Monday, May 2, 2016

Today we began the first day of the last full month of the school year!  We have five weeks left after this one and testing is on the horizon.  While the math and literacy have essentially been taught and are now in full review mode, there is still one small final unit (microbiology) left in science.  Today's lesson was the final part of the ecosystems unit in which the students took notes on resources and their conservation.  First, there was a short literacy time and then the warm-up:

TAfterwards, the students took the following final notes for this unit:
Consumption-  using something
Recycle -  taking a used material and making it into something brand new
               Example - grinding up newspapers and making copy paper out of it
Reduce - using less of a resource
             Example - putting an aerator on a faucet to use less water
Reuse - finding a different use for the same thing
           Example - taking a used jelly jar and using it as a drinking glass or using a clear   plastic soda bottle and making it into a terrarium
Replace- to put something back
             Example - planting trees to replace the ones cut down
Conservation - taking good care of the environment and its resources
Resource - something that is useful
Renewable Resource - something that can be replaced
            Example - trees (wood, paper, fruits, nuts, etc), corn, algae, wind, solar, etc.
Nonrenewable Resource - something that cannot be replaced. Once it is used, it is gone!
             Example - oil, coal, natural gas
Pollution - a harmful additive to an environment
               Example - oil or chemicals in a water ecosystem, smog in the air

The ecosystems online practice test is now live:  http://millersclasssci.weebly.com/launch.html 

The code is:  QA3EF-4C92
Lastly, we had our grades 3-5 EOG pep rally with Sir Purr from the Panthers visiting us.