Friday, November 21, 2014

SLCSE Food Drive

      Attention, all sixth graders. We are hosting a food drive from Nov.5 to Nov.25 available to the whole school. This is an important project to do before these winter months. 1 in 6 Utahns, and 1 in 5 Utah children are unsure where their next meal will come from. Our goal is to collect 5,000 pieces of food as a school. Please help by donating canned and boxed foods that have not expired. All of the school's collected food will be donated to The Salt Lake Community Action Pantry. The sixth grade strategy is to run our own food drives. Ask your neighbors, friends and family to help our cause. Also the grade that collects the most food wins an ice cream float party! Help fight local hunger and donate! Let's make sure we beat the ninth graders and win the float party. Spread the good!!!

        We are also asking for warm winter clothing. Please donate your old hats, gloves and coats. Please bring in these along with your donated food. Thank you!!!

        *Please remember that 3 Top Ramen or Cup of Noodles equals one can or boxed item

Monday, October 20, 2014

Solar Oven S'mores

     
Finally, our first engineering challenge in Ms.Powell's class. Our goal was to cook s'mores with solar power. Ms. Powell explained that we would have 100 credits to spend on materials to build our solar oven. Some of the materials that were available to the class included tinfoil,  both small and large pizza boxes and even bubble wrap! The class was very excited to start building our ovens with a partner, but first we would need some more background knowledge about  heat energy.  


     As a class we viewed a PowerPoint presentation about energy. We learned that energy is the ability to do work. Not all energy can be used again, in fact there are two types of energy; renewable energy and non-renewable energy. Renewable energy is a source of power that will always be usable or reusable, some sources of renewable energy include nuclear power plants, wind turbines and the sun. Non-renewable energy is the opposite, you can never use this type of energy again, fossil fuels and coal are both non-renewable sources of energy. Solar energy from the sun was an important focal point of the presentation. We would never know if the sun would run out of energy because we would die if that happened. Once everyone in the class felt like experts on heat energy, it was time  to build our solar ovens.



     Now that we were ready, Ms.Powell let us plan our design for our solar ovens with our partners. Once we both felt like we had a strong plan we started building. Many groups had to improvise and change the plan along the way. Once everybody in the class was done with their solar oven, Ms.Powell led the class outside to the parking lot to test the solar ovens. Each kid received a graham cracker, a piece of chocolate and a marshmallow. Using LabQuests and temperature probes, we recorded how hot the ovens were every 5 minutes. Some group's ovens reached up to almost 40 degrees Celsius. Most kids s'mores didn't change much, except for the occasional melted chocolate. Most of our class wanted to make a new oven and try again.

      Luckily the next day, we were granted the chance to modify and improve our solar ovens. Each team was given 100 new credits to spend; we were not allowed to reuse leftover credits, but we could use our old oven. some partners entirely rebuilt theirs while others only built on to their old oven. It was time to retest our ovens, we used the exact same procedure to measure the temperature. This time mostly everyone chocolate melted making the s'mores even more delicious. Some groups almost had temperatures at 50 degrees Celsius. Our first engineering challenge was a blast and the class still had to do data analysis. The whole class are now experts on heat energy and have had solar oven s'mores.

Sunday, December 9, 2012

Albus and Manerva

Albus and Manerva were amazing toads.  They were small fire-belly toads that had beautiful red bellies.  They loved to be held and to jump away if you were not careful.  Their cage was accidentally left open so they hopped away, no longer to be seen.  We now have new fire-belly toads.  They look just like our late friends, but these ones have bellies that are more orange.  We need names for them. Our class randomly chose sticks that have names of sudents on them and we now can properly introduce our newest friends: Andrew and Diego. Andrew is the bigger toad with less spots on it's back, while Diego is the smaller one with more dots.  They could never truely replace Albus and Manerva, but they will find a place in our hearts to call home.

Wednesday, November 7, 2012

Service Learning

Thanks to the students in Mrs. Powell's 2012-2013 class, we are able to start our first service learning project of the year; a food drive.  They need our help.  1 in 4 kids don't know when their next meal will be.  Parents sacrifice their meals to feed their children.  Toddlers die under the age of five from malnutrition.  Please help the needy and donate to your fourth period class.  It lasts from November 1st to November 20th.  The winning class gets a pop-float party.

Friday, January 20, 2012

Tribute to Midnight

Our furry friend, Midnight the gerbil, had to be put to sleep due to wounds that could not heal. Midnight lived longer than most gerbils; not only did she live with Ms. Powell for 3 years, but for 2 years before that with another owner. A good pal, our gerbil welcomed the new, white gerbil, Uh-Oh into the cage. They were fast friends and could be seen curled up together like a yin-yang sign. Even in her last year, she loved running on the wheel, playing with anyone who could mange to keep her in their hands and CHEWING, CHEWING CHEWING!! Midnight chewed through everything from her wheel, to cardboard, even the cage, causing everyone, especially the zoologists grief. Although Midnight's love to get her teeth into anything occasionally made her play time shorter, you couldn't help but love the furry black ball that was constantly squirming. Only when you brought her near Uh-Oh would she be calmed. Now, Midnight rests right outside the classroom near to the home she shared with her best friend, the white gerbil. Her memory will be cherished and although we miss her desperately, we are glad she doesn't have to suffer. Good-bye, Midnight.


Midnight doing one of her favorite things: playing

Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Microbe Movie Stars

Check out these Youtube links to see brave song stars from room 22!  Their song stylings teach about the amazing world of microbes as well as some great disease prevention techniques.

Jacob Microbe Song 





Jacob and AJ Sock Puppet Show 

Jose and David Microbe Rap 1

Katie Microbe Song

Grant Microbe Song

Jacob Microbe Song 2

Jose and David Microbe Rap 2

Grace Microbe Song 2

Gabriel Microbe Song

Kamaria Microbe Song  

Aubriana, Laycee and Brequelle Disease Skit