Innovation Day- January 2013

Some people may ask "What is Innovation Day?" To our class this isn't a foreign subject. Innovation day is a day were in the classroom the students can choose any topic they can learn about and create a project to teach their information to the other students and the teacher. We organized Innovation Day by informing the students of what Innovation Day is and how they can display their projects.

This year, the students covered many topics from Ancient Greek to Narwhals.  Some examples of the projects are how sound waves travel, and demonstrations of different styles of art. Normally the teacher teaches and the students learn,but on Innovation Day the students are the teachers. Innovation Day teaches the students learn about many different subjects at the same time that aren't even in the curriculum. Innovation Day teaches students how to learn new things while controlling their learning. After all of the students are finished with their projects they present them to their peers and teach them what they have learned.

Let's eats rocks!!!

Mrs. Ramsay told us we were going to make rocks and eat them. We were all really surprised and excited. On Thursday, we did a rock cycle simulation. We got to help her with the poject. So first,we had to get sediment (jumbo marshmallows) into a riverbed (flat pan). Do you know how sediment becomes sedimentary rock? Well this is how, minerals and sediment get pushed down with pressure and becomes sedimentary rock. WE got to come up and put lost of pressure on top of the layers of sediment. More and more layers of sediment came and created that pressure. The more pressure that is added the deeper a rock goes. That's when heat ios applied and it becomes a metamorphic rock. Minerals mix (chocolate chips, sugar, vanilla) into the rock as as the heat increases it becomes magma. Magma boils up and shoots out of the volcano. When magma exits it becomes lava. Lava is magma that is outside a volcano. Then it cooled and hardened and it became igneous rock. Those are the rocks that we ate. Yummy! 

You can make your own rocks at home too. Here are the incredients.
1 bag of chocolate chips
3 bags jumbo marshmallows
3 cups sugar
1 cup of vanilla
1 pan
1 mixing spoon
stove
2 sticks of butter

We're sure you will enjoy eating rocks as much as we did.