Personal Responsibility

April 21 -

Required Personal Responsibility for Honors:

This part of the Honors requirement is to help you identify an area where you would like to carry out an original experiment. 

Your task is to read articles about new discoveries in at least five different areas of science such as Bio technology, natural science, Health Science, Food Science, Nutrition, Exercise Physiology, Chemistry, Physics, Engineering, or Climate science.

For each article that you read:

Provide the source of the article – Name of Journal, Article Title, Author, Date of Publication

Write a 2 – 3 paragraph review for each of the articles including what it is about, how it was discovered, why this discovery is important, and what else you would like to know about this topic.

January 27 Second Semester - Use the information that you gained by doing the gel box exploration to look at claims of Kangen or Alkaline Water to determine if they are valid claims.  You may want to look at some sites that explore the validity Kangen water.

First Semester Honors required personal responsibility project:
Option 1:  Review 3 articles published in a science magazine or journal such as Discover, Science News or Popular Mechanics.  You may use on-line publications, as long as they are valid science publications. After reading the article, write a review that includes:
Name of publication
Date of Publication
Title of Article
Name of author
Write a summary of the article and why you think that the research described in the article is important for society.

Option 2: Select one of the labs that we did as a class earlier in the year, and re-write it as a formal lab write-up. Be sure to enhance the background information and conclusion so that they contain citations from at least 3 sources. Use in text citations and include a works cited page.

Week of December 9: Personal Responsibility: Look up information about blood types and immune system or world wide distribution of blood types

Week of December 2: Read Careers, pages 377-378, In your notebook record several areas where there are jobs in genetics

Week of November 12:

Personal Responsibility

Do independent research to find uses for yeast in food production and in research

Second Grading Period Major Project Options: Required for Honors

Option 1: Decomposition of Pumpkins:

December 2: Personal Responsibility: Read Careers, pages 377-378, In your notebook record several areas where there are jobs in genetics

Make predictions about rate of decomposition of a whole pumpkin compared to a carved pumpkin. Support your prediction with scientific information. You may need to do some research here.

At least 3 times a week make observations about the conditions of the two pumpkins. These may be written in an organized fashion or recorded as a photo journal

At least twice in the next 4 weeks, come in after school to learn to identify specific decomposers on the pumpkins... either bacteria or mold.... using the microscope.

At the end of the decomposition time, write up your findings. In your report, include how you gathered data, and what observations and  evidence you gathered.  For every type of observation (smell, fuzz, colored patches, puddles of liquid, etc), find an explanation.  This report should be word processed, and may contain your picture evidence.

 

Option 2: Read a book on a topic of science that is interesting to you

You may select one of my books, or choose one on your own.  Approve the book with Ms. Sherwood.

As you read the book, keep a readers log for each chapter or section - depending on the organization of the book. You will turn these in with the paper described below.

When you are finished with the book, use your notes from your readers log to write a paper that contains the following:

Title and Author of book.

What is the book about?

What type of evidence is used in the book to make its points?

Why is the topic and content of this book important?

What would you like to know more about this topic?

 

October 17 - Read Side bar, pages 318 - 319 - Write a summary of the major ideas in this reading

October 7 - Personal Responsibility - Read pages 294-295. In notebook write a paragraph describing many applications of Exponential growth in Science


Personal REsponsibility: watch one of these clips with a parent/guardian and write one paragraph response
             Video Clip video
              Video Clip video 2 link
               Video Clip  Video Clip 3
                Video Clip  Video Clip 4
If you have trouble linking to these clips, try this page: link