Post by Nick's group- Voice Thread/Digital Story

We all agreed that this assignment was the most fun thing that we've ever to do for school. By having both an audio and a visual aid, we were able to understand the information much, much better. It's difficult beause you can say the same thing a million different ways, and I think that Digital Story allows you some major flexibility. Here is our VoiceThread.

Post by Corey's Group- Google Maps

We chose to focus on the countries of India, Australia, and Antarctica for ours. Something we learned was that there are actually plants that live in Antarctica. This is something that none of us ever had any idea that this would end up true. We all really enjoyed the Google Maps activity because it allowed us to see hands-on the things that we had covered in the classroom.

Click here to see our Google Map.

Post by Shawn- Day 5

Today we learned a lot about how plants reproduce as much as they do. For me, it brought everything together for me to understand everything we have learned about throughout the whole week much better. The visual aides have helped a lot and our dramatization was something that made photosynthesis crystal clear to me. Thank you!

I am not really confused about anything, I just have a LOT of studying to do before the test to memorize all those terms. You might need them later too!

Post by Kelly- Day 5

I thought that today was the most interesting becausee we learned how more and more plants keep getting made. I think that it's interesting that plants have both parts for boys and parts for girls, just like humans do. I really like this lesson a lot because we have used a ton of visual aides, which helped me learn a lot.

I am not really confused about anything either- I just need to study all the plant parts for the test because there are so many terms to know!!

Day 5- Plant Reproduction

Today we focused on how plants reproduce through the process of pollination. Just like humans, plants reproduce so that they have more than themselves. To do this, the plants' male and female parts need to unite in the process of pollination. Before pollination can occur, though, the plants need to attract things that can pollinate them, known as pollinators, to do that job. Plants accomplish this by having a strong scent and looking attractive with bright colors. When pollination occurs, pollen moves from the male parts to the female parts by a pollinator, such as wind or insects. During pollination, the pollen grains land on the stigma, which is the sticky substance on the top of the pistil (female part) and then goes down the tube in the pistil, the style, and reaches the ovuole for fertilization.

Once the ovuole is fertilized, it begins to turn into a seed, and that seed will eventually turn into the fruit. That fruit will contain seeds that will be scattered to start the entire process over again.

Homework for Day 5 (Friday):
For you assignment, I want you to again visit our classroom blog and post a short write-up about what you liked/disliked about the plant information we have covered so far. Are there still things that confuse you? If so, write them down. Finally, as always, comment on at least one other person's post. This assignment needs to be done by our next class period (Monday).

Post by Nick- Day 4

Today we learned about how plants make food through photosynthesis. I was really happy that I realized that I could think about something else that is like photosynthesis so I could understand it better. I thought of making homeade bread for this example. The ingredients for homeade break are flour, water, yeast, etc. and we mix those and put them in the oven. Then, the bread uses the heat from the oven (like sunlight) to bake the bread. The final products are our bread for food (like sugar for plants) and also the steam coming off from it (air, or oxygen).

I understand it so much easier now, and the dramatization helped a lot!

Post by Corey- Day 4

Today we learned about photosynthesis and how plants make their own food. When we talked about it, this process made me think about making sugar cookies with my grandma. The ingredients that we had were flower, water, and other ingredients, and then we mix them together and use heat (like from the sun for photosynthesis) to make the reaction occur. In the end, our products are sugar(cookies) and the steam (air) coming off the cookies.

When I thought about the process in this way I was able to understand what was going on much better.