Saturday, June 21, 2008

Practice Regents Exams

If you are interested, you can find past Regents exams (and their answer keys) at the NY State Regents web site.

Click here to go there.

Thursday, June 19, 2008

7th Grade Alternative Assignment

Here is the assignment for students who are not going to the Bronx Zoo.

You are going to get "up close and personal" with some animal.

Click here for the details.

The assignment is due Monday. Please give it to Mr. Ardito or Mr. Wulfhop.

Bronx Zoo Field Study

Here is the assignment for those of us going to the Bronx Zoo.

Have fun!
---------------
We have been studying ecology, which teaches us about how living things are related to their environment. The way the living things are put together – their structure, functions, and behavior – are all adaptations to the habitats in which they live.

On the trip to the Bronx Zoo, you will see many, many different organisms. For at least 5, make careful observations about the places they live in the zoo. How do these match or differ from their natural habitats. If they differ, why do you think they were designed this way? With what other animals does your animal live? Why are they together?

You will write a brief reflection sharing what you have learned about these organisms and their habitats in the zoo.

For extra credit, interview a zoo employee about what he or she does and why they decided to work at the zoo. You can add what you learned to your reflection.

This assignment is due Monday, June 23rd. Please turn it in to your homeroom teacher at the beginning of the day.

Friday, June 13, 2008

Australian Project Resources

You are all doing a really good job learning about your Australian organism.

I thought it might be helpful to put the various resources in one place.

Mrs. Gow's Web Page for the project -- click here.
A good resource for Australian animals -- click here.

Here's what you are doing:
1. You claim an organism (which you have all already done).
2. You research the organism. Keep track of the sites you visit with the "Virtual Bibliography" that Mrs. Gow made for us.
3. You answer the questions on the "Scaffolding" worksheet. On this worksheet, you are answering 3 basic questions:
a. Structural Stuff - Cool stuff about how your organism is put together.
b. Functional Stuff -- Cool stuff your organism does with its parts.
c. Behavioral Stuff - How your organism uses what it has.

The next step will be presenting it to Mrs. Gow and her class. We'll discuss that next.

Have fun!

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Period 3 - North American Organisms

Please post here your suggestions for North American organisms that our Australian friends should research.

Have fun!

Regents Review Resources

I have put together a web page with lots of links to resource you can use to review for the Regents exam. 

One of those links is to the the NY State web site with past Regents exams and answer keys.

You can find this page here.

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Study Guides for The Living Environment

I have created study guides for each of our major units this year.
You can either view them on line or download them to your computer.

You can find them here.