Algebra has the answer!

Have you ever seen such diligent students? The Amazins have been hard at work over the last two and a half weeks on listening and note taking tasks associated with the History Channel special "How the Earth Was Made". It's a fascinating movie that details the Earth long evolution from a firery ball of lava to the life giving, oxygen-rich planet we call home.

The Amazins will use the information they have learned and noted on their Extended Anticipatory Guide and many Compare and Contrast Matrices to complete the next steps of their portfolio project.

Our next step is most exciting. After writing a short essay (using our Stoplight Paragraph writing structure) about the evoltion of our planet, the Amazins will engage in a bulletin board project for the ages!

How can we represent the Earth's age down to scale? How can we demonstrate how long our planet has been around? How can we WOW our classmates by showing them what DEEP TIME really looks like?

ALGEBRA!

Yes - ALGEBRA!

The Amazins will use proportions to bring the 4.5 billion years of Earth's existence down to scale. What will that look like? How can this help us prepare for our upcoming Integrated Algebra Regents?

Well, what if 1 foot of string represented 100,000 years. How many feet of string would be needed to represent all 4.5 billion years of Earth's life?

The Amazins will solve for x, and then create a real, scaled timeline of the Earth's tumultuous life for all students and staff to marvel at.

Check back over spring break for pictures and developments!

American Museum of Natural History...

Young scientists kicking off our big inquiry portfolio project in Earth and human evolution and adaptation at the American Museum of Natural History. Check out the awesome Blue Whale in the background!

March Together...

Our blog has taken a little break, but our class certainly hasn't! Djan is showing off our class's bulletin board that proudly displays the result of all our hard work from last term. While haven't yet received word from Congressman Serrano about out letters, we've moved ahead to solve our next big inquiries.

In fact, we've had a long, hard March together. We have recently completed the first few steps in our current portfolio project on human and earth evolution, climate and adaptation. Our guiding questions are

• Who are humans and how did we get here?
• How have humans adapted to their environment?
• How has environment shaped the way that humans interact with one another?
• How has the Earth evolved over time?
• How have humans, and other organisms adapted to these changes?

Our next posts will outline our work towards completing our portfolio project for earth and human evolution and adaptation.

Finally!

We're finally done!  Today we signed our letters to Congressman Serrano - hopefully he will read them and consider our suggestions to reduce the impact of human interaction on the environment.  We learned a lot through this process, but we're really excited to move on to new and exciting units.  Next we will investigate the following questions:

• Who are humans and how did we get here?
• How have humans adapted to their environment?
• How has environment shaped the way that humans interact with one another?

Frankie's Project Reflection...

The first thing I did was find evidence from the article “Arctic Ivory” by Paul Nicklen from National Geographic. I annotated the article for important information, and I used organizers like the Adaptation Organizer and Extended Anticipatory Guide to collect and analyze evidence. Next, I listened to a video podcast called “Polar Palooza” from National Geographic. I learned about the arctic guillemots are bird that need pack ice to survive because its food lives there. The ice is melting, and the arctic guillemot doesn’t have food because its food lives near park ice.  The guillemots are in danger because climate change has affected how it hunts food. On my third step, I didn’t do the Web Quest. Our fourth step, was to collect data about over-hunting the narwhal. It helped me demonstrate how he narwhal populations are declining in the arctic. I did tables and charts using MS Excel. We explained how many narwhals were killed per year and sunk & lost. Step four helped me to demonstrate about what is happening in the arctic and what we need to do to save them. Next, I learned how to create a thesis statement. I created a question from the essay task, then I responded to the question to create my thesis statement. Then I created a argument using my table organizer. Then I created my topic sentences to support my thesis statement. My sixth step was to start writing about my project with my web outline. This helped me to plan my essay to start writing. My outline helped me organize my essay so that my paragraphs are persuasive. My seventh step I started to write my draft. It was my first try and I used my supporting detail to help me be more convincing. In my final draft I inserted charts with my group. To form the final body paragraph, I typed the essay into the computer and I sent the essay to Mr. Blackburn. The purpose was to convince Congressman Serrano to endorse legislation to protect the arctic narwhal. 

What did you learn from this experience?

a)-writing letter

b)-essay by support my thesis statement

c)-graph

d)-listening to the ipod

e)-taking note

f)-summarization, annotation, quantitative in information

What part did you like?

The part that I liked was the narwhal population data. I liked to create graphs on Microsoft Excel to prove to Mr. Serrano that he should endorse legislation to save the narwhal and the arctic environment.

What parts did you dislike? The part that I dislike was that the guillemots are dying because the global warming is affecting the food they get to eat. 

Wesley's Project Reflection

The first thing that I did was find evidence from the New York Times Upfront Magazine article “On thin Ice”, by Andrew Revkin. I used an Extended Anticipatory Guide, annotation and the Adaptation Organizer to collect evidence from my article. I used evidence from the article to write my essay.  Next, I watched the video pod cast called “Polar Palooza”. I learned that the ice is melting in artic, I also learned that guillemots they don’t have food because it follows the pack ice. I looked for polar bear information in the internet, and then I learned about polar bear habitat. I used my Web Quest organizer to learn about polar bears and environment. The information I learned helped me write supporting details.  I learned how to make graphs with quantitative data. First, I made data tables and then I made graphs to measure sea ice and polar bear populations. The graph helps provide information for our supporting details. We used the details to persuade congressman Serrano. On our fifth step, we created a research question, then we responded to question to make a thesis statement.  We established our argument using the table organizer then we created topic sentences. The outline helped me organize my topic sentences and supporting details. The outline is my plan for my essay.  I used text and chart evidence to support my thesis statements. This must be complete draft of the paper. I did my first draft about climate change, melting arctic pack ice as a result or global warming. This is what I used in my body paragraph. I used the information from “Polar Palooza” and polar bear data. We were working in groups, each one of my classmates wrote a body paragraph. Then we put it together and put the graph. When we put the work together our essay was easy to read.

I learned how to write an essay and take notes from a listening task, work in a group, listen for information from an iPod, climate, global warming, and arctic pack ice, Congressman José E Serrano, how to write a paragraph.

I liked to write to Congressman José E Serrano because I could find information about the polar bears.  I disliked the project because I had to look for information and make conclusions. 

Aminata's Project Reflection

I first collected evidence by article annotation, extended anticipatory guide, adaptation organizer the article I read was the New York Times Up Front magazine “On Thin Ice” by Felicity Barringer and Andrew C. Revkin. This helped me write my essay and finding allot of evidence about climate change and polar environment. Second I watch video from an ipod I learned how to listen and take note according to the video I watched and took note, polar bears were starving in Barrow, Alaska in summer they had to eat the grass because was no ice at that time. Every summer Georg divoky visits Barrow, Alaska to help polar bears and guillemots. The video also mentioned about pack ice that  in 1975 it was 7 miles away from Barrow and now it is 250 miles away.  From this video task I learned things that I didn’t know before and that helped me write my essay. Third I researched I went to Google then wrote web quest polar bears. According to the web quest polar bears. The information that helped me write my essay were polar bears were built for the wind; cold, and ice, polar bears need ice to survive. I learned Allot about polar bears. and know that they need help from melting ice.fourt I created tables and charts using m s excel to show that just by looking at the charts you’ll know what my essay is about you know about sea ice and polar beats. Fifth I came up with a research question to create my argument using the table organizer and my topic sentences to support my thesis statement. This helped me understand my supporting details. Sixth I created an out line using test and chart evidence to support my thesis statement this helped me organize my essay. Seventh I did my first graft about climate change and arctic pack ice. Some information about my first graft is melting ice is result of global warming. Polar bears have lost their sea ice habitat from melting ice this helped me learned allot about climate change. Then me and me and my class mate work on our final draft we putted all our works from the project together. This helped me because each one of as did a deferent part of the project, then put it together. Thanks to my class mate yes we did it.

 

                                             What I learned

 

      Climate change in the arctic has caused melting ice, which has led to a decline in polar bear populations because of habitat loss. Arctic pack ice is melting as a result of global warming, global warming is caused least partly by the atmospheric built up of green house gasses from tailpipes and smokestacks. I also learned about carbon dioxide emissions, listening and taking notes, annotation, collecting evidence, how to take note in a web, how to use M S Excel, how to work in groups, what a thesis statement is and how to use it, do a organize table and organize essay with thesis statement and topic sentences.

 

    I liked collecting evidence, annotating, the web quest, video task, thesis statement, because I had fun doing it and learned whole lot from it.  I didn’t like the group work, creating the outline, doing the first draft, second draft, paper plan, peer revision and the reflection because I didn’t know how to do it and I don’t want to know about it.