The End is Near!
On Monday, Biology students will have their last science quiz, covering Chapters 23 and 24. This covers the Nervous System, Endocrine System, and Health (metabolism, nutrition, disease, and drugs). The quiz will be a 40-word crossword puzzle on vocabulary and basic terms from these chapters, including anatomy and related terms. There will also be one essay question. Students are welcome to use ALL class notes and worksheets for this quiz, as well as flashcards if they prefer. I will be bringing in cards that they turned into me. The quiz is worth 45 points, although there will be two extra credit essay options worth up to ten bonus points. Students should still study our Powerpoint slides, though, their class worksheets, and their chapter homework. As in the past, I take almost all quiz questions from that material since that is where their time is mostly going :) On Wednesday, Mrs. Stanford has graciously offered to give us her time to discuss nutrition and health with students!! On the last day of class, students will receive their quizzes back in addition to all assignments they have handed into me. There will be one more extra credit opportunity offered--a class activity that is optional. I am aware that some students will not be here on May 14, and that is absolutely fine :) I will also be collecting any late work and extra credit assignments (Chapter 25 SRQs). All final work is due on this day. I will not be accepting emailed files of late homework without a parent-teacher conference. Final Grades: I am aiming to have grades finished the week after school, Monday May 20. I cannot guarantee grades by the last day of class because I still have lab manuals, late homework, and extra credit assignments to tabulate. However, if your student is concerned about their grade, I do have them calculated up to this point and you/they may request it. This final grade is actually their semester grade, for Winter/Spring 2018. When I email parents next week, I will also include their final, 4-quarter average grade so you can use that for your high school records.
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For those desiring to retake part of the Biology exam, the instructions are as follows:
1. Please type up your answers to questions 34-71. Single space is fine, most are one-word. You do not have to retype the questions. Most of the answers you need are on the Powerpoint slides posted on the class website; disorders and anatomy/structures are all covered there. 2. Please type up your answers in short paragraph form to essay questions 72-76. You may use slides or the text to help you, but summarize rather than plagiarize (copy). Answers should be at least three sentences long and "explain" where asked. Single spacing is fine. For #72, remember the cardiac cycle can be listed in steps or a sequence that includes the correct order of the parts of the heart and lungs--it does not have to be broken down into exactly eight steps. 3. Please print out your new set of answers and hand them into me during class this Wednesday, (4-25) with your original test. I will regrade your test based on your new responses to questions 34-76, and hand it back with your new grade next Monday, April 30. This past week, we had Dr. Nordberg and Dr. Darrow come to teach our students about CPR and life-saving behaviors. They did such a great job, and I am so thankful that they gave their time!
Homework for this weekend is to study for the open note/flashcard Test on Monday. Even though it is open notes, students should definitely study by looking over the slides and materials we have completed in class over the last three weeks. It is very important that they feel comfortable with all the material. The exam will cover Chapters 20, 21, and 22: skin, hair, bones, muscles, circulation, respiration, digestion, excretion, and immunity/lymphatic system. Students can use any flashcards they made, as well as any (handwritten) notes they took on the Powerpoint slides. (These note-taking worksheets are attached at the bottom of the Documents page, if they lost their copies.) If you are open to it, YouTube also has a good many video clips on the human body and the major functions of these systems. Upcoming Work will include Chapters 23 and 24, which are the last official homework assignments for the year!! Chapter 25 is on human reproduction, and will be extra credit if turned in before the last day of class (no worksheet, just the questions right out of the book, like old days :) There will not be a full exam on those chapters, just an open book vocabulary quiz. Additionally, Mrs. Stanford has graciously volunteered to come in and discuss nutrition with our class! Quick Update!
Quick Update:
Quick Update:
CLASS: We have been doing slides all this week, on Vertebrates. I will post them online so students can review them... they probably should since there was so much information in them. I chose to teach chapters 17 and 18 back to back, so we could work right through the rest of the Animal Kingdom. Students have been taking notes on each major animal phylum and putting them in a chart for comparison. They also have a worksheet where they can take longer notes on vocabulary and key ideas. The material is going very quickly, but I really wanted to finish this up before Spring Break... and NOT test the kids after vacation about material they learned three weeks prior. TEST: The test will be on Wednesday, on Chapter 17-18. I was going to make it open book, but some have expressed concern that the book has too much information that students can't map to what we are emphasizing in class. So I decided to make the test tailored to the slides and chapter homework, and have students take notes in class on those slides. They can use these for the test as well as any notecards they may have made. They are also allowed to put other notes on their class notes. If they want to handwrite some more information on either of the worksheets we've been using in class, that is fine. They will attach these notes to their test when it is done. I would recommend adding some on the major bodily systems (digestive, nervous, circulatory, etc) if they feel unsure about these. GRADES: Midterm grades are coming out soon. Most students are doing fine, and most did really well on the last test, which was encouraging!! Many are also doing well with in-class activities, which I have been grading each week for participation points. But some have not done well on the lab pages. Many did not finish the crayfish lab, in particular, which was worth 50 points... so that may be a factor. A handful have had trouble turning in the vocabulary part of the homework assignments as well, which ultimately also accounts for a lot of points. (Because vocabulary terms are such a huge part of biology). You are of course welcome to contact me further about details once I get those sent out. I tried hard to disregard assignments lost due to student sickness, but some students may have a few assignments or tests they still need to make up. Quick Update:
Monday's class was great. We started Chapter 15 on Invertebrates.
I spent some time updating this website, mostly the calendar, so you would all know what was going on in February. I also updated the Excel calendar at the bottom of that page. I was sick for a week, as were many other students, so some quizzes and assignments were shuffled around. I apologize for any confusion! The updates for this week are:
We moved rooms this week, upstairs to #201, which was an interesting change! On Monday, we finished up our unit on Plants by taking a Quiz. We started our next unit, on Invertebrates, by doing a quick worksheet on the different Invertebrate phyla. We continued the introduction to Invertebrates today by going through approximately twenty slides on PowerPoint on Sponges and Jellyfish--the first two animal phyla in the students' textbook. We then worked on a lab that looked at specimens of these two phyla under the microscope. Most students finished this in class, but they are welcome to take the lab home to finish if they did not, for 20 points. They will need to know each animal phylum that we study over the next few chapters, and the main vocabulary and features specified in the labs and slides--NOT so much the textbook which goes into too much detail in various places. Chapter 15 homework will be due on Monday, Feb 5. Please don't forget the vocabulary work! It either needs to be written/typed, or put on cards to turn in during class. The quick update from our last class is:
We worked on two labs this past week, on plants. The first was on leaves, roots, and stems--students had to observe several slides and draw pictures of them, as well as answer some questions that required the textbook. They also made one slide to observe a leaf epidermis. The second lab was on flowers, which we dissected together. These pages will be checked during quiz time on Monday, so have them bring their lab manuals to class. They are worth 25 points, covering the majority of questions (but not all) between pp112 -125. Extra credit points will be given for high quality work (i.e. color drawings, neatness, clear explanations). The quiz will consist of multiple choice, vocabulary matching, and 1 short answer for each chapter. There are also four extra credit questions included. It will cover chapters 13 and 14 which are both on plants. Students should study their homework questions and the Powerpoint slides for the material that will be tested--not the text. They can make additional flashcards to help them, in addition to whatever cards they have already turned into me (which I will have ready on Monday). Cards must be handwritten, not typed/pasted. Diagrams and other visuals on there are fine. The test will need to be completed in 45 minutes. We will have an in-class worksheet to open Chapter 15 material for the remaining 20 minutes. If they want to get ahead, they can do chapter 15 on Invertebrates, but I did not formally assign it as homework. We will begin studying invertebrates when their test is over, and their chapter 15 will be due on Feb 5. |
AuthorMrs. Riddle teaches Life Science, Biology, and Earth Science at Brighton Academy for 2017-2018. She homeschools four children and has 10 years of co-op teaching experience. Her family is part of Radiant Church in Overland Park, KS. Archives
May 2018
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