5th Grade Science - Volume 3 - Monday, February 11th

5th Grade Science

Peter Morris

Byram Intermediate School
Byram, NJ

What are we working on?




The 2nd marking period is over, and we're already close to the middle of the 3rd (Feb. 22nd)!  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 22nd.  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 8th
• Current Event 2: Friday, February 22nd
• Current Event 3: Friday, March 8th
• Current Event 4: Friday, March 22nd

2. Our unit test on Energy & Ecosystems will be on Thursday, February 14th.  Study materials may be found on Google Classroom.

3. Beginning Monday, January 28th, Officer Marcus Lisa of the Byram Township Police Department 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)  

4. We are continuing to use Classcraft, an interactive video-game style class gamification platform.  Students have created characters and are completing quests to earn points and prizes.  
Please feel free to create a parent account and follow along with your child's progress!  If you're having trouble and would like to create an account, I would be very happy to invite you as well.  In our game, parents can even award small amounts of GP, the currency used in the game. Let me know if you have any questions!

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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:

Gabe, Evans, and Daria create a Flipgrid based on
their station work!

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 presented their findings on Google Slides.  The only rule: each slide could only have a MAXIMUM of 10 words, as we continue to develop our presentation skills!

Kevin and co. pass water through cups as energy
is passed through an ecosystem!

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.S.' - 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!

One option for when students complete stations early is to create a Flipgrid video teaching their audience what they did and learned at the station

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Station 1 Reviews

Lauren & Dustin:

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Station 2 Reviews

Gianna, Sam, & Colby:

Julianna & Sofia

Catherine, Keira, & Camryn:

Kal demonstrates how to safely blow CO2 into our
BTB solution

BB, Michael, and Patrick carefully transfer
our BTB solution into test tubes

Faith showing us the green BTB solution - it was blue until we blew into it and added carbon dioxide.

Below, the plant absorbed all the carbon dioxide to photosynthesize,
turning the solution back to blue!

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Station 3 Reviews

Mike, Dustin, & Tyler:

Molly, Daphne, & Lexie:

Caitie and Sam decide where to place their chains in
our class food web

Brian, Molly, and Abby plan out their food chains

Big thanks to Gianna and Sam for showing us how to stay organized at station 3!

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Station 4 Reviews

After gathering research on an invasive species, students created a slideshow and presented their findings to their peers. Students were required to limit their words per slide to 10. This resulted in some really engaging presentations! Check out some of them below!

Jack, Michael, Tyler, & Kaden

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Station 5 Reviews

Izzy R. & Faith




Will

Lexie

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%

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What else did we do during the unit?

Virtual Reality:

Students were able to use the Oculus Go V.R. headsets thanks to a grant I received.  VR is a great resource for science class, allowing students to gain in-depth experiences of places they may not otherwise have access to!  During this unit, students explored an underwater ecosystem with the app Ocean Rift.

Breakout game:

Students followed a number of clues to solve our Breakout game, working as a team to figure out where Bowser had hid our food web's decomposer, Toad, in our Super Mario themed food web.  Students utilized skills necessary for our unit test to complete the task!

*Congratulations to the Mercury Platypi 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 (the Ocean)!*

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