Classroom News:

Our first science unit is Ecosystems and matter cycling featuring Life on a Nurse Log.   Nurse logs serve as an example of a bounded system that involves plants, animals, and decomposers. Matter and energy move through this system by plant seedlings that take root on the nurse log conducting photosynthesis and feeding relationships between plants, animals, and decomposers that live in, on, and around the nurse log.   This unit develops several practices: Asking Questions and Defining Problems Planning & Carrying Out Investigations Developing and Using Models Engaging in Argument from Evidence; the cross cutting concepts of: Systems and system models, energy and matter and size proportion and quantity; and the Disciplinary core ideas: Interdependent Relationships in Ecosystems Cycles of Matter and Energy Transfer in Ecosystems, Structure and Properties of Matter  Energy in Chemical Processes and Everyday Life,  Organization for Matter and Energy Flow in Organisms.