Week 14

Weekly Greetings!

First of all I want to remind you that there is only three days of school this week, and the students will be released at 2:00pm on Wednesday for the Thanksgiving break. Students will be required to clean out their lockers that day, and take home any clothing and expected to take items home. Also, we have a movie night fundraiser planned for December 9, so please let me know if you can help with that. I will be sending a list of foods needed when we return after the four-day break.

Last week there was additional enrichment activities for the class to participate in starting on Monday with the bi-weekly visit from the councilor. They played "Career Bingo" and had to guess what career it was when the clues were read. Everyone really enjoyed their time.

 On Tuesday, we participated in another virtual AK Teach program. The class interacted with museum curator Dr. Nicole Garneau, who is a geneticist who studies how our DNA affects how we experience taste. Garneau conducts her research using crowd sourcing and citizen science in the Genetics of Taste Lab at the Denver Museum. The results from her research have debunked super tasting, helped to confirm fat as the 6th taste and is providing evidence that the microbes in our mouth might be helping us taste sweet things! With students participating from all over Alaska and a few other states, our class got an exclusive behind-the-scenes sneak peek at her new research study, the Science of Sour,  and learn more about the ways her lab is changing the way we look at taste. Some of the students had great questions, and through the web cam could talk with Dr. Garneau.

 In Science, we closed our focus on chemical changes in Matter, by making a crazy substance called "Flubber". The students were shocked when all the different liquid solutions came together as a rubbery solid.

The next day, they worked in groups to follow a recipe for making ice cream using solids and liquids. They poured to solutions into two special balls that had a cylinder to hold the ice cream solution, and an outer shell that held ice.

 For around 30 minutes that kept the balls moving, and in the end the ice cream mixture had become a solid. We added some root beer, which was a liquid and gas, and had root beer floats to close out our Matter Unit.

Ranger Rodulph from the Tetlin Refuge was in on Thursday to share about "Matter and Energy in Ecosystems". He guides the class through the flow of a food web as they drew their own version on paper. The class always enjoys seeing him and he will be back this week to do a literature activity with them.

I will be sending homework home as usual on Monday and Tuesday. There will not be a Spelling test this week due to such a short week, but some of the words will be on next weeks test.

I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving with family and friends!

Kind Regards,

Julie Brown