KML Physical Science Blog

Signs of a Chemical Reaction 1.  Color change 2.  Temperature change 3.  New odor 4.  Bubbles/steam

Copy and paste the description of the types of matter that make up the object you chose.

After hearing the description of the situation below, record a yes or no question that will help the class solve the crime. Detective Shadow picked up the Begile Beaver newspaper and a coffee and sat back at his desk. Beyond his window was a beautiful view of the Begile harbor.  As dawn broke, he could see the cranes beginning to load the 20,000-ton ship.  Coincidentally, there was a front-page story about a Singaporean company that purchased 40,000 Begile lawn tractors that were allegedly being loaded onto the ship that day.  Further into the newspaper article, Shadow read about a Singapore drug cartel that was rapidly increasing its Begile trade. "The good and the bad," thought Shadow as he finished his coffee and headed off to the City Hall courthouse. Seven hours later Shadow was back at his desk writing his reports when he saw the ship leaving Begile headed for Singapore.   At that moment Shadow suspected something very fishy about the ship. Why?

Yesterday and today we read about and discussed the history of the model of the atom.  We learned about different contributions made by various scientists throughout history and debated who made the greatest contribution. Who also selected an object to analyze for our What Are You Made Of? projects and began identifying, drawing and describing the elements, compounds and mixtures found in it.

This week we worked to understand the types of matter, how to separate the components of a mixtures using physical properties and to write chemical formulas using Avogadro's law the law of conservation of matter.  Avogadro's law states that equal volumes of gases at the same temperature and pressure contain equal numbers of molecules.  One way to state the law of conservation of matter is that the number of atoms of each element that you start with in a chemical reaction (reactants) must be the same number you end with (products).

Today we considered the following question as we finalized our capstone experiment design:  “What would someone have to do prove my hypothesis?” We also completed a debate as to whether apple juice and Gatorade our pure substances using kialo-edu.com .  The class concluded that neither are pure substances because they are both made of multiple substances. 

Today, we got our grit on, revised our capstone experiment hypotheses to make sure they were measurable and then designed the procedures for our experiment.

Today we worked to develop a hypothesis that we were curious that we could test and get numerical data to help solve our capstone problem.  You can find the list of hypotheses of KMLHS freshmen  here ,

Share with your classmates the reason(s) you are passionate about or interested in your capstone project topic.

It was amazing to see the variety of problems that were identified today and the passion the students showed in wanting to solve problems to help meet the needs and wants of other people.   Our key takeaways have been to choose problems that you are passionate about, be confident that you make a difference by finding solutions through science and technology and start with kindness.  You can find the list of capstone questions here:  https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1BdxW9tFKUEu2nu0HSYICrPnF834mH43zl6_Q09lCUCs/edit?usp=sharing .

Today we started the second semester by working on identifying our topics for the capstone project.  Here is the 8th period class. TEACHER OBJECTIVE - Identify who the students are and how I can empower them to find and solve problems. STUDENT OBJECTIVE - Identify who my classmates are and collaborate with them to identify and solve problems. Simon Sinek, “Working hard for something we don’t care about is called stress. Working hard for something we love is called passion.” Be a problem finder and solver! We used this document to guide our brainstorming process:  https://docs.google.com/document/d/1QrKpP7MNcJTFQbvlAwLvAVK_lVfPOHBM_voBxks0Z4k/edit?usp=sharing . We also formed our base groups and found STEAM partners. The assignment is to complete the exit ticket posted in Google Classroom by the beginning of Friday's class and to complete the capstone project document up to and including row 36 by the end of class on Friday.