February and Adar in 8th Grade!
Tomorrow, for Rosh Hodesh Adar, students are excited to come to school in their pjs. In Humanities class, we are planning to have a relaxing pj reading party! There will be Netflix fireplace playing on the screen, cozy chairs, and some nice books to read independently.
In ELA, students are ending their unit on poetry, in which they are writing journal responses about a poem of their choice. Allusion, simile, metaphor, paradox, hyperbole, and oxymoron are all now part of the 8th grader’s regular vocabulary! Ask them to explain them to you.
In Social Studies, we just ended our unit about colonial life in North America and are now transitioning to talk about the history of the enslavement of Africans in North America. Students will look at several primary and secondary source documents to do a deep dive into this troubling legacy of American history.
Math
The 8th grade just finished a long unit on linear functions. After that, they explored the properties of rational and irrational numbers. They focused on square and cube roots, then learned about how to simplify and perform operations on radicals. When we return from the break, we will focus on systems of linear equations before moving on to exponential and quadratic functions!
Science
Science returned from break by exploring the science behind cooking. Students created a short presentation on the scientific factors exhibited during the cooking process. Some examples included: melting points, heat, induction, and tastant molecules.
Next students discovered how heat transfer works within an oven and explored the difference between convection and conduction. This also introduced the concepts of how temperature and thermal energy are related. Then, students started exploring gas laws by conducting an experiment using a beaker and hot plate to pop popcorn. They discovered how pressure, temperature and volume affect the popcorn kernel. We continued exploring gas laws using interactive simulation software in order to discover the relations in graph form.
This past week, students explored the topic of vaccines, and more specifically the Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson Covid-19 vaccines. Students learned about how vaccines functioned and the scientific process of their development. The class discussed their efficacy, their application, and the production of these vaccines. This was accomplished through a mini lesson and slideshow on these topics, followed by a game that students played in class that demonstrated how vaccines and inoculations work in real time.
Mike Noll
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