5th Grade Science - Volume 2 - Monday, February 12th

*Congratulations to the Venus StarWarriors for winning the Food Web Frenzy, this unit's class competition!  They were the first team to add ten different organisms to their class ecosystem!*



What are we working on?


Students kicked off the unit by building a food web using yarn to demonstrate how energy is required by all living things.


The 2nd marking period is already over!  In terms of grading for this past unit, station work was counted either for the 2nd or 3rd marking period.  If Parent Portal indicates an assignment was 'exempt' for one of those two marking periods, that simply means it was scored in the other.

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What's coming up?

1. Current Events for the 3rd marking period are underway and all 4 will be due Friday, March 30th.  If your child is having any trouble with these, please refer to the 'Current Event Rubric' instruction doc posted in Google Classroom.  To more effectively manage these assignments, recommended (not required) due dates are below:

• Current Event 1: Friday, February 9th
• Current Event 2: Friday, February 23rd
• Current Event 3: Friday, March 9th
• Current Event 4: Friday, March 23rd

2. Our unit test on Energy & Ecosystems will be on Wednesday, February 14th (Thanks, snow days!).  Study materials may be found on Google Classroom.

3. Beginning Monday, January 29th, Officer Marcus Lisa has been and will be coming in each Monday to work through the L.E.A.D. - Law Enforcement Against Drugs - program with the students.  The L.E.A.D. program teaches 5th graders about character building, decision making, and other useful soft skills that will benefit them throughout middle school and throughout life!  (The L.E.A.D. program was formerly the DARE program)  

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What do our stations consist of in this unit?

Students have been working their way through six ecosystem-based stations to investigate all different aspects of ecosystems and energy transfer, according to the Next Generation Science Standards.  All of these stations utilized information that we learned in class and recorded in our Golden Packet.  These stations were:

Gianna realizes it's stressful being the sun: The energy always
runs through you!

1. 'The Journey of the Energy' - Students were asked to come up with and write a story dealing with something they've eaten in the recent past.  Students were asked to trace the "journey" taken by the energy to get from the sun, work its way through a food chain, and make it all the way to their dinner plates!  Some students got quite creative and even extended the food chain past themselves...  Station 1 was graded on this rubric.

2. 'Photosynthesis in Elodea' Lab - Students used straws to add Carbon Dioxide to water, and chemical called BTB that changes color along with the CO2.  We then placed an aquatic plant in that water and allowed it to sit overnight.  The next day, students observed how the color of the BTB had changed, indicating that there was no longer Carbon Dioxide in the water.  Photosynthesis is real!

3. 'Create a Food Chain' - At this station, students were asked to research and create a food chain consisting of any combination of producers, herbivores, omnivores, carnivores, decomposers, and scavengers.  They created their individual food chains on colored index cards, then hung the chains around the room to create a grade wide food web!  All of the energy in that web starts with just one sun!

4. 'Invasive Species Presentation' - Students chose one invasive species from a provided list and gathered research on it, including items such as: where it came from, where it invaded, how it hurts its new ecosystem, and how it might be stopped.  At the end of the unit, students will present their findings either on Google Slides or using the website Prezi.com.

Wyatt, Johnny, Sara, and Emily practice moving energy
through a food chain using water and 'holey' cups!

5. 'Trophic Level Investigation' - Students learned how energy is transferred among trophic levels by passing water through a series of cups with holes in the bottom.  As energy moves through a food chain, much of it is lost back into the ecosystem to provide more energy to more organisms!

6. 'R.A.C.E.' - One of the skills we're working on this year is synthesizing information from multiple sources, like videos, images, and nonfiction texts, to answer a single question.  At station 6, we continued to build this skill by answering the question 'Would living things be able to survive without the sun?' using both an article on photosynthesis and a chart demonstrating the transfer of energy through a food chain.  Station 6 was graded on this rubric.

That's enough from Mr. Morris - some students have volunteered to share with you what we've been up to!

*Students chose to try a new technique to review stations.  Using a website called flipgrid.com, students recorded short videos of themselves discussing their favorite parts of stations!

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Station 2 Reviews

Paige & Rylee:

Regina & Bella

Lucas S.

Sagan demonstrates blowing CO2 into
a BTB and water solution

Kieran and Trinity carefully pour the BTB/CO2 solution
into two test tubes

Tonianne give us a close-up of the elodea
plant that goes into one of our test tubes



Tanner investigates the results.  The elodea plant sucked up all the Carbon Dioxide,
changing the color of the solution to blue!

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                                           Station 3 Reviews

                                                       Zack

Delia & Kristina

 

Michael C. & Adrianna

 

Ariana:
What is my favorite station so far? So far my favorite station is station three. I had to create a food chain and figure out if my animals are carnivores, omnivores, herbivores, or decomposers/scavengers. I learned that energy get lost as you go through the food chain.  Organisms in a food chain  are dependent on each other because if a frog  dies and there are no more frogs ever then a bird can’t get food and then will die then on and on until everything dies. Now you know why station three is my favorite.

Jakob:

Station three was my favorite out of all the stations. I was my favorite because at the station we got to create a food chain and draw animals on flashcards to create it. We had to do some writing too with the food chain. We had to string them together and hang them around the room. At this station I learned what each animal I chose was on a food chain, and also where some animals would go on a food chain. To me this station was really fun to do.

Josh, Sarah, and Addy construct their food chains

Delia and Kristina add their food chains to our class food web!

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Station 4 Reviews

Ty & Lucas A.

Cooper & Michael P.

After gathering research, students presented their findings to their peers:

.

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Station 5 Reviews

Kylee & Robert

Brendan

Jason & Kieran

 

Sample Data Table for Station 5

	Starting Volume	Ending Volume	Transfer Efficiency What percentage of water made it from the beginning to the end?
Day 1 (5 cups)	1,000 mL	240 mL	24%
Day 2 (4 cups)	1,000 mL	320 mL	32%

Hunter, Maddie, and Gage trying to get water
along their 'food chain'

Luke, Gianna, and Kayla get messy transferring water

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Station 6 Reviews

Feel free to take a look at ALL of our Flipgrid videos!

Thanks for taking a look at our classroom newsletter, Volume 2!