Welcome to the second week of the 2nd semester!
We are working our way swiftly through the book the Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, about the HeLa cells and their contribution to science as well as the story of the woman, Henrietta Lacks, whom the cells came from as well as her family. This book is a non-fiction trade book and highly recommended for freshmen level biology classes. Random House does have it listed at being at a 9th grade reading level. That being said, due to the subject matter, some of the more controversial topics and language will be bypassed or assigned for home reading. When I send home reading, I will let parents know first so that you can either choose to read the book with your child or preview it first then decide on its appropriateness for your family. We also developed today with both biology classes the habits of mature scientific discussion which we will be referring to throughout the semester. Tomorrow we will extract DNA from strawberries, learn about the structure of DNA, analyze some chromosomes, then Thursday we will analyze a karyotype.
For Physics, we worked through the PBS documentary Building Big: Bridges. I highly recommend asking your child tonight over dinner what they learned from the film. Some topics include Caisson's disease (also known as the Bends), the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, as well as the history of the Golden Gate Bridge. Tomorrow the students will learn about the engineering concepts surrounding bridges then begin their blue-print for their bridge. I'm hoping we will start construction on our bridges Thursday, but for sure Monday.
I also wanted to share a webpage for Parents and Students who are preparing for college placement exams such as the ACT who own a Texas Instruments (TI) graphing calculator. TI has excelled resources to help make students more efficient and proficient at using their calculator during times assessments. Texas Instruments: Student and Parent Resource Center
No comments:
Post a Comment