Week of November 17th - 21st

TA’s Notes:

Advisory:  Thanks to all advisory members who donated food for the Thanksgiving Baskets Voyager is donating to the food shelf in Williston.  It is thoughtful of you to consider those in our community who can use a little assistance.  We will take a picture of the baskets before delivery on Tuesday!

Voyager Community- We on Voyager work hard to make everyday a fun, invigorating, and educational experience. Sometimes we have amazing units happening in our classrooms that would be even more enhanced by providing out of the classroom experiences. We’re talking about field trips. But….field trips take support and funds. We would love to continue to provide rich, hands-on experiences for students. We need your support! Every year, the Williston Annual fund requests a one-time amount of money from families to support these causes. This year, less than 20% of Voyager families submitted to this fund. We urge you to send in your contribution to help support our efforts.                                                                                  

Washington DC Trip Update:  We are excited to have contracts in for 8th graders attending the DC trip.  Ms. O will be meeting with students after the break to discuss contracts, work completion expectations, and a basic itinerary for the trip.  We have a Capitol tour and Holocaust Museum plan in motion, but are awaiting scheduling these experiences due to booking policies at both locations.  We should have both of these opportunities scheduled by January 15.  More info to follow...got to get my head around it!  Ms. O

Ms. Sherman:

The after school organizational club has come to an end. Thanks to all the great kids who stayed after to work on these skills.

The next session starts in December, after the Thanksgiving break. The next session’s topic will be about tough reading. Students are sometimes presented with reading material that is difficult for them to read. These sessions will look at strategies to use when the reading is hard. It’s a great way for kids to get more confidence even when faced with text that is “above” their level. If your child struggles with reading informational text, this would be a great opportunity for them to gain some new skills. Below is the schedule for Reading club:

Wednesday, December 3→ 3-4:00

Wednesday, December 17→ 3-4:00

Wednesday, January 7→ 3-4:00

Wednesday, January 14→ 3-4:00

The Week in Mr. Merrill’s Room (⅚ Humanities):

This week for the wrap up of our Reading Cafe, students updated their Reading Response Notebooks for the end of the trimester. Notebooks should show evidence of ongoing reading, reflections, responses, and new vocabulary. For current events, we have been spending time practicing with news sources to find local, national, and international news. Students have also been working with large maps in the classroom, and charting where important news stories are taking place, which we will continue throughout the year. We have been talking about events in the Middle East, U.S. and local elections, and the G20 summit. Students are encouraged to continue to watch the news and read the paper over break, to share with the class when we return.

On Tuesday, we continued our work on a mock trial using the Pro Se Court format.  Each student prepared for their role (judge, attorney for the city of Chicago, or attorney for Jesus Morales), with a group of students with the same role. They then judged or argued the case on their own. Judges made a decision at the end of the hearing. We discussed the results of the actual case, and that the Supreme Court’s ruling was a close 6-3 decision in favor of Morales.

On Wednesday, we had a visit from the author of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series, Jeff Kinney. He spoke about his journey as a writer/illustrator and the process he uses to create each book. It was a really cool event!

On Thursday, we took a look at the system of checks and balances for our government. Students completed a diagram and prepared for a quiz on Friday. We also had a chance at the end of the day to play an icivics game - Supreme Decision. This is a great online game that brings the student into the decision making process on a Supreme Court case. Try it at home and see how you do!

The Week in Ms. O’s Room (⅚ Math & Science):

Math 5-Students worked hard this week to bridge the divide between finding fractions of a number and using that understanding to add and subtract fractions with different denominators.  Students used double number lines, number lines which have two scales on them - a fraction of the whole scale and the number that indicates one whole.  So in a problem like this one...A man sets out for a week long hike that is 100 km long and walks ¼ of the way the first day and ⅕ of the way the second day.  How much of the trail has he hiked?  students can use ¼ + ⅕ ( unlike denominators) as the problem to solve, but do so using their understanding of ¼ of 100, which is 25/100 miles and ⅕ of the trail which is 20/100 miles (a common denominator) and now add for 45/100 which is the same as ¼ + ⅕ = 9/20.  Perhaps it is too hard to share this idea, so please ask your kiddo to show you a double number line.  Students practiced using a triple beam balance for finding the mass of objects.  They did a great job.  What a focused class period this was!

PLEASE DO MOBY MAX OVER BREAK!

Math 6-This week, students worked on understanding decimals.  We reviewed the Base Ten place value names, practiced saying decimals, placing decimals on number lines, comparing decimals and even determining decimals between decimals.  I’m always reminded of how important preliminary discussions are around this topic; place value is a really important foundation in math, and I often underestimate the gaps students have in this area.  This investigation also introduces negative numbers and discusses absolute value.  I have found the introduction of absolute value to be an essential one in helping students understand the negative side of the number line.

PLEASE DO MOBY MAX OVER BREAK!

Science ⅚:  This week students began an important discussion about matter and gravity. We finalized ideas about matter, since gravity acts on all matter, so that we had a working definition of it.  We also began an inquiry task where students dropped objects to determine which object would hit the ground first.  Day One was an open inquiry to choose objects and drop them, while Day Two was a more focused inquiry on determining whether mass affects which object will hit the ground first.  Students are all dropping spherical objects and the time lapse option on ipads in order to ensure accurate data collection.  As part of this inquiry opportunity, students are using triple beam balances to find the masses of objects.  This will bring us to some important claims about gravity as a force on Earth.

STUDENTS WILL BE RECEIVING A FEW HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENTS THIS NEXT UNIT, INCLUDING A MOON JOURNAL.  HELP THEM BY OBSERVING THE MOON AT ALL TIMES OF THE DAY!

The Week in Ms. Wesnak’s Room (⅞ Humanities):

This week in Humanities we have been working hard on our argument papers and starting our studies on early 20th Century history with the big immigration boom!

During our morning time together students worked on bringing our Trimester 1 unit to a close, by creating a new American flag and defining themselves as Americans. The new American flags were a great way for students to illustrate their reflections on the unit, and put to paper symbols, colors, and pictures that (to them) represent who we are as a country. The definitions were also a really great way for students to reflect on what they’ve learned, but to now take their gained knowledge and connect it back to themselves. Another creative element that students participated in was having their American Portraits taken. These portraits will be printed and showcased in an exhibit titled, “The Faces of America” in our upcoming American History Museum! More to come on the museum later! As the week continued on 7th and 8th graders had their rough drafts edited for their 5-paragraph argument essays on youth immigration. As the week came to a close students watched a documentary introducing them to the experiences of immigration in the early 20th Century, Ellis Island, and the Ellis Island Museum.

Our afternoon time together was spent simulating our way through defining terms for our next mini unit of study: early 20th Century immigration. Students were asked to look at 3 words and define them: refugee, immigrant, and emigrant. Students were told that all 3 words have similarities, but they are different from each other. Our focus for this week was  to understand the differences, and make connections to find the similarities, between a refugee and an immigrant. We had a lot of fun with these simulations and the 7/8 community was really respectful, inclusive, and creative when dealing with the challenges they faced! These simulations were a great way for students to really see the similarities and differences between a refugee and an immigrant, and they were also a great stepping stone into our studies that will start after the break. Simulations are also a great way to do some hands-on learning in and out of the classroom!

Thank you for a great 1st Trimester! It has been filled with creative thought, critical thinking, and thoughtful reflection. I hope everyone has a healthy and happy Thanksgiving!

The Week from Ms. Q’s Room (⅞ Math & Science):

CMP8

This week we looked more closely at that the meaning of square roots and cubed roots,  better known as radicals.  We began a new unit called “Looking for Pythagoras” which had us creating squares on a diagonal and finding the side lengths based on the area of the square.  Students learned the derivation of the square root and cube root by creating models.  We became more adept at estimating where a square root  of a number would lie on a number line, by using the perfect square numbers that we know such as 4,9,16 which are 2, 3 and 4. When we come back from Thanksgiving Break, we will learn how the Pythagorean Theorem was derived.

On a special note, all CMP 8 students have an algebra placement credit intent letter that must be read, signed and returned when we get back.  Thank you for your attention to this detail.

CMP7

What makes geometric figures similar?  We began our “Stretching and Shrinking” unit with finding the similarities and differences of figures that are scaled down or blown up.  Students practiced their graphing skill as we created the “Mug Wump” characters, their fanny packs and hats! Students also created simple characters and coordinate pair instructions for their classmates. These skills link to translating figures using a rule and will be seen in the future when we stretch, shrink and move non-linear functions.

Science 7th/8th

Gravity! This week we continued our exploration of this force to pin down a better understanding of what it is and how it relates to the mass of an object. We viewed a video called the “Lords of Gravity”  which had amazing footage of planets, rings, and evidence of gravitation force in space.  There was a lot of enthusiasm for space exploration so we spent an afternoon looking into NASA and other space agencies to see what probes are out there, what their mission is, and what they have found out. Students also began to brainstorm possible project ideas with the solar system and space in mind.  These projects will begin after break.

Week of November 10th - 14th

TA’s Notes:

Snack time is a “working snack” meaning students have a small snack in the morning during class time.  They are given time to retrieve their snacks and are expected to eat and work during class time.  Any food that needs to be microwaved must be held back until lunch time.

Message from CVU Student:

Winter Coat Drive

This year CVU's sophomore class partnered with Vermont Refugee Resettlement Program in helping those in need of winter coats stay warm this winter. We are hoping that the community of Williston will aid us in our mission by bringing in your gently used winter wear and leaving it in the box in the WCS lobby. Our drive will be ending the day before Thanksgiving break, with possible extension. Thank you for all your help in support!

                                                        -Eva Rocheleau Sophomore Co-President

After school with Ms. Sherman:

Homework Club - Mr. Merrill is available (most days) at Homework Club (until 4pm) for individual or small group support. Please let him know ahead of time if you would like to schedule individual support for your student.

If your student is staying for Homework Club, please pack an extra snack for your child, some of the students are mentioning that they are hungry at the end of the day. Thank you.

The Week in Mr. Merrill’s Room (⅚ Humanities):

The focus for our Reading Cafe this week was to think about how the book you are reading makes you feel or to identify the feelings of the characters in your book. Students wrote a response to this in their Reading Response Notebooks. For current events, the kids completed a scavenger hunt, learning how to navigate online news sources and newspapers to find articles on specific topics. They had a lot of fun working with their “clock partners” on this activity.

Following our visit to the book fair, students continued working on taking Cornell Notes. This time, they were responsible for taking their notes independently using the Cornell format.  At the end of the unit, students will have taken Cornell Notes on all three branches of government.

Finally, in conjunction with our study of the branches of government, students prepared for a mock trial using the Pro Se Court format. Each student is preparing for their role (judge, attorney for the city of Chicago, or attorney for Jesus Morales), and will participate in the court hearing next week. The case is based on a real Supreme Court ruling.

Finally, a big THANK YOU for all of the book donations. These books will become a part of our own house library, students can sign them out throughout the school year. We will do a book review of all the new additions after the Thanksgiving break. We have had over 75 books signed out since the beginning of the school year.

The Week in Ms. O’s Room (⅚ Math & Science):

Math 5:Our goal this week is to build the idea of equivalent fractions into our understanding of operations with fractions.  We spent a few days viewing number lines and trying to relate, say a number line divided into fifths with one divided into tenths.  We even looked at sixths and eighths to begin to understand how this could be true.  Generalizations came about...the first is:  whenever lines match up on a number line in which the wholes are the same, then you have a pair of equivalent fractions.  The other generalization was related to multiplying by 1 or another name for one, like 2/2.  So a fraction like 4/6 and ⅔ can be proven equivalent which the lines on their respective number lines match up.  We can also prove equivalence by saying that ⅔ x 2/2 equals 4/6. Any number multiplied by 1 is itself. Continental math folks have been working really hard and took their first challenge this week. Thanks to Sandy Connolly for all she is doing to help students work through these interesting problems.

Math 6:  Our goal this week is to move from fractions and ratios to decimals and to see these representations as offering a deeper understanding of numbers that represent parts of wholes.  We had several interesting problems to work through and students worked hard on them.  The first was to go back to some basic skills like renaming improper and mixed numbers and then comparing them to each other.  We also look at groups of fractions to decide using generalizations which are greater.  The generalizations were:  comparing to ½ to see if the number is bigger or smaller than ½; viewing fractions whose denominators were different but numerators were the same; viewing and comparing fractions whose denominators are the same, but whose numerators are different; and viewing fractions which are one unit away from the whole.  Students were really challenging by this last one, but used what they know about unit fractions to work their way to the generalization.  We are moving to decimal representations next week and a last quiz on Investigations 1-3 in Comparing Bits.

Science ⅚:  

• creating and launching rockets the week before the holiday break.  Check it out and come see!
• photo or sketch journal of the moon’s phases.
• trout eggs are arriving in January!

Students are completing a word map to reinforce relationships amongst words in science.  The focus of the map is on Natural Selection.  Students have done a really nice job trying to figure out how traits and genes are related to each other and how Darwin and Natural Selection or Origin of Species are related.  Students worked in partner groups.  I will be giving a pie chart to students on Monday to ask them to reflect on the partnership and how balanced it was in terms of the work completed.  Please remind your child that they are responsible for their part, not the part their partner has chosen to do or not do!  Final assessment was today.  Students really persevered through a lot of vocab identification and essay type questions.  Good for them!

The Week in Ms. Wesnak’s Room (⅞ Humanities):

This week in Humanities has been loaded with debates, essay construction, and bringing our citizenship project to a close!

During our morning time together students started the week with our usual Independent Reading Mondays. Students were asked to analyze the title of their book and find evidence to support why the book was given its title, or find evidence to support a new title of their own making. As the week moved on spent two of our classes debating birthright citizenship. Both classes were able to hold strong and respectful debates. Students were really able to draw evidence from sources and use them to support their opinions. All students participated and at the end, despite their differences in opinion, shook hands and congratulated each other on a job well done! The rest of the week was spent working on our 5-paragraph argument essay. Students will be writing about youth immigration in the U.S. and have been provided a whole packet filled with information such as the essay outline, a writing checklist, and the rubric.

Our afternoons started off with current events on Monday, and we also started to prep for the Geography Bee. We are using the Daily Quiz on National Geographic’s “Study Corner” site to start our preparation. The rest of the week was dedicated to bringing our citizenship project to a close. Students worked really hard on this project, and had a great time seeing how adults did on their tests! I’m excited to see the graphs and final data to see what kind of conclusions we can come to. A HUGE THANK YOU to all parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, neighbors, siblings, friends, and staff who took our tests! Without you, students would not have found the success they did in this project!!

The Week from Ms. Q’s Room (⅞ Math & Science):

CMP8

We completed our “Growing, Growing, Growing” Unit with a review of scientific notation, exponent rules and practice problems using both growth/decay rates and factors.  Students have learned to create equations, tables and graphs that reflect these mathematical systems. Unit tests and will be returned sometime next week. On Friday, we began our new investigation called “Looking for Pythagoras”.  We began to look at the origin of squares and square roots by creating different size squares both horizontally/vertically oriented and tilted.

CMP7

The 7th graders completed their Accentuate the Negative Unit with practicing Order of Operation and the Distributive Property.  We played an exciting game of jeopardy and completed a class record of our new “rules” when utilizing positive and negative integers.  We began our new unit called “Stretching and Shrinking” which looks at similar figures.  We used some rubber band stretchers to see if we could create a larger similar image from smaller ones.

Science 7th/8th

This week our focus was on Newton’s Third Law; for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.  We built and tested straw rockets to see firsthand how air going in one direction could launch a rocket in the opposite direction.  Students reviewed their motion and forces vocabulary for a brief “pop quiz” and then worked to find the definition of gravity and its relation to mass. Members of the class presented cartoons, raps, songs, demonstrations, posters and poems to explain this elemental force.

Week of November 3rd - 7th

Announcements:

Our First Event is our Annual Family Night and Talent Show - December 10th, 6:30-8:30pm.

We'll begin our night in the cafeteria enjoying treats and drinks (Please see the link below to sign up to support our event).

A $10 donation per family is suggested and all who attend receive a raffle prize ticket.

We also have a new home site for FAP information. All of our event dates and information will be posted there as well.

Voyager FAP

____________________________________________________________

R E D     R I B B O N  WEEK

November 11th – November 13th 2014

Dear 5th-8th Grade Students and Families,

Red Ribbon Week is a national event designed to help kids make healthy choices.   The red

ribbon is a symbol of living substance free.   This year’s theme is “Love yourself-Be drug free.”

Here are four ways to get involved next week at WCS:

1. Red Ribbon Theme  Days:

Tuesday (Nov 11th) - SHADE OUT DRUGS – Wear Sunglasses or crazy

Wednesday (Nov 12th) – Stay in the Game -Wear our school colors, blue +

gold, or sports gear

Thursday (Nov 13th) –Red – Get Real – Wear red

• Everyone that dresses up will get a ribbon that day during lunch.  

• At the end of the three days, there will be prizes for anyone who has all three ribbons.

2. Fit Facts – Everyday, at lunch, there will be a “fit fact” question with raffled prizes from local

businesses.  Look on the school SAP web page to review facts at home for a better chance to

3. Contract for Life – Parents and kids, read this over, talk about your expectations to be

substance free and safe and sign it together! Have your child bring in the signed form with

their name and house clearly marked.  All contracts will be entered into a raffle for a prize from

a local business and will be returned to you after Red Ribbon Week.  Contract For Life

4. Young Writer’s Project – In partnership with CY, Connecting Youth, Young Writers Project is

offering a special writing prompt that can be completed at home or in school.  The prompt is

“How do you manage peer influence?” and the deadline for submission is Nov 17th.  Selected

entries will win cash awards and prizes.  For more information click on this link

www.youngwritersproject.org.

Thanks so much for your participation in Red Ribbon Week and for your help in getting the word out

–You are too S.M.A.R.T. to start!

Signed,    

WCS Vermont Kids Against Tobacco (VKAT)

Ms. Sherman:

Just a reminder that organizational club will be running for only a few more weeks. Then the next session will start up in December for “tough reading 101.” This will be for all types of readers. The focus will be on difficult text and how to read them when they feel really hard. Send questions my way to: csherman@cssu.org

The Week in Mr. Merrill’s Room (⅚ Humanities):

We kicked the week off with Reading Cafe and current events. Students completed a picture activity and read an article about Malala, the Nobel Peace Prize winner. On Tuesday, students participated in a mock public hearing, as a part of our study of the legislative branch. The hearing was on a bill that would prevent smoking in public places. Students played the Representative and her staff, or were members of a group (from clean air to the tobacco growers) that had to voice their opinions and concerns about the bill. On Wednesday afternoon we went to see the Swift house performance of Romeo and Juliet. In preparation of the performance, we had a read aloud of a Romeo and Juliet picture book.

On Thursday morning we studied voting. We watched a short BrainPop video on the subject and discussed a Burlington Free Article on Vermont’s low voter turnout. We then had a debate - “Should voting be required by law?” Students searched for reasons and facts to support their position and wrote a short opinion paper.

To end the week, we learned how to take Cornell Notes. This format is widely used and is an effective way to organize information. I modeled how to set up the notes in their Humanities notebook, and students learned how to use clues in the text to identify main ideas and find supporting details. We took notes on the legislative branch and will also take notes on the executive and judicial branches in preparation for an upcoming test. We also had a chance to play some fun icivics games on the 3 Branches of Government. Students had to use all three branches to make 10 laws.

Book Fair - ⅚ grade students will visit the Book Fair on Tuesday at 9:30.

The Week in Ms. O’s Room (⅚ Math & Science):

Math 5- This week students worked on building a deeper sense of understanding of fractions.  We spent many days using models to justify our thinking about addition and subtraction problems and also focusing on listening to understand.  When a student is able to revoice what they heard their partner say, they are really considering the value of their ideas and how they are the same and different as their own.  We had an assessment today on addition and subtraction of fractions based on the clock face and on the dollar bill.  Hopefully things will look good.  All signs point to proficiency, as we had a busy week of pulling small groups to address misconceptions and gaps in understanding.

Math 6 - Students are developing deeper understanding of ratios by learning about unit rates.  Unit rates are ratios in which one of the two numbers being compared is a 1.  We had a great visual of this ratio, one that we are all familiar with - 2 tomatoes for $3.00.  We talked about the possible unit rates for this ratio.  1 tomato for $1.50 is a unit rate because one of the two numbers being related is a 1.  How about the other ratio?  Well, sometimes it’s not so neat and clean.  ⅔ of a tomato for $1.00!  We talked about that fact that some unit rates work better than others!  Students completed a quick quiz today to assess learning in the unit thus far.

Science ⅚ - Students played a Predator Prey game Monday facilitated by Will Moody, an 8th grader, who was part of a team of writers working on modeling ecosystems at the ⅞ level.  The game demonstrated overpopulation of the wolf population as well as what happens when populations become scarce.  It was a Sharks and Minnows type game and the students had fun running around outside.  We also introduced the topic of Natural Selection and model/simulated this for several days to understand how biological adaptations might influence the size and existence of populations.  Students are responsible for building an Interactive Word Map to show that they understand vocabulary terms introduced during long block and an ability to associate those words to each other.  Interactive word maps are used to remember important vocabulary by relating it.  “Words need to be taught in relation to other words. Words representing concepts are not taught in a vacuum, but rather in contexts that illustrate how they are associated with other words and ideas.”    (Content-Area Vocabulary: A Critical Key to Conceptual Learning by Janis M. Harmon and Karen D. Wood).  This is the hope from this exercise.  It will be done by Tuesday, a review for final assessment will take place Wednesday and then students will complete the final assessment during long block Thursday and Friday.

The Week in Ms. Wesnak’s Room (⅞ Humanities):

This week in Humanities started like any other with our Independent Reading Mondays and CNN Student News. On Tuesday our 7/8 learning community took a fantastic trip to Montpelier for the “Under the Golden Dome” tour. All students were able to take a guided tour of our State House, participate in a mock trial in the Vermont Supreme Court, and view some great exhibits in the Vermont History Museum. Throughout the day I had students giving me really positive feedback on the experience, and that it was way more fun than they had thought! Students were able to make great connections to our curriculum, sit in the actual seats of our state justices, and ask really great questions that even stumped our tour guides. On Wednesday we returned to our normal learning schedule!  

Our morning time together was filled with reading, leaving tracks in our text, and prepping for our debate on Tuesday. We’ve been continuing to focus on our big question, “What does it mean to be an American Citizen?” and next week we will be starting our big 5 paragraph argument essay. To prepare for our argument essay around youth immigration, students have been gathering a lot of research and knowledge through our class time together. Students have been reading articles in Jr. Scholastic Magazine and New York Times Upfront Magazine to prepare. We have had independent reading time with the articles, class read alouds, discussions, and pushing the “Why?”. Their knowledge is being put to the test first in a debate, taking place on Tuesday, around birthright citizenship in the U.S. Students have been working really hard to prepare for their debate, finding strong evidence, using persuasive speech, and working as a team.

Our afternoon time together has been packed with work time for our citizenship project. Students are having a lot of fun with this project already, so I cannot wait to see their data and reflections! By the end of the week all groups had created their citizenship tests and were very excited to start handing them out to adults!

Book Fair 7/8: 7th and 8th graders will be attending the FAP Book Fair on Thursday, November 13.

The Break-Away Project - Global Connections with New Zealand: This week some of our students took part in our 3rd Skype with Blockhouse Bay Intermediate School. During our Skype time together we’ve been talking about culture, cultural differences, current events, and national identity. In this week’s Skype we talked about how the new Prime Minister of New Zealand wants to create a new flag to represent New Zealand. We challenged students from Blockhouse Bay and WCS to create flags to represent each other’s country. WCS students created a new flag for New Zealand, and Blockhouse Bay created for the U.S. This was a very fun challenge and a very funny exchange. Students also talked about the ever-changing weather, pop culture, and upcoming school events. Our Voyager students had a great time and engaged in wonderful conversation. Our next Skype will be: Monday, November 10th.

The Week from Ms. Q’s Room (⅞ Math & Science):

CMP8

What happens when your decay exponential model is not aperfect”?  We explored how to find the trend of a decay curve and to find the decay factor and rate.  We reviewed the rules governing exponents and enjoyed a pretty “cheesy” video to review the rules.  We are finishing up this unit with fractional exponents and next week will bring the Growing, Growing, Growing Unit Test.  Students should definitely review growth factor/rate and decay factor/rate in relation to tables and equations.

CMP7

This week we broadened our math operations to include the Distributive property.  Students explored the factored and expanded form of expressions.  We also investigated more complex equations using Order of Operations.  We were a little flummoxed by the differences between the following exponents, (-2)2 and – 22.  The parentheses make all the difference.  We are finishing up Accentuate the Negative and will have a Unit Assessment next week.  Students need to practice their rules of adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing positive and negative numbers.

Science 7th/8th

This week we put on the finishing touches on our mousetrap engineering lab reports and began an investigation into Newton’s 2nd Law of Motion.  We experimented by changing the mass of a moving car to see how its’ force moves a stationary car.  This simulation is similar to waiting at a stoplight and someone plows into you from behind.  We used similar toy cars and attached pennies to the exterior of the moving car before we sent it rolling down an elevated track.  Students began to see the relationship that mass has in the force of an object. We conjectured whether the relationship between mass and the distance the stationary car travelled was linear or nonlinear