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Year plan
Our science studies are made up of Highline Science
Kits, District-approved curriculum and Kate Poaster’s Science-To-Go, our
District’s science liaison. Kate Poaster supplements and enriches our kit
investigations by bringing in live samples of plankton, real organs to
examine, providing fun games to play and labs for us to explore.
Oceanography
We begin our year off with this unit. We explore the parts of a wave and
its movement and measurement, how surface and density currents are formed, how
the tides move and we make our own tidal dials to determine when high/low
tides are on any given day. We explore the depth profile of the ocean floor by
plotting a small section of the Atlantic Ocean and labeling its parts:
continental shelf, continental slope, abyssal plain, trench, seamount, island,
and midocean ridge. We end our study by examining creatures that live in our
inter-tidal and neritic ocean zones, how warm blooded mammals can survive in
cold ocean temperatures and the unique organ fish have that controls their
buoyancy. The water cycle is also reviewed in this unit.
Simple Machines and Energy
In this unit, students learn what
simple machines are, how they make work easier, and when put together how they
can form compound machines. We end our study with students designing their own
compound machine to do a specific task (such as ‘doing my homework’), explain
what type of energy is needed to run the machine, building a 3-D model of it,
and presenting their machine to the class. Students study the following simple
machines and concepts:
- Friction
- Potential and Kinetic energy
- Force and Work (newtons and joules)
- Calculating Work (Work=Force X Distance)
- Metric vs US Standard measurement
- Inclined plane
- Levers
- Pulleys
- Wheel and axle
- Wedge
- Screw
- Where does energy come from?
- Various forms of energy: thermal, electrical, solar,
mechanical, etc.
- Energy ‘chains’
Human Body Systems/ Family Life and Sexual Health (FLASH)
and HIV/AIDS
In this unit, students use a simulation called,
“Code Blue” to learn about the following systems: Respiratory, Circulatory, Digestive,
Skeletal/Muscular, Nervous, and Urinary. In the simulation, students are separated into ‘medical specialty schools’ where they must learn everything
about their particular body system. They take a ‘final exam’ test and, upon
passing, are hired by a ‘hospital’. One student from each school is hired into
a hospital to be the expert on that particular system. Once a hospital is
formed, they are given a ‘patient’ who they must decide on how to make
healthy. This unit culminates in a Grand
Rounds Conference where each hospital explains their patient and solution to
the other ‘doctors’.
The reproductive system is taught through the FLASH curriculum. By law, all
students must receive Sexual Health and HIV/AIDS learning every year from 5th
grade to 12th grade, unless a parent attends a
District viewing of the
curriculum and signs a waiver. In 5th grade, this
unit covers the male and female reproductive organs, puberty for both boys and
girls, and HIV/AIDS. Also included in this unit are lessons on emotional
health, friendships and family, abuse and exploitation, and hygiene. |