Students in all grades have visited Tecolote Canyon to look for signs of animals and the plants they depend on. As part of our Animals and Plants units, we are looking at the relationships between animals and plants. In middle school that means were are learning about the chemical reactions of photosynthesis and cellular respiration. In the younger grades, we are learning about the food chain, habitat, and the endless cycle created by producers, consumers and decomposers.
There’s nothing to invigorate the minds of students of any age as much as learning outside. A wild winter wind blew us around as the 7th and 8th graders searched the park for evidence of the stages of plant evolution — nonvascular plants (moss), gymnosperms (pines) and angiosperms of both the monocot and dicot varieties were right next door. Nature is the world’s best teacher!
6th graders took their first walking field trip to Tecolote Canyon. We brought our snacks along and hiked over to the canyon, meandering down into the stream bed to find signs of how animals and plants are connected. We found coyote scat and tracks, caterpillars, slugs, butterflies, flies, bees, mouse tracks, squirrel tracks, tunnels made by small animals through the grass, songbirds, ravens, a hawk high up in the sky. Students had quiet time to do a free-write about the connections they could see between plants and animals. The canyon was silent, warm, just beginning to recover from the dry season — cool in the shade, and hot in the sun. A beautiful place and way to learn important concepts in science!
Thanks to a garden grant by the La Jolla Village Garden Club, our TCPS school garden has expanded just in time for our Plants and Animals science unit! Drop by and see our new oak barrel planters! We’ve covered them with bamboo teepees and bird netting to keep out the squirrels, and are using them to grow plants for our Plants and Animals unit. So far, we have planted celery, broccoli, peas, lettuce, cilantro, potatoes, plants to attract butterflies, and a barrel of plants that will be used to make vegetable dyes — purple cabbage, red sorrel, and marigolds. In addition, we’ve been learning another big idea in science — Connections — how plants and animals are connected. Red wiggler worms visited our classroom in their worm composter to teach us about the process of decomposition and the creation of fertilizer.
In the classroom, we are hypothesizing about which seeds will sprout first in cups — corn or beans — and measuring them on a daily basis. So far, corn is the earliest sprouter, but the beans are catching up fast!
Students of all ages have been learning about the history of the earth — its creation and the processes that change it over time. As part of this unit, they have learned about plate tectonics and created puzzles that allow them to put the earth’s plates back together to create the early super-continent Pangaeia. They have created models of Sea Floor spreading, the process by which new crust is created on earth. Students have mapped the locations of earthquakes and volcanoes on maps by latitude and longitude (grades 4 – 5) and using Google Earth (grades 6 – 
to see if they could see any pattern to their locations: i.e. the Ring of Fire where the boundaries of the earth’s plates meet. They went into our closest access point of Tecolote Canyon to view erosion and land movement. They recalled their own experiences with earthquakes and looked at real-time Google EArth maps to find the nearest and most recent earthquakes (within the hour and within a few miles of TCPS!) Finally, they created volcanoes and let them erupt!
Middle School students worked extensively on Natural Disasters. They did a role play in which they played the part of geologist and disaster planning autorities to evacuate an island nation during a volcanic eruption. They also worked on 3-week long multidisciplinary projects about Natural Disasters. Projects ranged from power point reports to stop-motion films using Lego news crews, to news casts using student-written scripts and footage of real disasters, to children’s books and manga written from the perspective of someone witnessing the disaster.
Several visitors came to our class during the first part of this unit. Two geology graduate students from SDSU — Will and Bryan — shared seismic data maps, an earthquake stress table, rocks and minerals, and their own work and life experiences in the field — with our youngest students. Cerise’s mom, Michelle, also came to class to talk about our local watershed, erosion, and the effect of pollution on our local environment, using a watershed model donated temporarily by the Natural Resources Conservation District.
Af
ter the holidays, students will be continuing their study of Earth’s History by learning about the history of life on earth and evolution.
Middle Schoolers finished their Light, Sound and Color Physics unit with presentations about practical applications of the electromagnetic spectrum. Each student picked a wave length on the electromagnetic spectrum and researched instruments, inventions, and uses for that wave length. For example, one student researched visible light lasers, and how they are used in price scanners. Another student researched how ultraviolet light is used in new SteriPens, which can be inserted into a water bottle to sterilize water in outdoor settings. Other projects included infrared night vision goggles, infrared scanners to reveal heat loss in buildings for energy efficiency analysis, Gamma Knife surgery, X-rays, radio waves, and microwave technology.Stay guned to see some of their fabulous power point reports!
Students in all grades have been studying the science of sound — acoustics — and learning how sound waves are produced by vibrations. They experimented seeing, feeling and hearing sound waves. Then they created musical instruments and explained how they work to create sound waves.
Middle School Students followed the engineering process to invent and create machines that can sort gum balls according to size. First they identified a problem — to sort gumballs by size — then they brainstormed solutions, designed, built and tested their machines, and then redesigned the machines to work better. Here are some of their amazing machines!
Students in all grades worked in teams to build towers of uncooked spaghetti, 1 meter of masking tape, and one meter of string. Like all engineers, they worked with limited resources, and had to adhere to a strict time limit — 18 minutes. In the end, their tower had to be strong enough to support a marshmallow on top, and had to be self-supporting and as tall as possible.
The challenge tested our students’ ability to work together, share ideas, and pool intelligence to create a completed project. Afterwards, classes discussed what makes a good team — mainly, good, respectful communication.
They also discussed the engineering process — identifying a problem, brainstorming a solution, designing a product, testing, (failing) redesigning and retesting.
From our discussion of teamwork, we will develop our science class community guidelines – “We are scientists who….” — to help us work as a community of scientists.
At the end of our Simple Machines Unit, students made Rube Goldberg Machines — impossibly complicated machines made from many simple machines, with a very simple purpose.
6th Graders worked on their Truth in Advertising product testing Projects and 7th Graders worked from January – March to create inventions for the Invention Convention. Here are the amazing results!
Students in all grades have visited Tecolote Canyon to look for signs of animals and the plants they depend on. As part of our Animals and Plants units, we are looking at the relationships between animals and plants. In middle school that means were are learning about the chemical reactions of photosynthesis and cellular respiration. In the younger grades, we are learning about the food chain, habitat, and the endless cycle created by producers, consumers and decomposers.
