step into my classroom: life science at ECA, quarter three

Third quarter with my seventh graders has brought a slew of fun, exciting activities relating to the human body. Typically I teach this unit through group projects, but my smaller-than-average class size meant I had to change things up a bit... so everything I did this year, I did for the very first time! Thankfully I had Pinterest and TeachersPayTeachers to inspire me and provide lots of resources along the way.

We went through the major body systems, identified and examined the organs, and investigated how they are all interrelated to keep us alive. I taught a lot of the major content and vocabulary through lecture and discussion, and then we explored various aspects of the human body through experiments, games, and YouTube videos that left a few of them feeling rather queasy! Eyeball dissection, anyone??

We started with the skeletal and muscular system to give us a framework for the rest of the body. The students voted on a name for our life-size "mascot" and each time we studied a new system, Steve earned a few new body parts. In the beginning we labeled each part, then removed the labels as we memorized all the names.

Skeleton Steve was a work in progress!

While studying the digestive system, we simulated the digestion process through a relay race that was adapted from an activity I'd found on Pinterest. The students thought it was both hilarious and disgusting at the same time...




To wrap it up the digestive system, we enjoyed brownies that tasted much better than they looked! ;)

Only the best for my students!

When it came time to learn about circulation, I really wanted them to see visually how the blood vessels were the transport system for substances within the body. I found this free game and they played in teams of two. The object of the game was to be the first team to move all the oxygen from the lungs to the body cells, the carbon dioxide from the body cells to the lungs, the sugar and proteins from the intestines to the body cells, and the waste from the body cells to the kidneys.

The circulation game!

It wasn't nearly as boring as their body language would suggest!

We also had a lot of fun learning about the brain, the nervous system, and our sense organs. We watched clips from the show Brain Games, made "thinking caps" (pattern here) to learn the areas of the brain, and conducted experiments related to taste, smell, sound, and light.

Middle school means wearing these awesome hats!

Wearing thinking caps while watching a BrainPop video on the brain - brainception!

Mapping the tongue and looking for a connection between taste and smell

Observing and describing the effect of light on the pupil (she had to look deep into my eyes!)

We also got our hands dirty with some actual specimens, as a student went to the butcher and acquired some "leftover"pig parts. It was pretty neat for them to see with their own eyes the actual body parts they'd been studying - the lungs, liver, and heart for example. They also got to see and feel the difference in texture, structure, etc. of the trachea compared to the esophagus and they got quite a nasty surprise when, after squeezing the esophagus, some undigested food oozed out!

Warning: my science class is not for the faint of heart!

To wrap up the unit and give the students an opportunity to extend their learning, we created cereal boxes "advertising" a particular body system. I wish I could take credit for this project but the original idea came from TPT - I just modified it a bit to meet my needs.

For the front, they had to come up with a creative cereal name and then draw and label their system.

On the back they had to describe a common disease or illness that affects their system. They did research on causes, symptoms, treatments, and prevention of the condition and then had to summarize the information into a quality paragraph. Language arts connection!

For the other panels, they recreated typical cereal box features such as the ingredients list (naming the organs and their functions) and fun facts about their system - more independent research for them.

Overall, I was quite proud of their final product, and am excited to give them a chance to present their work to the rest of the school in our upcoming school-wide science gallery in April!

It's hard to believe we are now in fourth quarter! Our final areas of study will include zoology and ecology - characteristics of the animal kingdom and the relationships between all living and non-living things.

Thank you for your continued support and prayers over this last quarter!

Solar Eclipse in Spain

The last time I witnessed a solar eclipse was roughly twenty years ago. I was in the fourth grade and we stood outside on the kickball diamond with little pinhole viewers made from index cards that we used to watch the Sun hide behind the passing Moon. At the time, I didn't realize what a big deal such an event was, but it was magical nonetheless.

When I started teaching it became my goal to share such magical events with  my own students. As a science teacher living in the age of discovery and invention, there are so many hands-on, real life things to share with the students relating to our studies. One thing that I had yet to share, though, was a celestial event. Sure, we'd gone stargazing and looked at the moon phases and even watched podcasts from the International Space Station. But we'd never gotten to share a once-in-a-lifetime event like a solar eclipse!

Until today.

Yesterday I and another science teacher worked together to build a pinhole viewer using a very handy YouTube tutorial.

This morning I awoke to cloudy skies. Disappointed, I prayed that the skies would clear in time for the point of maximum eclipse, which was schedule for around 10:08 am here in Madrid. Just before heading to chapel I checked once more, only to see more clouds. I watched part of the live stream while listening to our speaker, until I lost the signal about five minutes later.

At 10:00, after a brief tutorial on the mechanics of a solar eclipse with my seventh graders (earth science is an eighth grade topic), we marched downstairs armed with my giant pinhole viewer and I breathed a desperate prayer for a break in the clouds.

Thick stratus clouds coated the entire sky, but they were thin enough that the outline of the Sun shone through and the eclipse was vaguely visible. Together we attempted to set up the pinhole viewer but the clouds were thick enough to block most of the sun's rays. Try as we may, we were unsuccessful in getting a clear image on our viewer.

To say we were slightly disappointed would be an understatement. It will be around ten years before this region sees another partial solar eclipse of this kind!

And ... everyone knows it didn't happen unless you take a selfie...