Dear Parents,
It is my privilege to welcome your 7th grader to the most exciting class in the Middle School- SCIENCE! It is my goal to share with my students the wonder of learning new things and to equip them with the tools and the techniques they need to continue learning. To find out exactly what your 7th grader will be learning this year look at the complete course concept outline or the specific outline for the unit in progress
Since our class period is usually full of learning activities, it is very important that each student carefully completes every homework assignment and turns it in on time. If you have any questions about exactly what is due on a specific day please check the posted homework this week. Late work is not accepted without a note of explanation signed by a parent, and if a student is absent for several days he or she is expected to contact me to get help completing any work not clearly understood.
I calculate student grades by considering all homework, labs and quiz grades as 50% of the total quarter grade, the other 50% is based on an average of all assessment task grades earned that quarter. Assessment tasks can be tests, written research papers, lengthy lab reports, or actual demonstrations of expertise such as preparing a microscope slide properly and focusing it clearly under the microscope.
My students have three opportunities each week to earn extra credit points, which can be added to their total grade percentage at the end of each quarter. The first is Thursday, or News Day. Any student may bring a newspaper, magazine article, or text from an Internet news service related to a scientific topic and briefly explain its importance to the class. If this is well done a student can earn an extra credit coupon worth 0.1 percentage points. The second opportunity is to find the answer to the Space Trivia question. This is a question presented to the class each Monday, and also posted on this website. The answer must be turned in to the teacher before the lunch period Friday, with the source where the answer was found clearly cited. A correct Space Trivia answer also earns one extra credit coupon. And when a student uses their free time to help take weather measurements (for the S'COOL program explained below), they also receive an extra credit coupon.
7th grade students also have the opportunity to participate in two International Collaborative Projects. For NASA's "SCOOL" weather monitoring project students take "ground truth" measurements at the same time the TERRA or AQUA satellites pass overhead. This data is submitted to the program director and compared with the satellite data to provide a more complete picture of cloud and weather patterns all over the world. And twice a year students may travel to our adopted watershed to take water quality measurements for the "Take A Dip" project sponsored by the Center for Improved Engineering and Science Education . (Learn more about both of these projects by clicking on the links listed at "Check Out These Cool Sites")
I strongly encourage my students to find the answers to all homework problems before coming to class. They can find help from several places. First of all there are many really helpful sources of information listed in the Cool Sites. I consider lab partners to be a team, so I would expect that they would help each other understand what to do (but of course, just knowing an answer without understanding how to find it is NOT LEARNING). And then finally, if nothing else has helped, I really would like my students to call me when they have serious problems: 2874-6112
To set up appointments, or if you have any questions about your 7th grader’s progress, please contact me at 2873-9900, extension 206, or contact the counseling office.
We’re going to have a GREAT year!
Sincerely,
Karen E. Pearson