7th - Harper's Blog

As everyone knows the Coronavirus, formally known as the COVID-19 is spreading all over the world. Because of this all schools in the state of Michigan have closed down until what was April 6th and is now April 13th. So last week when we should have been in school, we were at home doing assignments from our teachers. The truth is even with quarantine, most people are most likely to get it just by not washing their hands and going to grocery stores… The good thing is most of the people who get it, will just have the symptoms of a cold. It’s mostly affecting those over the age of fifty who either has a compromised immune system, smokes or has smoked in their life, or is overweight. My family has been taking melatonin before sleeping. We do this because when you graph how much melatonin babies lose as they grow it’s the exact opposite graph of the age of people who get corona. Therefor if we take melatonin we think that we are less likely to get the COVID-19.

Questions

1. When is the estimated time for a vaccine?
2. How old was the youngest person that died of corona?
3. Can any animals carry the virus?

A while ago we had the Science Expo. A science expo is like a Science fair only there isn’t a winner or a prize. This year my class (7th grade) got to choose their experiments. Mine was about cricket flour, which is really just ground crickets that you use to bake things with. I started by making two batches of cookies, one with cricket flour one with all-purpose flour. Next I offered the to everyone around school.  I would tell people how good crickets are for you and how they could be really good for the environment. But my experiment was to see if, even though they know it’s good for them, will people eat crickets. My hypothesis was that people would try to avoid the cricket cookies and just ry to eat the normal cookies, but it turns out that more people wanted to try the cricket cookies than the normal cookies. I thought that that was pretty cool because it shows that if we really had to eat insects, we probably could.

Questions:

1. Why can’t you bake only with cricket flour?

2. If more people knew about cricket flour, would they use it?

3. can cricket flour be made by machines?

So two days ago we started a test. Shane doesn’t give us like, pop quiz’s or anything but we still didn’t like it. The test was on bacteria… we haven’t worked on bacteria in a while because of the renaissance unit, which I’ll talk about in my next blog. But anyway we worked on it on Tuesday and I got about half of it done. We worked on it some more today and I finished it. But that’s what we did today… yup.

Questions

1. How much more difficult are high school tests?
2. Why were tests invented!?
3. When is our next test?

So a few weeks ago in science class, we made yogurt. It wasn’t as difficult as I expected it to be. First, We heat up milk and pick out two jars. Second, We mix two Tbsp’s of already made yogurt, and some of the milk into the jars. Third, We mix the two up in the jars, and put the jars in the refrigerator. Fourth, We take the jars out of the fridge after about 24 hours. Fifth, We take a small cup, fill it with your and honey, and then we eat the yogurt!

Questions

1. Why does the milk have to be warm?
2. What would happen if we left the yogurt in the fridge longer?
3. Why do we need the two Tbsp’s of pre made yogurt?

At the moment we are doing a bacteria unit in science class. Basically, we have to chose a bacteria or virus to research, draw, and make a Google Slide about. I chose Strep Throat. Strep Throat is caused by a bacteria called Streptococcal or Strep Bacteria. You can get rid of strep throat by keeping warm salt water in your mouth, drinking lemon juice in hot water, eating ginger, using mouthwash, etc.             In science class we have been making wanted posters for our virus/bacteria. We draw a picture of the bacteria itself and then we name the bacteria/virus and label it ‘wanted dead.’

Questions

1. Is strep throat a virus and a bacteria?
2. Why does hot salt water and hot lemon juice kill strep?
3. Can strep throat also be helpful?

So today we are having a tech day, Shane wants us to catch up on blogs, so, here I am.  Anyways,  earlier this week we talked about plant reproduction. Shane’s way of explaining “The flowers are like ‘Hey baby, Hey baby'”                              So flowers need pollen basically to reproduce, the flower can get that pollen either from the wind (the hard way) or from bees (the easy way). The flowers lure bees to them using certain bright colors or certain smells. When the bees see/hear these things they come pollinate the flowers.

QUESTIONS

1.  Do other plants get pollinated by bees

2. Can other insects pollinate flowers

3. Why do we need three questions

Last week the eighth graders went “elk bugling”.  That means our science teacher was chaperoning. That means tech day. Tech day is when we get to use out science class as a tech class. We can use Circuits, IPads, Little Bits, basically any technology around the science class.  I chose to do Little bits with my friend Lucy. We made a sound machine. Basically a machine that makes very loud annoying sounds, we tried to sneak up on out friends and scare them with it. We’re not very sneaky.

Questions:

1. Why is there only one battery clip in two packages of Little bits?

2. What else can we use on tech days?

3. Where is dash the robot?

So a few weeks ago my class went to a camp. The name of this camp is L.o.c., Leelanau Outdoor Center. We do it every year in September. It was super fun the first time but we do a lot of the same things each year, so some of it is boring now. But this year since i’m in seventh grade now, My class and I got to do the “High Ropes Course” for the first time. That was by far the highlight of L.o.c. It’s twenty-five feet in the the air in a clear place in the forest. My favorite of all the obstacles was the balance beam they call “Old Rickety” I walked forwards, backwards, forwards and backwards blindfolded, jumped, and ran across it.

Questions:

1. How long does L.o.c. stay open?

2. Why aren’t phones aloud?

3. If food is aloud in the great house, why is it not aloud in cabins?

So a few weeks ago we started working on our solar powered cars in science. Two years ago, (I Think) we made mousetrap cars. Thats what I think about when we work on the solar cars. They’re made out of thin Wood/Cardboard like pieces, Solar Panels, Wheels and a Motor. the only way to make these cars move, is by putting them in a place with sunlight and enough space. We did do a practice run down by the school’s office, it went pretty well…except for the fact that my friend/teammate Lucy, but motor on upside down… We blamed our other teammate andre.

Questions:

1. Will we be continuing this project soon?
2. What about the sun makes the car move?
3. Why does the motor need to be facing a certain way?

So as you tell by the title, we have no science today. We are in french at the moment. Your probably wondering why we have no science today. Well the reason we have no science is because the fifth graders have “the talk.” Now, you can probably guess what that is. Brings me back to last year when my class got “the talk” I personally knew everything already, so “the talk” for me, was more entertaining than educational. What I mean by entertaining was watching my classes expressions…It was hilarious! 

Questions:

1. Why didn’t we have science?
2. What class were we in instead?
3. Do you have any questions? if so ask Shane, she loves to answer questions.♦♠♥