Week 24 In Review

Periodic Updates

Week 24 In Review

Important Dates & Assignments:

• STEM Fair:
• So many projects, our students are amazing!
• Please discuss with your student what they are doing and make sure they are staying on task. 
• If you have any questions, please let me know.
• Please help by reminding them to work now and not procrastinate.
• Rocket Candy:
• Students will be assigned chapter 7 of "Rocket Boys" to be read this week.
• We tried to demo the rockets this week but the wind shut us down Friday.
• We will demo more this week.
• We will also start to get the actual work of this project going this week.
• If anyone has any contacts with a model rocket club in this area, I would love to partner with them for this project.
• Gas Laws:
• We completed a lab that is due Tuesday.
• Students took an assessment Friday. If they didn't finish, they should finish Monday during lunch.

What happened last week?

• Review:
• We have continued reviewing stoichiometry and gas laws this week.
• Gas Laws:
• Students worked on collecting Hydrogen gas Tuesday in lab.
• Upon initial observations, students did excellent and should have great results.
• Labs are due on Tuesday.
• Assessments were taken Friday. The questions that were finished have been scored and students have performed well overall.

From the desk of Mr. Terry:

Confidence! Help me build our students confidence in Chemistry. The assessment on Friday was very difficult as it mixed math with science. Our students hit this in stride and started showing their understanding. I am so impressed with our students performance so far. Many need to finish this assessment during lunch on Monday, but so far they are doing so well. Help me by reassuring them. Their hard work is paying off. Have a great week! 

I have been tutoring many students during lunch. This is a great time for us to quickly work out some misunderstandings. Tell them to bring their lunch and we will eat together while we discuss Chemistry!  Have a great week.

I am available to help during lunch and Flex on the "A" day schedule 4th block. Students can make arrangements to miss their 4th block class to meet with me.

terryk@claytonbradleyacademy.org

Week 23 In Review

Periodic Updates

Week 23 In Review

Important Dates & Assignments:

• STEM Fair:
• Now is time to work.
• Students should be doing research, planning, and designing their project.
• There may be time to work on these throughout the week, but students will also need to work at home.
• Please help by reminding them to work now and not procrastinate.
• Rocket Candy:
• Students will be assigned chapter 6 of "Rocket Boys" to be read by Friday.
• Weather permitting, I would like to demo fire some rockets this Friday.
• I am hoping this builds excitement for the project that will start to get interesting next week!
• If anyone has any contacts with a model rocket club in this area, I would love to partner with them for this project.
• Gas Laws:
• Students should have been practicing Ideal Gas Law, Combined Gas Law, and Dalton's Gas Law over the weekend.
• The pre-lab questions should be completed in their lab notebooks for the lab Tuesday.
• We will be doing a gas lab on Tuesday.
• Check for Understanding:
• There will be a "Check for Understanding" on Friday to assess student progress before we begin making rocket candy next week!

What happened last week?

• Review:
• We have continued reviewing stoichiometry and gas laws this week.
• Gas Laws:
• Students used PV= nRT in a demo lab on Monday.
• We are all practicing precision in the lab as we learn the importance of every calculation.
• Students were assigned additional practice and the gas law lab for Tuesday.

From the desk of Mr. Terry:

Every measurement matters! That is a lesson that became all too real on Monday. Students attempted a demonstration activity/lab on Monday that involved Alka-Seltzer tablets. The measurements to get the right mass of carbon dioxide became very important. We had some groups come so very close to exactly right, while others missed by over half.  It is a lesson of showing the lifeskill of patients and the lifelong guideline of personal best. I loved it. Our students did work very hard and even showed sense of humor when they realized how far off they really were from the right answer. This lab was a lesson that will help them succeed on Tuesday. We will be working with a very strong acid, 6 Molar HCl. The students are ready to go and I can't wait to see how much better they do. 

I have been tutoring many students during lunch. This is a great time for us to quickly work out some misunderstandings. Tell them to bring their lunch and we will eat together while we discuss Chemistry!  Have a great week.

I am available to help during lunch and Flex on the "A" day schedule 4th block. Students can make arrangements to miss their 4th block class to meet with me.

terryk@claytonbradleyacademy.org

Week 22 In Review

Periodic Updates

Week 22 In Review

Important Dates & Assignments:

• STEM Fair:
• All students should have submitted their proposals Friday.
• We will begin to make calendars this week.
• Help your student with their calendar and planning.
• Rocket Candy:
• Students were assigned chapter 5 of "Rocket Boys" for the weekend.
• Discussion questions are on google classroom and students are expected to post comments and questions on each chapter.
• Mr. McCarter and I launched a practice rocket Friday. All systems worked as expected. We will be firing for the students soon!
• Students will be working on this project in the Chemistry lab under the my supervision of the supervision of Kendal McCarter. No student should be making this fuel at home! This fuel can be very safe but it is used as fuel for a reason. It is combustible and burns hot.
• If anyone has any contacts with a model rocket club in this area, I would love to partner with them for this project.
• Gas Laws:
• Student presentations lead to a better understanding of the ideal gas law. PV=nRT
• Practice problems were given to the students to be completed over the weekend.

What happened last week?

• Review:
• We continued to review stoichiometry and limiting reagents.
• Stoichiometry Lab:
• Students were given the lab rubric used to score the written lab.
• Corrections can be made and the lab can be resubmitted for review.
• Gas Laws:
• Students did really good descriptions of various gas laws.
• We then put them all together to get the ideal gas law.
• Students seemed to really understand it in class.

From the desk of Mr. Terry:

Mr. McCarter and I had a lot of fun Friday testing launching our first rocket. The rocket did as expected and set the stage for the next phase of our "Rocket Candy" project. We will be demonstrating launches with the students this week, weather permitting! 

I am available to help during lunch and Flex on the "A" day schedule 4th block. Students can make arrangements to miss their 4th block class to meet with me.

terryk@claytonbradleyacademy.org

Week 21 in Review

Periodic Updates

Week 21 In Review

Important Dates & Assignments:

• STEM Fair:
• All students should have submitted their proposals Friday.
• We will begin to make calendars this week.
• Help your student with their calendar and planning.
• Rocket Candy:
• Students were assigned chapters 3 and 4 of "Rocket Boys" for the weekend.
• Discussion questions are on google classroom and students are expected to post comments and questions on each chapter.
• Students will be working on this project in the Chemistry lab under the my supervision of the supervision of Kendal McCarter. No student should be making this fuel at home! This fuel can be very safe but it is used as fuel for a reason. It is combustible and burns hot.
• If anyone has any contacts with a model rocket club in this area, I would love to partner with them for this project.
• Stomach Stoichiometry:
• Students worked on finishing the lab report this week.
• Most of the students turned in their reports on Friday.
• Those grades are reflected on the progress report you should have received from the school.
• Any questions, please let me know.

What happened last week?

• Review:
• We did a short review of content that will help with stoichiometry.
• We will continue to do this as we proceed.
• Stoichiometry:
• Students worked on lab analysis.
• Students worked on conversions that are used in stoichiometry and presented how to answer different scenarios.
• Gas Laws:
• Students were introduced to different gas laws in class on Friday.
• We will continue this topic more this week.

From the desk of Mr. Terry:

I introduced a new rubric to the students concerning the stomach stoichiometry lab. This rubric is more detailed than the one I used last semester and I feel will better prepare them for future science lab reports. Several of the students didn't do as well on this lab report. Students may review the rubric and resubmit the lab when they feel it is more detailed. 

As we continue looking towards building rocket candy, our study will shift to gas laws. Students will be using stoichiometry and gas laws in the making of their fuel. We haven't started making this in class yet because I want the students to have more information before we start working with the material. 

I am available to help during lunch and Flex on the "A" day schedule 4th block. Students can make arrangements to miss their 4th block class to meet with me.

terryk@claytonbradleyacademy.org

Week 20 In Review

Periodic Updates

Week 20 In Review

Important Dates & Assignments:

• STEM Fair:
• All students should submit proposals this week.
• Help your student with their calendar and planning.
• Rocket Candy:
• Hopefully you read that correctly, I did say "Rocket Candy!"
• Our big chemistry project for this 9 weeks will involve the students making rocket fuel.
• We will also be reading "Rocket Boys" as a class. This is the book that gave the idea for the movie, "October Sky."
• Students were assigned chapter 2 of "Rocket Boys" for the weekend.
• Discussion questions are on google classroom and students are expected to post comments and questions on each chapter.
• Students will be working on this project in the Chemistry lab under the my supervision of the supervision of Kendal McCarter. No student should be making this fuel at home! This fuel can be very safe but it is used as fuel for a reason. It is combustible and burns hot.
• If anyone has any contacts with a model rocket club in this area, I would love to partner with them for this project.
• Stomach Stoichiometry:
• The lab should be finished and turned in this week for review.
• We have started a new rubric to review labs that can be seen by clicking here.

What happened last week?

• Review:
• We did a short review of content that will help with stoichiometry.
• We will continue to do this as we proceed.
• Stomach Stoichiometry:
• We worked on the post-lab together this week.
• All students should be completing the rest of the lab individually and be turning it in for review.

From the desk of Mr. Terry:

Snow days! Everyone likes a snow day, but the work can get difficult when we have multiple snow days in a row. Help your students to continue reading and doing practice problems on snow days to stay fresh with the content. We will continue to work on stoichiometry problems this week and start to move on to gas laws by the end of the week. This continues to help us build content and knowledge toward our rocket candy.

I am available to help during lunch and Flex on the "A" day schedule 4th block. Students can make arrangements to miss their 4th block class to meet with me.

terryk@claytonbradleyacademy.org

Week 19 in Review

Periodic Updates

Week 19 In Review

Important Dates & Assignments:

• STEM Fair:
• All students were introduced to the idea of our first upper school STEM Fair this week.
• The date of the STEM Fair is May 5th.
• Students will be working throughout the 3rd 9 weeks to complete their project with the assistance of a Faculty Sponsor. 
• All experiments should be completed before spring break!
• We gave the students a guide to picking good STEM fair projects last week and you can see that guide by clicking here.
• More to come on this as the 9 weeks progresses.
• Rocket Candy:
• Hopefully you read that correctly, I did say "Rocket Candy!"
• Our big chemistry project for this 9 weeks will involve the students making rocket fuel.
• We will also be reading "Rocket Boys" as a class. This is the book that gave the idea for the movie, "October Sky."
• Students were assigned chapter 1 of "Rocket Boys" for the weekend.
• Students will be working on this project in the Chemistry lab under the my supervision of the supervision of Kendal McCarter. No student should be making this fuel at home! This fuel can be very safe but it is used as fuel for a reason. It is combustible and burns hot.
• If anyone has any contacts with a model rocket club in this area, I would love to partner with them for this project.
• Stomach Stoichiometry:
• The lab should be finished and turned in this week for review.
• We have started a new rubric to review labs that can be seen by clicking here.

What happened last week?

• Review:
• We took time to review some important skills from last semester.
• We have to be good at balancing chemical equations, conversions, and chemical formulas.
• We will be using these skills all through this semester.
• If you student needs more help with these, please have them let me know using our bulletin board procedure that was introduced last week as well.
• Stomach Stoichiometry:
• We did a lab investigation on the reaction yeast uses to break down sugar and produce carbon dioxide and the reaction of burning a candle to produce carbon dioxide.
• They learned some really cool facts about gas production in humans along the way.
• We are now using methods of stoichiometry to figure out how much carbon dioxide was produced in the lab.
• The conclusions should be finished this week and notebooks turned in for review.

From the desk of Mr. Terry:

This week our chemistry lab had the distinct smell of yeast converting sugar into energy. Some of you might associate this with bread making, others might have a different memory with this smell. I love see the students perform in the lab. They are so good at following safety protocols and staying on task. I want this to continue this semester as we get closer to making rocket candy! Some fun questions to ask your student about what they learned this week from the lab:

1. How many times does a healthy person gas each day?
2. What is the main chemical in flatulence?
3. What is the main cause of flatulence?

You may or may not want to go there with your 16 year old. Anyway, have a great week!

I am available to help during lunch and Flex on the "A" day schedule 4th block. Students can make arrangements to miss their 4th block class to meet with me.

terryk@claytonbradleyacademy.org

Beginning 2nd Semester

Periodic Updates

In Review

Important Dates & Assignments:

• STEM Fair:
• All students were introduced to the idea of our first upper school STEM Fair this week.
• The date of the STEM Fair is May 5th.
• Students will be working throughout the 3rd 9 weeks to complete their project with the assistance of a Faculty Sponsor. 
• All projects should be completed before spring break!
• More to come on this as the 9 weeks progresses.
• Rocket Candy:
• Hopefully you read that correctly, I did say "Rocket Candy!"
• Our big chemistry project for this 9 weeks will involve the students making rocket fuel.
• We will also be reading "Rocket Boys" as a class. This is the book that gave the idea for the movie, "October Sky."
• Students will be working on this project in the Chemistry lab under the my supervision of the supervision of Kendal McCarter. No student should be making this fuel at home! This fuel can be very safe but it is used as fuel for a reason. It is combustible and burns hot.
• If anyone has any contacts with a model rocket club in this area, I would love to partner with them for this project.

From the desk of Mr. Terry:

I am so excited about the two projects discussed above. The STEM Fair will help our students begin to take on a new side of research and project building. This can be done in groups up to 3 or individually. Our faculty will be helping advise this process and helping bring a level of personal best to their projects. If you would like more information, please email me. The other project we are starting fits perfectly with our standards. We are getting ready to start stoichiometry and this project will be a real world situation in which stoichiometry is so important to get right. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to contact me.

As you see your student's report card later this week, remember that students can go back and work on any standard they would like to improve. Have a great week!

I am available to help during Flex on the "A" day schedule 4th block. Students can make arrangements to miss their 4th block class to meet with me.

terryk@claytonbradleyacademy.org