Monday September 14th, 2015

Today's Quote: 

Recap:

We spent most of last week in the comuter lab and learned how to use a valuable tool in Excel spreadsheet that also offers a quick and easy way to create professional looking graphs of scientific data. It is possible to add additional data sets as needed but is beyond the scope of this course. Student chose a data set from Planet Earth and worked with a partner to create their 4 week project graph. 

Students learned how to save their data to their Marion County drive and were to email me the graph from their workstation. If students didn't get finished they could email it from home. NOTE: Several students contacted me through the weekend and said they could not access their graphs from home. I will work individually with them to make certain their file path is correct on Monday. Additionally, When you click on a graph from another computer and want to work on it in Excel, Marion County has t set so that you MUST download your graph first. This effectively changes the file path for Excel and you have to point it to the new graph location (now on your home computer). Do the following from your home computer:

1. Open MS Excel. (A blank spreadsheet appears)
2. Go to the file tab and click once.
3. When the green banner appears on the left, click the browse button.
4. point excel toward where ever the file downloaded. (Usually the downloads or documents folders.)
5. click the file and it will open. 
6. REMEMBER! You are now modifying the graph on YOUR home computer and you will have to e- mail the new graph back to your school address.

This graph was the 4 week project on the calendar and was a major grade. It was due Friday and the vast majority emailed me with it. If you contacted me through the weekend, you can still turn it in for full credit Monday. If you did not email me you can still turn it in, but it will be one day late (one letter grade lower than what is earned.  

Criteria: 

• Does your graph show both data table and graph- 50pts
• Does your graph show a title that s descriptive and shows the relationship between the dependent and independent variables- 10 pts
• Do you have axes titles- 10pts
• Do you have a trend line- 10pts
• Do you have grid lines- 10pts
• Do you have a legend- 10pts.

Students used the remaining time in lab to begin scientific research for their science fair ideas.

Agenda:

Essential Question: What type of information is relevant to my science fair topic and what do I need to know to make an awesome project?

Students will have all period to gather research from the Gale database and other sources for their science fair project. We have the computer lab all week and they will have today and Wednesday to do research and take notes.. (I recommended opening a word document and saving it to your drive and copy/paste information to that to save. I cannot print things out for you.) Don't forget you will need the source information and I recommend you visit Easybib.com to cite your sources. Watch this tutorial, Using EasyBib to Cite Sources .

Debrief:

The Simpsons. I have finished grading The Simpsons and any student scoring less than a 70% MUST bring me their homework sheet signed by a parent TOMORROW. All students can take The Simpsons home and correct all their mistakes for a grade increase of 10 points and turn the corrections in to me tomorrow. I highly recommend you do this. 

Grading Breakdown- We worked through Smithers experiment together.

1. Calculate the % difference between Smither's test groups. I even gave you this tutorial to use. calculating percent difference. +10 pts
2. Each question was worth 5.71 pts. You were not to answer in one or two word answers
3. Lisa's experiment was worth 10 pts.

4 week Grades:

The following grades will be in the grade book at the end of today.

1. COW turned in?
2. Binder Check and organized
3. The Simpsons
4. Science Fair Topic approved.
5. 4 week Project- Graphing in Excel.

Quiz! (posted September 4th, 2015)

ANY of the following items might be on an upcoming quiz or test!

Class rules or expectations (From syllabus)
School rules, code of conduct, big three (from Planner)
Binder basics (from ALL classes)
The Scientific Method (from the two videos in the blog)
Science Fair information and using the GALE database (From Mrs. Browns class)'
Identifying the parts of an experiment (From the Simpsons)
Crime Scene analysis (From CSI Rookie Training CASE ONE)