Biology Story Time

The quiz will cover the past ecology material:  food webs, food chains, biomass and energy and toxin pyramids, and the new material from this week - nutrient cycles and succession. 

Review Worksheets 2,4,5,6 are due prior to this quiz.

Will will finish ecology with population ecology next week.  The 9 weeks test (from the District of Suffolk) will be given at the very end of next week.

 Just a reminder that ”News Briefs” are due every other Monday based on the Mondays that each block meets.  Each quarter will have a total of 4 of these assignments.  They are weighted as a quiz and are worth 50 points each.  Late assignments will not be accepted once the next news assignment is due (2 weeks between each)   

As a child, I remember that the best part about sitting in the waiting room of our dentist in Milwaukee, WI was being able to look through a  kid’s magazine that had one page titled, “What’s Wrong With This Picture?”  Searching for all the out-of-place things really intrigued me.  (Maybe that was a tell-tale sign that I would like science someday :-)  ) 

Today, as a teaching professional who has returned to the classroom after staying home for the cycle of one generation, I find myself thinking all throughout my teaching day, “What’s wrong with this picture?”  In fact, there are many days that I find myself in “shock and awe” and so this question travels home with me and it becomes part of our family conversations in the evening and weekends. My family becomes the space and place for trying to reflect and analyze the answers to ‘what’s wrong with this picture?’ 

In today’s classroom, there are many ‘out-of place’ things.  Rarely do students come prepared for class — rarely do many students even remember what we talked about 2 days before (it’s the odd/even day thing!) Rarely are students able to genuinely focus on a topic  for more than 10 minutes …  their eyes are open & they’re looking forward, but their minds are far from biology class. Rarely do I have a class in which there aren’t students who immediately put their head on the desk looking for sleep time when they first enter the room.  Rarely do we have an uninterrupted day in the classroom due to something or another … alarms, testings of all varieties, codes of many colors, early dismissals, etc!   There are a few other “rarely’s” and even a few “nevers” that I’ll leave for another day’s blog …

I’m sure I’m not alone in asking the “picture” question — at least I hope I’m not alone!  I guess that’s what’s prompted this blog post:  who else cares?  who else is asking this question?  where are groups of people gathering together who care and want to strategize collaboratively toward meaningful solutions?  where are the task force groups involving community, parents, religious leaders, students, teachers, and administration coming together now to deal with this question before the school I work at makes CNN headlines??  What’s Wrong With This Picture?

I was very disappointed in the test results for the first of two tests on issues related to environmental studies.  I drafted a letter last night to go home to you, the parents of my class, regarding concerns that I have about the students participation, or lack thereof, in the classroom.  I feel that I presented the concepts to the students in many different formats, i.e. learning styles, and made time for many worksheets of review, yet the majority of the students did very poorly.  I’m not sure what will help?

We have just completed the first third of the material for ecology.  This material will be covered on the Part II test at the end of the ecology unit, too.

Next week we will begin to march quickly through the carbon, nitrogen and water cycles and succession.  I need all students to bring their textbook to class everyday for the next 2 weeks. The text has some especially colorful graphics and good information on these topics and it will help reinforce the material I give in the lecture portions of class.   

Brianna Ivey reported that a U.N. study is concerned for lead poisoning levels in children who must daily cruise 2000 tons of garbage, looking for items to resell in order to have money to buy food to eat.  In America, we are concerned with paint that has high levels of lead on children’s toys.  How do you think these two concerns compare and contrast with one another? 

Tina Carter wrote a news brief explaining that spray painting something as simple as, “Do Not Dump,” on residential storm drains may help remind people that dumping used oil, grass clippings, and leaves contributes to polluting our waterways big-time! This was reported in the VA Pilot on 10/5/07.  Even using a small picture of a crab might get people’s attention.  If you were in charge of creating a stencil that could then be used to spray on a message that would grab people’s attention to remind then not to DUMP “stuff” down the storm drains on streets … what would it be?  Would you use color?  Would you use a picture with or without words?  If you create an actual graffiti drawing that could be used — turn it in for extra credit after responding here.

We are going to have a quiz on the microscope parts and their functions within the next week.  It’s important that they know the microscope very well so that our time in the lab next week is productive and safe — safe for the microscopes!

I am concerned about the tiredness of my students this year in class.  Many of them come in expressing that they slept very few hours the night before and within minutes of our academic time together, they have their heads on the desk and are snoozin’!  My frustration is magnified during 5th and 6th blocks when there is a lunch break in the middle.  I’m frustrated with not one or two of my students seeking naps, but many!  I’m rather demonstrative in my teaching (as I think your son or daughter will testify to) yet the extreme tiredness of students seems to be winning out many more times than not. 

Any ideas, suggestions, comments - parents?

Ecology students: You did a great job of progressing in the art of finding protozoa, algae and fungi cells under the ocular of our microscopes.  By the end of today, most people were able to negotiate their own way from scanning power up to 400X.  Your lab observation diagrams also really improved! WAY TO GO!

 I think most of you were surprised at just how small single cell animals or plants   are.   They’re barrier of protection to their outside environment is extremely thin — their cell walls or membrane.  

1.    Express some of your observations of these “tiny”, fragile creatures.  Surprises? Which one(s) did you especially like?  Did you notice that even though they all were “unicellular,” they were still quite different in micro-size, even under magnification?