Science

Science

The 6th grade of the Gifted and Talented Academy have been working on making their own habitat for their imaginary organism with the help of Mrs. Simovitch and Dr. Monaghan. We used normal art materials such as glue and tissue paper, put them into a plastic container and made things such as a underwater view. As well as rocks, soil , and sand that Dr. Monaghan provided us to make our habitat look more realistic.

We have also made games based on the food webs or chains in our ecosystems. Most of them had the same concept as to make a food web game and we got to play a few of them. Then we had to grade them using a rubric that scored out of 20 points. After, we got introduced to the flow of energy. We learned that after an organism eats another organism they get 10% of their energy. This continues until it reaches the top predator. This can be called an energy pyramid.

After this we learned about the different relationships that are in an ecosystem and how they function. Some of these relationships can be; mutualism, commensalism, predation, competition, and parasitism. Then, we had to write the different types of relationships our organism had with the other organisms in our ecosystem on our zines.

We also learned about the invasive species that could invade an ecosystem & the solutions we can use to get rid of them. As of right now, we are learning how to identify a chemical or a physical reaction based on the properties that we can visually see & smell. We have also been working on how does a compound and a substance form, using the elements of course. We also did research on why certain elements are in specific types of food. Also, we have been going into different stations, conducting experiments & finding certain properties in them to find whether it is a physical or chemical change.