Super start to the new school year!

Greetings Parents- Welcome to the TAISM 2014-2015  8th Grade Science Blog.  We have had a fantastic beginning to our school year which has made me feel really excited for the rest of the year.  Our focus in the first weeks of school has been on inquiry, lab safety, engineering design and beginning our astronomy content. 

My goal for this blog is to keep you more informed on the happenings in science class regarding upcoming projects, quizzes, and things you can do with your child at home.  Please enter your email address in the box to the right that says "follow by email" and then you'll get updates automatically sent to your email.    

Currently, we are in the beginning stages of our Team X project which will serve as an introduction to astronomy, scientific inquiry and the engineering design process.  This is a very hands-on project which we will complete next week with the landing of their payload.  I've modeled the project after the current NASA mission "Curiosity" and my experience witnessing this process when I visited the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California in 2006.  We've been focusing on how scientists and engineers test their ideas in order to be as sure as possible that they will work based on their predictions and EVIDENCE from design testing.  The project will give me great window into the students' creativity, science background, strengths and areas for growth.  (You can see the project overview on my website in the "Resources-Astronomy" section.)

Our astronomy unit will be split into two parts: Inside the Solar System and Our Place in the Universe (everything beyond our Solar System).  Astronomy is a rather long unit because it is integrated with many of the physics standards where appropriate.  I am looking forward to sharing many deep discussions and interesting lab experiences with your children.  

If any of you have experience in the field of astronomy and would be interested in being a guest speaker or think you might have an interesting field trip we could take I would really love to talk more about those possibilities.  

Here is a link to an album of photos from our first two engineering tasks.  In the first one, the students needed to create a pendulum that would swing to the beat of certain songs.  In the second, they needed to build a tower to balance a marshmallow on top.   8th Grade Inquiry 2014

Check back later this week for Team X photos.