Today we connected our ideas about severity of damage caused by natural hazards to our Unit Challenge. Students researched natural hazards that are common in their assigned states and gathered data on what is the most costly issue facing people in that state. They will eventually use this to create a final project for the unit where they come up with ideas to use science and engineering to help prepare and protect people from that hazard. This research is an important step in that process!
Students needed access to Google Classroom in order to complete the assigned questions. Only some group members logged in because they were working using one computer per group. If a student needs access to the materials, they will have to join Google Classroom using the code that matches their class period. The codes are below.
Website: classroom.google.com Click + to join class and enter code:
Monday: Assignment #48: All classes analyzed a data table and wrote a CER that makes a claim to predict future hurricane hazards.
Claim: The states likely to experience the most damage from a hurricane in the future are ______, _____, and _______.
Evidence: The evidence that supports my claim from the data table:
Reasoning: (Why this evidence supports my claim):
Tuesday-Friday: Assignment #49 Soft Skills Survey and Assignment #50 Florida CCR were given to each class on different days due to interruptions from WIDA testing and the 8th grade orchestra concert. By the end of the day Friday, all classes ended at the same spot.
Assignment #50: Students read the article “How Florida Cities Survive Floods” (Must be logged in to Dearborn Schools e-mail to view). For Close and Critical Reading Box 1 Summary, students wrote a paragraph in the form of an “acrostic.” In an acrostic, the first letter of each line spells out a word.
For when it rains a Lot, we can build levees Or lift buildings up off Of the ground. Then, this helps keep Damage from happening to infrastructure. Such damage would otherwise cost a lot.
(Reads like a paragraph, but along the side notice how each line makes it spell “FLOODS”)
Students were assigned the word “ENGINEERING,” so their paragraph should spell engineering along the side like this: E N G I N E E R I N G
Each line needs to start with the letter on that line. If the student’s line does not fit, it can not go on to the next line unless that word starts with the next letter in line. They need to shorten the wording or make the new letter work with what they wrote. Lines can be as short as one word, or as long as they have space to keep writing. I encouraged students who wanted longer lines to turn their paper sideways.
Each class had the opportunity to participate in a competition. The “best” acrostic summaries voted on by other teachers have been posted in my classroom as they had to be submitted at the end of the hour to qualify. Students who did not participate in the contest could take theirs home for homework. 1st and 2nd hour have until Monday to finish, but 3rd-6th hours have had two class days to work so theirs were due at the end of the hour today.
We discussed this diagram in class as we came up with a student-created definition for our vocabulary word: storm surge.
Storm surge diagram shows how the pressure of the hurricane pushes down on the body of water. The water is displaced (moved out of the way) in what looks like a large bump of water. This bump of water is pushed forward by the moving hurricane out onto the land where homes, businesses, roads, and bridges can be damaged by the unusual amount of flood waters.
Today’s assignment was to add these five questions to #42 – Hazard Distribution Maps. The assignment was passed back but has not been graded yet. It will be graded with the questions from today and tomorrow added on.
1. Does this hazard occur in every state? 2. Is there a lot of variation in the number of events of this kind? 3. Which states have similar numbers? Are they near each other? 4. What state or region has most events? 5. What state or region has the least?
Questions 6 through 9 were added on 1-22-20
6. What do we have to assume about the conditions that caused the hazard to forecast a future hazard? 7. Think about all 5 natural hazards. Are they distributed evenly throughout the United States? Why or why not? 8. How might data from past hazard events be used to predict future hazard events? 9. If there are 80 earthquakes on average in Oregon per year, does that mean there WILL be 80 next year? Why or why not?
Hazard maps and questions 1-9 will all be due when students walk into class on Thursday, 1-23-20. Thank you 🙂
Good afternoon everyone! I hope you are all enjoying your half day off / the beginning of your long weekend!
As of right now (1:30pm) all Q2 grades have been put in and finalized. Check student connect!
Please do not send me e-mails this weekend asking to change your grade. All students and parents should be aware that reminders were discussed and posted in my classroom for the past few weeks about classroom due dates. All missing work was due Jan. 15 with the exception of a few assignments collected last week that I accepted until 11:30am today. ALL grades are FINALIZED now.
Students should be taking their binders home this weekend to “retire” old materials. All Bellwork from September – November can be removed, as well as assignments numbered 1-33. Set them to the side in case we need them for final exams! Binders should be organized as follows:
Plastic folder is empty.
Bellwork tab: Bellwork starting Dec. 2 – today is on 3 pages. The most current Bellwork page should be on top.
Current Work tab: New Table of Contents were given today starting with assignment #34. Assignments should be after the TOC in number order. Assignment numbers 37, 39, 40 and 41 are either ready to be passed back or currently being graded, so they will not be in current work this weekend.
Vocabulary tab: The following pages should be placed here: Systems and System Models Vocabulary, Constraints/Criteria Frayer Models, Unit 8.1 Frayer models (Lesson 2: Genes, Lesson 3: Distribution) and Unit 8.6 frayer models (May still be in pick-up bin waiting to be passed back.)
Resources tab: Unit 8.6 Summary Table should be here and any miscellaneous papers (group paperwork, syllabus, etc.)
Please restock student materials for Quarter 3: pencils, pens, colored pencils, lined paper, binders if they need to be replaced. Let’s start on the right foot!!! Thank you and have a wonderful long weekend 🙂
#40 Australia CCR So far we have: __ Circled confusing / unfamiliar words __ Selected our “Golden Line” __ Answered 6 questions to summarize the article for Box 1.
Students did not turn in this assignment because we will work on Boxes 2-4 next week.
#41 Mayor Letter
The mayor of your city is worried about identifying the parts of the city that might be affected by a future flood. He is looking for someone to help him assess the flooding hazard. Write a short letter describing to him how you will help him identify those areas. Your description should mention how patterns can help predict future natural hazards. You should also describe some of the possible benefits of the assessment you will conduct.
Wednesday we watched current news to observe natural hazards that are happening in the world right now.
We reviewed learning targets for Lesson 2.
We did Frayer Models for the 3 vocab words below:
Risk: The chance or probability that a danger or hazard will occur. Forecast: A scientific statement backed by evidence and scientific reasoning about the likelihood that an event will occur in the future. Natural hazard forecast: A scientific claim about the likelihood a natural hazard event occurring in a particular place.
Monday: We reviewed norms and procedures and did a pre-lab activity where we analyzed a model of an area and predicted the best place to build a home.
Tuesday: We did a lab where we added rain to our model area to see how it affects the land depending on how much rainfall there is. We witnessed a ton of flooding!
