Wednesday September 16th, 2015 (Half- Day)

Today's Quote:

Recap:

Parents: I am attempting to communicate with you through graded papers being sent home. Students were asked to get their homework signed if they scored less than a 70% on it. Many did not return their signed papers. Please ask your child each night if they had homework and check the blog frequently.

Students turned in their corrected Simpsons Experiment classwork for 10 extra points. If their score was a 70% or less it required a parent signature.

Several students had not been able to email their graph to me, so I had them pull them up on the computers and show me.

Students also took a quiz over the scientific method. Once that was done, they were free to continue using the computers for research on their science fair project. After this week, all research needs to be done at home.

Agenda: 

Today is a half day, so students will continue computer research and work toward refining their hypotheses.

Background Information:

We are beginning our unit on evaluating evidence. How do you know what to believe? Do you remember our discussion over the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus? The website appears real with plenty of videos, photographs, and testimonials presented to the reader as evidence. Check out a few of these:

Dihydrogen Monoxide Ban Will Save Lives

Evidence The Moon Landings Were Faked

Dog Island

It's hard to know what to believe anymore and this has become big business!  Pseudoscience  is a supposedly real science but it lacks the ability to provide irrefutable, concrete evidence. So how can we decide what is believable?

Homework: Watch the following video and come in prepared to discuss your ideas.

How Do We Decide What To Believe?

Complete this Introduction to the Human Brain BEFORE class on Thursday and Friday.