Here, I will share some of the things I'm learning in 8th grade science. 

Our monthly goals will also be described. The goal for August and September was curiosity.  Activities that we did for this were our Wonder Journals, the Hungry Hungry Sphero challenge, water quality testing, evaluating article authenticity, the Cicada Lab, and a Microscopy Lab.                                                                My favorite was the Hungry Hungry Sphero lab because we got to work in teams and create things together.   

These months have been really fun. I've been getting good grades on my quizzes and we have done lots of fun projects. Some of my favorites were our plate boundary project and the sketch notes we do. The water testing is fun and we do it almost monthly. It feels nice to get outside. Our most recent project was the earthquake skyscraper and I did not do very well with that. It fell on the first set of P waves. Hands on group projects seem to help me learn the best. Other than that though, things are pretty good and I can't wait for the rest of the year. 

These months were very interesting. We had lots of fun experiments and projects, but also just the units in general. One of my favorites was the Ohio toxic spill week where we had to research and learn about the train spill. It was really interesting and cool. Next, we learned about the Van de graaf generator which was a SUPER cool thing to see. Peoples hair stood up when they touched it and it was really neat. Lastly, we did a science in the GIFs slideshow that was fun, easy, and kind of relaxing. We had to explain how the GIFs related to things we have learned. Overall, the start of 2023 has been really good and I can't wait to do more things. 

April and May have been filled with lessons and labs on genetics, evolution, and helping the water quality. We have done some activities with punnet squares, alien genetics, and the evolution of the Rock Pocket Mouse. We learned so many new things about the different kinds of reproduction like Meiosis and Mitosis. We created devices to try and remove the invasive species, Frogbit, out of estuaries as well. 

 Overall, this year has been a really good year in science. Not only was it fun, I learned so much and I feel that I have really grown in my ability to problem solve. I loved drawing on the ipads and making sketchnotes. It was a really unique and helpful way to remember information. I didn't really love watching the lengthy videos and taking notes on them. Although it was helpful, it tired me out and was pretty boring. I want to continue learning about genetics and more about anatomy in the future.