Good Digital Citizenship Tips

Today, we reviewed some of the ideas about digital citizenship that we talked about the first week of school. We had a greate discussion and thought we would share some of our ideas with you. Do you see anything we should add? If so, please leave it in a comment.

1. Keep personal information to yourself. You MUST stay safe!
2. Don't threaten anyone. Bullying isn't acceptable at any time.
3. Only say nice, kind, friendly things. Don't say mean and insulting things to others. It still can hurt their feelings even if you can't see their faces.
4. Don't give out where you are at what time. You don't want people to know that your house is empty or that you are somewhere justing hanging out woth friends. It's not safe.
5. Always log out of whatever tool, app, or program you are using. You don't want someone to post inappropriate things from your account.
6. Make more than three letter passwords so that others can easily figure it out and get into your account. A combination of letters and numers are usually good.
7. Think before you type or speak. Once it is put out into the Internet, you can never really get it back.
8. Don't give any pictures of yourself to anyone you don't know. You must stay safe!
9. Keep your actions age-appropriate. Ask parents before you log-on to any websites that have inforamtion that may not be appropriate.
10. Do not invite people to meet you. If you are on social media, you don't want others to know where you are if you are with friends. If that person is not someone you know in life, never agree to meet with them. Things can be different than what they seem to be.
11. Remember that teasing that you do may appear to others as being mean or a bully. Be careful what you say online.

Our Sweet Lab

When we studied chemical and physical changes, our class did a awesome lab. A physical change is when something changes in size, shape, or state of matter. Chemical changes are change in temperature, color, a release of gas, or solid is formed. We went outside and we partnered up with someone of our choice. Before we went outside, we got all of the supplies/ingredients. We got a small, zip lock bag, a larger one, salt, vanilla extract, sugar, ice, milk, and our brains. After that we tried to guess what we were going to do. Mrs. Ramsay had been giving us hints all week.  We poured a half cup of milk into our bags. After that, we poured some sugar into the same bag. Everyone agreed it was a physical change. No one saw a change in in color or temperature. We also didn't see a release of gas or a solid being formed. After that, we put 1/4 teaspoon of vanilla extract, zipped the bag, and put it into the bigger bag. The class still thought it was a physical change because the color or temperature did not change. Next, we put the sandwich sized bag in a gallon sized bag. After that, we put in ice and salt. When we added the salt it was a chemical change because the ingredients were colder than before, much colder. Then we shook and shook until a huge chemical change! It went from a liqud to a solid. After that we talked about the changes that happened while we ate our sweet lab! This was such a great way to really learn and experince the differences between chemical and physical changes.

Lab: Acid or Base?

Our class did a science lesson on acids and bases. Acids are sour, and bases are bitter and sometimes slippery. We can use some stuff like red cabbage juice and litmus paper to measure acids and bases. If the litmus paper or some red cabbage juice turns a bluish purple color it is probably pH of neutral. If the color is like red, pinkish red, or purple it is probably a pH of an acid. If the color is like violet, green, and blue it is probably a pH of an base. Some examples for an acid are lemon juice, soft drinks, vinegar, tomato juice, and sour milk. Some examples for a base are soup, baking soda, plaster, cement, and some dyes. Also acids have high concentration of hydrogen ions, and bases have low concentration of hydrogen ions. Acid give up hydrogen ions (H+), and bases give up hydroxide ions (HO-). When the two react with each other, they neutralize each other.

On our project we used some red cabbage juice, and we had different kind of acid and bases. There were about 10- 20 items to test (of course not tasting it), and we used the red cabbage juice. We each had a piece of paper, and we had to write what the item was and predict if it's an acid or base, what the color is going to be, and if it's strong or weak. When we tested it turned to a color, and you had to record your onservations on your lab paper.

Student Taught Great Depression Lesson

Our class is reading the book Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis. This story takes place in the years of The Great Depression.  I (David) thought about doing a project on the years of The Great Depression to build our background knowledge for the book. I told Mrs.Ramsay that if we could do something that involved a whole team, it would be really great. I came up with the idea of making a illustration of a topic og causes of  The Great Depression. Each team could do a different illustration and then we could publish them on InstaCollage. I thought if we watched a Brain Pop on The Great Depression everyone could think of a cause to illustrate about.
Now, it was my turn to be the teacher. First, I started to tell everyone about my plan. After, they agreed to my plan, we watched the Brain Pop video on the casuese of the Great Depression. Once we were done watching the video, I told the class if they could think about some topics on the video. We made a list of all of the casues on teh board as a class. Then each team chose one of the casues.  Once we were done writing the topics down on the board, I had to make a drawing so each table could failrly choose a cause and make an illustration. If I didn't do the drawing that would not have been fair to the other tables. Once each table had a topic, each table had to illustrate their topic. When everyone was done with their illustration we had to make those pictures into a InstaCollage. I had some help from Luke to make the InstaCollage becasue he had some experience usig that app. Once we were done with that, we printed the collage for the ahllway and pubished it on our website. After we finished this lesson and project, we all saw the Great Depression in a different way.

Book image from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bud,_Not_Buddy