Owl Pellets

The 7th and 8th grade students in Jr. High Reading are reading the book Incident at Hawk's Hill. In the story, 6 year old Ben MacDonald is fascinated with animals. He is constantly studying their movements, mimicking their actions and trying to replicate their noises. He wants to know absolutely everything about animals that he can, including how they work on the inside. When out in the prairie one day he sees a hawk kill and eat a jumping field mouse. When the hawk drops part of the mouse, Ben finds the tiny jawbone in the grass and saves it to examine later.

In order to extend our story and make a connection with real life, we decided to "be Ben" and learn a little more about birds of prey.  In order to do that we dissected barn owl pellets. Owls eat their food in chunks or whole. Any soft tissues are dissolved in the abdomen and used for nutrition, the fur and bones, unable to be dissolved are then compacted by the gizzard and regurgitated by the owl about 12 hours after having their meal. These owl pellets are then dried, sterilized to remove any bacteria or creepy crawlies, and can be examined and dissected to learn more about the owl's diet.

In our dissections, the students found a lot of fur, small bird feathers and too many bones to count. There were numerous intact skulls, jawbones, teeth, ribs, vertebrae, long bones, etc... It was quite exciting to be the person to come across another skull or the first one to identify a vertebrae. After a student found a bone, they then sorted them on a bone diagram in order to classify them and try to determine what type of animal the skeleton used to be.

We decided so far that most of the skulls look like they belonged to small field mice but one group thinks that they found part of a bird.

Even though the bones were teeny tiny, it was even possible to see the ball at the end of the thigh bone that would attach into the hip socket.

 If you would like to find out a little bit more about owl pellets and see one being regurgitated you can follow these links in order to hear a catchy Owl Pellet tune or see a video of a

pellet being regurgitated.  

Mitosis Diagrams

The 7th grade students are busy practicing their knowledge of mitosis by creating a diagram of the process. They spent their class time today drawing, coloring, and writing to show their knowledge of the process of cell reproduction.

Informative Essays

7th and 8th Grade have finished their section on Argumentative Essays and are now starting to analyze and write Informational Essays. Today we discussed the different places the informative essays are encountered in our every day lives. Some of the most common sources mentioned were newspapers, magazines, text books, and informational web sites or blogs.

Informational Essays are written exactly for the purpose stated in the title, to provide factual information about a topic. There are different formats that can be used to set up an Informational Essay.

Cause to effect
Effect to cause
Main Idea and details
Topic and supporting facts with sensory details

7th grade Science extra credit

7th graders all have an extra credit sheet for Science. It is optional, but if they would like to receive credit for it, it is due January 11th by the end of the day. (right before the end of the 9 weeks)

The extra credit is a word search of all of the elements of the Periodic Table.

Have fun finding the elements, kids!

Meiosis

7th grade started a difficult section in their science book today. The second section of Chapter 4 is all about Meiosis and reproduction in organisms, how the cells combine and what happens scientifically to those cells.  We are learning words like haploid, diploid, zygote, fertilization and Meiosis.  This is a difficult section to understand if you have not encountered these concepts before.  If you would like to look over the section with your child, you can access an on-line copy of their text book.  Go to
mhln.com   and enter the access code     E20560325A.

Argumentative Essays

7th and 8th grade are in the process of writing their finals drafts of their argumentative essays. The topic they are debating in their writing is whether or not cell phones should be allowed in schools for use during the school day. Most students argued that cell phones SHOULD be allowed in the school setting, but a few chose the opposing view.  The main reasons chosen for allowing them in school were, it would be easier for parents to contact their child during the day, students would be able to access the internet at any time to help them with their school work and apps could be downloaded that would help the students reinforce the lessons that the teachers were presenting in the classroom. Each essay follows the same pattern template:
Claim/Thesis
Reason - Text Evidence - Response
Reason - Text Evidence - Response
Reason - Text Evidence - Response
Opposing Claim - Text Evidence - Response
Conclusion

Next Science Test

7th grade will be excited to learn that their next science test will be on Tuesday, October 27, 2015! The test will be over chapter 3, Cell Processes.  If you go to my home page on the Philip School web site and click on the Science Study Guides Link * or click HERE* you will be able to find the study guide for the test. Students will also be receiving a printed copy of the study guide in class.

Diffusion, osmosis, mixtures, solutions, active and passive transport have been so much fun to learn about we will be sad to leave them behind! But just imagine what is coming up in the next chapter! SO EXCITING!!!

Range Day Article by Kelly O'Connell

2015 Jackson County Youth Range Day

By Kelly J. O’Connell, District Conservationist, NRCS, Jackson County

The 14^th Annual Youth Range Day hosted by the Jackson County Conservation District, was held October 7, 2015, at the Gene, Monica & Trevor Williams ranch near the Badlands National Park.

Seventy-three 7^th grade students (Kadoka Area 31, Philip 28 & Wall 16), attended the Range Day.   Nineteen adults assisted with the educational event. The students were bused to a unique area near the Badlands National Park, where they were divided into 4 groups and rotated through 4 – 45 minute Educational stations (Range, Soils, Wildlife, Paleontology/Geology and Area History), to gain a better understanding and appreciation of this area’s most precious resource…rangeland.  

Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), Soil Scientist, Katrina Wilke provided instruction at the “Soils” station where students participated in a texture soil exercise, among other things.

Mitch Faulkner, NRCS Range Specialist, Belle Fourche & Rick Peterson, NRCS Range Specialist, Rapid City, provided instruction at the “Range” station where students learned about differences and identification of grasses, forbs and shrubs, including field plant identification exercise.                                                            

Sara Nevison, SDSU Grad Student and Dakota McCoy, Project Assistant in cooperation with the Badlands National Park, provided instruction at the “Wildlife” station, with student interaction on area wildlife, utilizing various animal skulls, pelts, antlers and casted tracks.

Edward Welsch, Badlands Nat’l Park Education Technician at the “Geology and Paleontology” station, provided unique history of the area, and group interaction during his presentation & fossil exhibits and displays.

A noon lunch was sponsored by West River Water Development District and home grown water melon was provided by Wendel Buxcell.

Educational Instructor Group Picture (below L to R)  Mayola Horst - Jackson County District Mgr.,  Edward Welsch – Badlands Nat’l Park, Rick Peterson – Rapid City NRCS, Mitch Faulkner – NRCS Belle Fourche, Katrina Wilke – Rapid City NRCS, Veryl Prokop, West River Development Board member, Sara Nevison SDSU Grad Student In cooperation with Badlands Nat’l Park & Project Assistant, Dakota McCoy, & land owner, Trevor Williams.

More Gummy Bear Fun

A student wondered if you put a light colored gummy bear into a food coloring/water solution if the gummy bear would change colors. I thought GREAT IDEA!!! So we decided to try it!

This a before and after of the first gummy bear. We placed it into a blue food coloring and water solution. After 45 minutes we checked the results. Using a sharp knife, the soaked gummy bear was cut open and the class was surprised to see that the food coloring solution had diffused throughout the entire piece of candy that quickly. We had assumed that osmosis would happen at a slower rate.

Once we saw how quickly the color had diffused throughout the first gummy bear, we decided to soak a second one for a shorter time and see what happened. These are the results! Sorry they are a little blurry but you can still see the color change. This was after 8 minutes in the food dye/water solution.  

  

 The students then requested that the gummy bears both be placed back in the solution to soak over the three day weekend. There are many questions waiting to be answered. Would the gummy bears disappear completely?  Would the color of them change even more? Will the gummy bear grow as much as the ones that were submerged in plain water?  Only time will tell!  :) 

Big Squishy Osmosis Bears

Our osmosis bear experiment had a fun outcome! The bears GREW! And they grew A LOT!

 The students came back to class after the bears had a 24 hour soak and dove into the water to retrieve their gushy squishy friend.

Most bears had a 100% increase in height and width. Some were smaller, some were larger, but the results were pretty consistent.  Some brave kiddos decided that since the gummy bear had served its purpose, it was time for it to change from a science experiment back to a snack.  They said it had lost a lot of flavor after its soak. 

Gummy Bear Osmosis

7th graders are learning about osmosis by making gummy bears take a bath... a 24 hour bath! Today in science class, the 7th grade students were busy measuring gummy bears before they sent them swimming in a cup of water.

After taking initial measurements...

 and immersing their bear in water...

 they will use their power of patience until tomorrow's class.

 Tomorrow, we will be visiting our soggy friends and see if osmosis took place. The 7th grade has predicted that through diffusion and osmosis, the cute little gummy bears will become larger squishy wet blobs that have absorbed water like a sponge.  We know they will grow! The real question is... HOW MUCH!  We will have to wait until tomorrow and see.

 OSMOSIS! a Rap Lecture by Glenn Wolkenfeld   

A fun song and video that helped us learn about osmosis. Click on the title to watch it for yourself!

The Witch of Blackbird Pond

Junior High Reading finished the book Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry and is now reading The Witch of Blackbird Pond. This story deals with a young girl, Kit, who has been orphaned by her parents and grandparents. When her beloved Grandfather died, she was forced to sell his plantation to pay outstanding debts, sold her personal slave to pay for passage from Barbados to Wethersfield, Massachusetts and lived there with her Puritan Aunt and Uncle.  During her stay in Wethersfield,, Kit befriends a lonely Quaker woman named Hannah Tupper who has been labeled as a witch by the local Puritans.  Kit also has been suspected of being a witch because, unlike other women of the time, she knew how to swim.

In order to learn more about the Salem Witch Trials, the class did a miniature web quest by answering questions about the site http://school.discoveryeducation.com/schooladventures/salemwitchtrials/

Did you know that Puritans did not believe in reading plays, celebrating Christmas, or speaking to Quakers?

Iodine is a Sneaky Thing

7th grade learned that it is not a good idea to store iodine in a plastic baggie. In their experiment yesterday to better understand what diffusion is, to prove that diffusion is a real thing and that it is happening all around us, 7th grade observed iodine enter into a closed plastic bag.  Click  below to visit the website that describes the procedure for the experiment we did as a class. The photos are not from our experiment, but ours turned out exactly the same.
Click here to see the experiment.

The Diffusion Experiment  

Argumentative Essays in 7th and 8th grade

7th and 8th grade have been working on learning how to write an Argumentative Essay. We will be writing our own essays within the next couple of days.  7th graders are arguing whether or not an individual has the right to be rescued if they place themselves into a dangerous situation because they want the thrill of adventure. 8th graders are arguing whether or not an individual should be charged with a crime for specific messages they post on social media if their thoughts are meant to cause hard, either physically or emotionally. Both classes are learning that there is a specific template they are to follow when writing an argumentative essay.

We have had some emotionally charged and interesting discussions over these topics and the others that we have read about. Those include should land in outer space be sold to private citizens, should students be required to learn a second language besides English in school, should the United States recognize the federal holiday of Columbus Day or should we be changing it to indigenous people day, and should there be a mandatory age required by states before a student can drop out of high school. 

8th Grade Study Hall

8th Graders have been working hard during their study hall. They are using their time to finish any homework they may have, to practice their music for Mrs. Bowen, to silent read for their monthly book reports, or to work on supplemental practice activities on the computer.  The book theme for October is anything supernatural. Students in both 7th and 8th grade are reading books about everything from the Bermuda Triangle to ghost stories. Their book choice only has to contain a type of phenomenon that cannot be explained or that appears outside of the realm of reality as we know it.
The online web sites that they are using for extra practice help reinforce their reading comprehension skills, their grammar skills and their mathematical reasoning skills.

Range Days

On Wednesday, October 7, the Philip 7th grade classes (and four 7th grade country school students), along with the 7th grade students from Wall and Kadoka, got to attend Range Days on the Gene Williams Ranch. It was a lot of very and we learned A LOT. When the students arrived, they were divided into four different groups. Each group rotated through a series of four sessions.  Each session was 1 hour long and each was very interesting.  The day started with Gene Williams giving a welcome speech, explaining to the students that the purpose for the event was for them to learn about the land that they live on or near and that through education, we can preserve what we have.

One session was presented by a soil scientist. She discussed what soil is made of and taught the students how to texture test their soil to see if it is good soil for plant life. Students ended up a little muddy, but got hands on experience with identifying clay, sand and silt based soils. She also brought her sample truck and the students got the experience of watching her pull up a core sample and use HCL solution to check for the calcium content.

The second session was held on the flat prairie in the middle of the plant growth. Students examined the classifications of plants on the prairie and then were given hands on experiences of finding and identifying the various types of plants that were growing in that area. They discussed the difference between annuals, bi-annuals, and perennials.

The third session they were lucky enough to go to was help by two ladies, Dakota and Sara, who worked for the parks as animal trackers. Students got to identify animals by their skins, foot tracks and skulls. They were able to hold and examine the pelts, skulls, and rubber foot molds of Big Horn Sheep, coyotes, the quick fox, red fox, badger and raccoon. They also examined horns and antlers and compared their similarities and differences and got to "track" one of the presenters by following the signal from a tracking collar. It was exciting!

The final session was fossil identification. An employee of the park brought fossils and fossil replicas for the students to examine, classify, and identify.  The hands on experience of learning about the animals that lived in the Badlands years ago was a great way for the students to learn about the habitats we are close to.

A delicious lunch of barbecue pulled pork sandwiches, chips, beans, cookies, watermelon and lemonade were served to all of the participants.  Thank you to all who put it on for us!

Mixtures and Solutions

7th Grade is working on  their new chapter about cell processes.  One of the main ideas in the first section is the difference between a mixture and a solution. In order to make it more understandable the students did a sing-a-long with Mr. Edmonds on YouTube. He had a fun rendition of Journey's "Don't Stop Believing" that explained solutions.  Feel free to sing along with him at: https://youtu.be/3G472AA3SEs Students created their own solutions by using bottled water as the solvent and Jolly Rancher sugar free drink powder as the solute.  They then had to separate mixtures by sorting 7 different types of candy and cake sprinkles into cupcake wrappers.  The lesson ended by the students completing a comprehension worksheet. It was a fun lesson.