HAVE A GREAT THANKSGIVING BREAK!

Hello everyone! Since the last blog post, students have had their Motion & Energy Unit test and have nearly completed their Forces Unit!

It has been fast pace but full of fun! We started Forces off with playing Tug of War and using a beach ball to see how those activities related to balanced and unbalanced forces. Unfortunately, not all classes played. But, regardless we have done other lab activities in the past two weeks like our Penny Drop Activity, Newton's Second Law Lab, Marble Collisions Lab, and Balloon Rockets Lab (and many demos).

Instead of a big test for Forces, the unit was split into two large quizzes. One quiz was on Newton's 1st and 2nd Laws of Motion and the one that students have tomorrow (11/17) is mostly focused on Newton's 3rd Law of Motion.

All grades for Trimester 1 are pretty much final, if students are missing work, I encourage them to have that in by Friday the latest. Everything from this week will be on the next Trimester.

(Below a slo-mo video of an Alka Seltzer Rocket demo for Newton's 3rd Law)

After the Thanksgiving Break, students will be starting their Simple Machines Unit! This one is very hands-on and a lot of building of levers, pulleys, inclined planes, wedges, etc.

I'm very excited to do the Simple Machines Unit. This unit will take up until winter break. After the winter break, we'll be moving into Earth Science topics, starting with Weather & Climate.

I hope that everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving Break! I'm looking forward to meeting those who will be in for conferences.

As always, if you have any questions/comments/concerns you can email me at curtis_silverwood@conestogavalley.org

Sincerely,

Mr. Silverwood

The force is with us!

Hello everyone!

The past few weeks have been BUSY! After our last unit, I spent the beginning of the Motion & Energy unit having one-on-one check-ins with each student to ask how they are doing in science, what I can do to support them, and what their goals of the future are (to get to know them all a bit better). I've learned so much about your students and they are all wonderful young people.

Over the past couple of weeks, we've investigated the topics of Motion, Speed, Velocity, Acceleration, and Energy (Potential, Kinetic, and other types of energy).

We have done a few different lab activities including our Motion lab, Acceleration lab, and Pendulums lab. We have also used University of Colorado Boulder's PhET simulations to explore topics we have been learning about.

This week we've done a lot of review and practice leading up to our Motion & Energy test (Tomorrow 11/3).

The test will cover all topics from this unit and will focus on students' conceptual knowledge of these ideas, with a couple problems focused on calculations. Students can see what will be on the test in our "Weekly Folder" in the "Week of 10/31 to 11/4" folder.

I'm offering students the opportunity to use their notes for 10 minutes of the test after a 2 minute preview of the test packet. Some students won the "Quiz Game" that we played today so they will be granted 5 extra minutes for open notes. Students can use their notes packets and our Study Guide (Review Packet) during the open notes portion.

Moving forward, students will be allowed to use a notecard with any information they put on it during tests. This will help reduce any test anxiety.

Up next in science class:

We are going to channel the Force!

Okay... okay... we will be covering the topic of Forces! This is a great topic that will use a lot of information learned during the Motion & Energy Unit. Students should see that topics we cover moving forward will just build on top of each other. This way they can make connections and expand their knowledge!

We are going to start this unit Friday (11/4). After Forces we will be covering Simple Machines (a very hands-on unit!).

Special notes:

I'm currently in the process of creating a new after school club! The Science Media Club. Students will be able to research science topics that interest them, write a video script, record on screen or voiceover, edit the videos, and then have them published on YouTube!

Broadcasting and video editing, as well as a background in Meteorology/Earth Science, allows me to share my unique skillset with students so they can explore a different side of science!

This club most likely will start in the beginning of January, as I work to figure out all the logistics.

In addition, our team dressed as the Into the Spider-Verse characters for Halloween on Monday. I was Peter B. Parker, Mr. Mumma was Miles Morales, Mrs. Stoltzfoos was Spider(wo)man Noir, Señora Frey was Gwen Stacy, and Ms. Grammer was Aunt May! I think we nailed it. Check out the photo below:

Be sure to check back on November 16th for another bi-weekly blog update! You can also follow @ScienceWithSilverwood on Instagram for photos of what we do in class. I try to remember to take a picture of lab set ups, but sometimes I forget! I never will post students' faces, so if students are in photos they will have a mosaic/blur effect over their face.

Until next time,

Mr. Silverwood

P.S. Any questions/comments/concerns feel free to email me at curtis_silverwood@conestogavalley.org

Getting into motion!

Hello everyone! We have officially had our first unit test last Friday (October 14th). That test was on Measurement & Density. Before the test, students participated in a Density Column Lab. Below is a photo of their resulting columns using different liquids of varying density and objects that either stayed suspended in a layer or sank.

(The perfect classroom decoration!)

Now that the Nature of Science & Measurement unit is over, we have moved into our Motion & Energy unit.

In the Motion & Energy unit, students will investigate the concepts of speed, velocity, acceleration, and the types of energy.

This week we've been doing a Motion Lab to measure the speed of a student walking or running. Students collected data on Monday (October 17th) of a student walking/running in three different scenarios. We started taking notes on how to graph motion, and today students worked on completing their motion graphs of the data they collected.

the Motion Lab is due tomorrow (October 20th) in class.

The rest of this week will be focused on finishing the notes on Speed and Velocity, doing some word problems to calculate speed, distance, and time, then working on a PhET Simulation activity.

Tomorrow and Friday, students will be working independently so I can meet with students one-on-one to have check-ins with them. I will let them know their grade, if they're missing any work, and if they need any additional support in class. I aim to have these one-on-one check-ins once a month.

We should be finished the Motion & Energy Unit in 2 more weeks. After we finish with Motion & Energy we will start our Forces Unit.

As always, please reach out if you have any questions related to your student's grade, progress in my class, or about the course content in general.

My email is curtis_silverwood@conestogavalley.org

Thank you,

Mr. Silverwood

P.S. Below are some photos of my room that were features on the GHMS Instagram page