Weather Patterns

Today is a gardening day! What are some current weather observations?

1. Is the moon currently waxing or waning? Please explain on what you are basing your answer.

2. How is Chinese New Year and the Lantern Festival related to the moon?

3. Is the overall length of the day currently getting longer, shorter or staying the same?

4. Go outside and verify your answers. Below, please explain any differences.

5. Please calculate the number of daylight hours for your date.

6. Temperature: What overall trends in the temperature are you noticing? (Please be specific)

7. Precipitation: How much has it rained in the last two months? How does this compare with a typhoon event? When did we last get a significant amount of rain?

Plant Project

To complete by next week:

1. Google document that contains your updated procedure.
2. Google spreadsheet that contains your data.

Dragon Page due date

Time was spent in class yesterday working on the final dragon page. The final page (your best quality work, thoughtful, checked for grammar, in color, etc.) is due on Monday.

Genetic Variation

I hope everyone had an enjoyable break to begin the Year of the Snake. Though we are leaving the Year of the Dragon behind, our class has a few details to wrap up with dragons.

Today in class, you will have a portion of time to work on your final dragon page assignment.

We will also spend some time reading the following article. This is a current article from the NY Times.

Link to article & notes page

Your tasks:

1. Highlight any words that are unfamiliar. Find out the meaning of these words.

2. Key Questions:

a) How are people the same/different?

b) Is it important to have competing ideas? (why/why not)

Next class, you will carry on a discussion about the article and the two key questions. In order to have a successful discussion, each student in the class must come with an understanding of the article and be prepared to contribute ideas, questions and details.
Criteria for class discussion:

Link to Discussion Criteria

Dragon Page - Life Cycle & Future

Wow! What an eventful series you have had over the past few weeks. Dragons entered your lives. Baby dragons are being born! What does the future have in store for your little guy or girl?

This page in your dragon book has several important goals:

1. Let future dragon breeders know the cell processes that create new dragons and what happens as the baby dragon grows, develops or heals after being wounded.
2. Explain why it is important to maintain genetic variation in your dragon species.
3. Provide a warning to future dragon breeders about possible mutations.

In order to do this, create a page that will be a great resource for the dragon breeders after you!

1. Life Cycle - Create a diagram that shows the life cycle of your dragon. From egg to death, what are the major stages of life your dragon will pass through.
2. Egg - use diagrams and sentences to explain what happened at the cellular level to result in the egg. You should explain the process that creates the 1n cells. How are these “daughter” cells related to the parent cell? Important: use your dragon’s genetic code as an example.
3. Growth, Development and Repair - use diagrams and sentences to explain the cellular process that takes place to create new cells. How are these “daughter” cells related to the parent cell?
4. Explain what is meant by genetic variation and why it is important for the survival of your species.
5. Mutations - What are they? How could they take place in a dragon? What could be a possible mutation that is positive for your dragon? What could be a possible mutation that is negative for your dragon? For both, explain how this mutation could occur. Are the mutations inherited or acquired? What is the difference?

Today's Readings:

Friday - Gardening Day

Tuesday (after Chinese New Year Break - have a great break!) - Class work time on this assignment

Thursday 2/21 - Page due