3rd Grade Science: While employing hands-on practice and scientific based discovery and discussion, students explore units about the Sun and Your Skin, Properties of Matter, Exploring Electricity, The Human Body, and Our Solar System. Students conduct experiments and will participate in a school wide Science Fair in March.

4th Grade Science: Our 6 units this year in fourth grade are, Microscopes and Magnification, Chemistry, Matter, and Interactions, Forms of Energy, Ecosystems and Adaptations, Light and Optics, and Examining Nutrition. We spend hands-on time in the Science Lab learning through trial and error, experimentation, and by making scientific predictions. Students conduct experiments and will participate in a school wide Science Fair in March.

5th Grade Science: We spend hands-on time in the Science Lab learning through trial and error, experimentation, and by making scientific predictions. Our 6 units are, Work and Simple Machines, Earth's Forces, Investigating Heart, Microscopic Explorations, Inheritance and Adaptations, Exploring Density. Students conduct experiments and will participate in a school wide Science Fair in March.

SPACEFLIGHT SSO-A: SMALLSAT EXPRESS

SpaceX is now targeting Monday, December 3rd for launch of the Spaceflight SSO-A: SmallSat Express mission to low Earth orbit from Space Launch Complex 4E (SLC-4E) at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. The launch window opens at 10:32 a.m. PST, or 18:32 UTC, and closes at 11:00 a.m. PST, or 19:00 UTC. A series of six deployments will occur approximately 13-43 minutes after liftoff, after which Spaceflight will begin to command its own deployment sequences. Spaceflight’s deployments are expected to occur over a period of six hours.

Throughout the year, we will be following the Spacex and Nasa Launches. Ask your student about the new Insight Probe on Mars!

Would you weigh the same on Mars as you do on Earth?

When you stand on your bathroom scale, you're measuring the force of attraction between you and Earth, the force we call gravity. The resulting measurement is your weight.

The strength of the gravitational attraction between objects depends on two things:

• the mass (amount of matter) of each object

• the distance between the centers of the objects

Mars is a lot smaller than Earth, and its mass is only about a tenth of Earth's mass. That tends to make your weight on Mars decrease relative to your Earth weight. Now consider the distance factor: The force of gravity is stronger over a short distance than over a long distance. And the distance from you, standing on the surface of Mars, to the center of the planet is much shorter than the distance from you, standing on Earth's surface, to the center of Earth. That tends to make your weight on Mars increase.

Taking both mass and distance into account, it works out that the gravitational attraction between you and Mars is about three-eighths as strong as it is between you and Earth. Look back at the answer you got for your weight on Mars—you'll find that it's approximately three-eighths of your earthbound weight.