Neo Earth

Saturday, March 12, 2011

Class of Thursday, March 10th


Hello 8th Graders!


We started Thursday's class by checking our grades for comments and scribes, for those of us who have scribed. We had a comment due Friday for either the 7th or 8th grade blog. Also, we have to look up at the moon every night and write down what we see, then share these notes with Ms. D somehow.


We went down to the computer lab, and had to sit away from our partners or from people we debated against, because Ms. D sent us an email with questions about the debate. We had to answer these questions and email the answers back to her.


The questions were:


What is the basic debate about concerning the topic you researched? Please use some genetic and ethical reasoning when explaining this.


If you look from the ethical/moral side, what are the benefits and non-benefits of this debate for your team's side? What are the benefits and non-benefits of the other team's side? (pro vs. con)


If you look from a scientific/genetics side, what are the benefits and non-benefits of this debate for your team's side? What are the benefits and non-benefits of the other team's side? (pro vs. con)


Did you debate with your personal opinion on this topic or against your personal opinion? Why do you personally feel one way or another?


What overall affects do you think this debate topic will have on society in general (worldwide)? This should be a personal thought.


On Friday we will recieve the grade for our debate. The point of these emailed questions were to salvage our debate grades, because a lot of us did not use enough scientific vocabulary or didn't speak enough during the debate. Also, on Thursday we got back our Inherited Traits lab, and Ms. D congratulated us on our use of data, though she reminded us that the dominant and recessive actually had equal results, so neither of them was more common in AISZ. Also, those of us who have messy handwriting should have taken the time to redo our data table. We should remember to give our data tables and graphs appropriate titles.


From now on we have an assignment called APOD, which should be turned in every Tuesday. This is a continuous assignment througout our study of Astronomy. The website we are to use is



We have to chose one of the many pictures (there is a picture of space for every single day) and write two well-written paragraphs about it. The first one should be about the science and the second should be about why you chose the picture. You can find the guidelines and rubric on Moodle.



THE NEXT SCRIBE IS NOAM!!!!

3 comments:

  1. Hi Fabi,
    This is a great post! I like the way you used color, added a picture, and added links to Moodle and the astronomy picture site. Some things you could add are a caption for your picture, have a bit more exciting voice, and explain why Ms. D sent us the questions. I liked how you included the questions we needed to answer, but you could have had another picture and another "fun link". Other than that, this post is really good! :)

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  2. Fabi - This is a good post. You have included the main things we covered in class, made nice use of colors and your English usage is well done (spelling, grammar, punctuation). You also have included links to Moodle and APOD, and they both work well. I think there could have been more Astronomy or Designer Babies or Stem Cell Research videos here. You do have one picture, that is related, but does not have a caption and I think you could have found some other pictures that are related and teach the readers something new. The one area you really need to put more effort into is going into more depth about the debates, their questions and what an example of an answer for each might be. Plus, I think you could have explained the APOD assignment more. With all of the information you presented you did not give any new facts or explore interesting aspects about designer babies or stem cell research or Astronomy, which are requirements for the rubric. I think you have improved since last time, but you need to explore more unknowns with the science aspect - it will spice up what you have written and help your readers understand things better. Your labels and title look good. ~Ms. D.

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  3. Hi there Fabi,
    Great post! You included what you did in class thoroughly and I understood everything well. You included the homework you had and the questions for your debate. Though, you have no links and only one picture without a caption. You have nice color and your font is easy to read. You had some excitement in your post, which is great! You also have good Labels and a great title! This is a great post, but you could improve a couple of things. Overall, though, nice job!

    Davide

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