vargas island, summer, 2010

Sunday, April 29, 2012

Geology stations, examine rocks, review worksheets

We will be rotating through three stations next period:  Each station will be 17 minutes.

station 1 first row:  examine rock samples, observe the properties and conclude how they relate to our geology unit.

station 2 second row:  complete a worksheet on continental drift and plate tectonics. put your answers on a seperate sheet.  hand in your answers and keep the worksheet for study purposes.

station 3 teacher's bench:  Mini lesson on convergent plate boundaries:  Learn about convergent boundaries and make sure your previous worksheet notes are complete.

those who are retaking quizzes will do so in the fourth row

HW:  note the EARTHQUAKE group assignment due on this coming thursday to coincide with the district wide earthquake drill.  Up to 4 people may work on one assignment.  Each person can take care of one page.

look through this DYNAMIC EARTH website, which summarizes many of our concepts so far.

Thursday, April 26, 2012

Earthquake assignment


photograph from the Globe and Mail article:

TSUNAMI

Picking up the pieces after Japan's tsunami, giving ‘garbage’ new meaning

In addition to our quiz in the post below, you also have a group assignment.  This is a research assignment on earthquake preparedness. Download it here:
EARTHQUAKE!!!
Due on May 3, the day of the "big one", a government mandated earthquake drill that every public school must do once a year: an annual reminder that the big one is an expected event on our BC coast.

BC Earthquake Preparedness website
BC Tsunami Preparedness website

Quiz next block: note correction

first, a correction of typo:  the core of the earth.  I mentioned magnesium in the outer core.  this is an error. there is no magnesium

According to many sources, the core has sulfur and iron and nickel.
      outer core is liquid iron and nickel
      inner core is solid iron (and nickel too but this is not noted in provincial exams...)

Here's a geophysics site with more details.

Quiz next period on:

parts of the earth:  name the layers and write a short description of their properties
types of plate boundaries:  divergence, convergence, transform
hotspot movement

We will examine rocks next period too.

Thursday, April 12, 2012

test next period on April 17th, updated!!

The test is a unit test for our biology chapters 1,2, and 3. This test has very few surprises... one goal of this exam is to help you familiarize yourself with the language and images for our high stakes provincial exam.

There will be 50 multiple choice questions 


Study the following sources: The first two sources will prep you for the final.
Some questions will be either directly from here or reworded from these questions, with edits:
Ministry website for provincial exams  find all the sample exams, biology portion only:  20 MC questions


BC provincial exam study guide for biology unit  look at the sample multiple choice questions. 10 MC questions  based on the MC and  fill in the blank questions in this guide.  there is an answer key at the end of the guide.

Next sources ensure you have reviewed and studied your notes:
Some questions will be from our class notes:  10 MC questions

biome notes 1
biome notes 2 pyramids.
Nutrient Cycles
This class diagram

Add to this:
5 MC questions from our
The evolution worksheet we went over last day.

5 MC questions regarding our class work in the kerrisdale ravine, and PW garden and our Carbon dioxide lab.

bonus marks to make a song about our biology unit. perform it to the class the day after the test.
example of a song by ex-trek students: amount of bonus marks based on the cleverness and catchiness of the song.

DNA replication song
this one by P Carwana's sister: Not so complicated

and this one by a human biology professor from Stanford (Tom McFadden, he's the lead singer): a song about the stress response: (human biology topic, biology 12). You inherited your stress response from fleeing predators on the savanna:  but the response may be stimulated by mental stress...such as studying for exams.
The Lion the Watch and the Hormones

and if you want to re-watch the dancing spider video, google the words "jumping spider" and "Wayne Maddison".  Dr. Wayne Maddison is the director of the Beaty Biodiversity Museum and his research subject is the jumping spider.

I'll be checking school email frequently this weekend so please email any questions to clear up stuff

good luck
SC

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

chapter 3 and homework for Thursday

finish 3.2 and 3.3 questions.
Look at the Ministry website for provincial exams. Click on Sample Exams

Assignment:

On a page, collect 4 challenging questions that relate to our biology unit so far.  Identify which topic it covers and explain why this is challenging (in a sentence).
topics are:  chapter 2: biomes, climatographs, ecosystems, food pyramids, food webs, food chain, nutrient cycle, and chapter 3:  ecological change due to succession, evolution, disaster, human impacts.