Middle School Science

NInvestigating erosion and stream bed formation with our new stream table reinforced earth science concepts for the eighth graders this week.

The sixth and seventh graders are exploring cells. They made slides of plant and animal cells to examine under the microscopes. So cool to view your own cheek cell under high magnification!

Reverse The Odds

A game for us all to play!

Reverse The Odds: Create a magical world, save a race of adorable minions and help our scientists analyze real cancer data, all through a puzzle game! Citizen Science.

Five Planets Visible!

During the last week of this month, starting Jan. 23, all five planets visible to the naked eye can be seen at the same time, around dawn each morning.  This sight will continue through mid-February.  Some sources say that it's starting Jan. 20, but Mercury will be pretty hard to see for the next few days.  All throughout this time, the most difficult planet to see will be Mercury, since it will be very close to the horizon.  So, to see all five planets, you'll need an open area without a lot of trees or buildings toward the eastern horizon. 

Rolling Power! K-1 Science

We experimented with rolling shapes and evaluated what rolls best! Round seemed to be the winner!

News Show Prep!

The 2-3s are practicing camera savvy skills. All their research and rehearsals are paying off.

Four New Elements added to the Periodic Table

Chemistry Is Exciting!
http://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/jan/04/periodic-tables-seventh-row-finally-filled-as-four-new-elements-are-added

The scientists who found them must now come up with formal names to replace the clunky Latin-based placeholders – ununtrium, ununpentium, ununseptium and ununoctium – which reflect their atomic numbers, 113, 115, 117, and 118. The atomic number is the number of protons found in an element’s atomic nucleus.

IUPAC announced that a Russian-American team of scientists at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California had produced sufficient evidence to claim the discovery of elements 115, 117 and 118.

The body awarded credit for the discovery of element 113, which had also been claimed by the Russians and Americans, to a team of scientists from the Riken institute in Japan.