL at NASA for Entry, Descent and Landing, for us, it also meant, Egg Drop Lab. For this lab we focused on the descent and landing part of EDL. The students engaged in the engineering design process. Based on our customer's criteria and constraints the students imagined solutions, designed, built, tested, evaluated and redesigned protection for their lander.

Now we are investigating gravity and how it affects objects in space and ultimately formed our Universe. We started with our own Earth and Moon system and will move outward to the Solar System and beyond.

7th Grade

Why is kelp forest density higher when sea otter population is higher? This is the driving question students are investigating in our Kelp Forest Unit.  Students are creating kelp forest food web models to explain the phenomenon of comparing a healthy kelp forest to an unhealthy kelp forest to answer the driving question. In an owl pellet dissection, students will investigate energy transfer between trophic levels. 

8th Grade

We started January with a review of expectations and set goals for 2024. We then looked at a wireless speaker and started to think about how it works. Our questions led us to learning about sound waves and how sound is produced. In February we will begin to look at electromagnetic waves and their role in the wireless speaker phenomenon.