Serenity Valley Academy Browncoats: August 2014

Wednesday, August 20, 2014

Science/Oceanography: Mangroves

Lesson: Mangroves

Class: Oceanography

Grade Level: Fifth

Online Components:
Quiz Assessment on QuizWorks.

· Virtual Mangrove Tour at the Smithsonian Institution.

· Mangrove Predators by BBC One

· Mangrove Biology Worksheet by National Geographic.

· Layers of Life image by National Geographic.

· Mangrove Ecosystem coloring page by National Geographic.

· Differences between Red, Black, and White Mangroves by the Nature Foundation of St. Maarten.

Learning Objectives: Students will learn the different features of a Mangrove forest including the three types of mangrove trees found in our geographic area. Students will also learn about mangrove fish nurseries and some of the major threats mangroves are subject to including human and natural habitat destruction/pollution.

Time Allotment: 1 week (4 hours in class & 2 hours in the field (and/or virtual tour))

Activities (edited from National Geographic Education website):

1. Build background on mangrove ecology.

Explain to students that the tropics are a climate region generally found between the Equator and the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn. There are 70 species of mangroves that live in the tropics and also the subtropics. Explain to students that the subtropics are a climate region found north of the Tropic of Cancer and south of the Tropic of Capricorn. The subtropics are between 20-40 degrees latitude in both hemispheres. There are three primary species of mangroves that live in the tropics and subtropics in the United States. Distribute copies of the handout Mangrove Biology to each student and have students read it independently or in small groups. Use the images to point out the different features of the red, white, and black mangrove trees that live in the tropical and subtropical regions of the world.

Post the Layers of Life pdf to show how mangroves fit into the coastal ecosystem. Watch the Mangrove Predators BBC One Blue Planet Clip on the BBC One website and the longer clip on Mangrove Nurseries in class.

2. Preteach the vocabulary.

Make sure students know the terminology for the different parts of a mangrove tree. Write on the board the vocabulary terms listed below. Use the definitions from the handout to help familiarize students with the terms.

Mangrove Vocabulary List:

Anoxic	adjective	No oxygen in the environment
Drop Roots	noun	Roots that drop down from the branches of red mangrove trees and set shoots into the ground
Ecology	noun	The study of the environment and its related communities. Eqios = the home, ology = the study of; "the study of the home"
Lenticel	noun	A small opening on the exposed roots of a tree that allows the plant to take in air to send to the rest of the root system
Pneumatophore	noun	The snorkel root of a tree
Prop Roots	noun	Roots of the red mangrove that keep the trunk of the mangrove out of the salt water
Salt Excluder	noun	An organism that will not let salt enter into itself
Salt Excreter	noun	When an organism pushes salt out through its pores
Sediment	noun	Underwater soil
Substrate	noun	Underlayer; something to hold on to or attach to

Oil Spill Cleanup Vocabulary List:

Boom	noun	An oil containment device that floats on the surface of the water and is used as a barrier to keep oil in or out of a specific location
Dispersants	noun	Chemicals that are sprayed on oil to cause it to break up and sink
Skimmers	noun	Skimmers use a floating boom system to sweep oil across the water surface, concentrating the oil to make the skimming process more effective and efficient.

3. Discuss the difference between Mangrove types.

Students will discuss the differences between Red, Black, and White Mangroves as described by the Nature Foundation of St. Maarten. Have students color the Mangrove Ecosystem Worksheet and write in the vocabulary terms where appropriate.

On-line research sites:
Students may review the following online sites for more information (no issues should arise with this research as the pages do not have any specialized software requirements).

NOAA: http://www.habitat.noaa.gov/abouthabitat/mangroves.html
Smithsonian Ocean Portal: http://ocean.si.edu/ocean-life-ecosystems/mangrove-forests
Environmental Protection Agency: http://water.epa.gov/type/wetlands/mangrove.cfm
World Wildlife Fund:
http://wwf.panda.org/about_our_earth/blue_planet/coasts/mangroves/mangrove_ecosystems/
National Parks Service: http://www.nps.gov/ever/naturescience/mangroves.htm
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mangrove

Hand out the Two-column chart. Have students write down Human-created problems in one column and Nature-created problems in the second column.

Hand out the Three-column chart. Have students write down the key biological differences between Red, Black, and White Mangroves.

4. Create flash cards
Have students work together to create flashcards on mangroves, the ecosystem, and issues related to damage of the mangroves. Students can photocopy and laminate cards so everyone has a set.

5. Class Trip.
Students unable to attend the in-class tour will explore the Virtual Mangrove Tour while the in-class program will go visit a local Mangrove forest and discuss the differences in person.

Mangrove pictures from class trip:

Black mangroves (tall); White mangroves (short)

Black mangroves leaves (back); White mangrove leaves (front)

Black mangroves

Black mangrove leaves with salt

Red mangroves with prop roots

Red mangrove seeds (Propagules)

White mangrove

White mangrove seeds

Videos from class trip:

Mangrove Tour August 2014

6a. Assessment 1 (on-line)-Mangrove Forest Quiz
Students will take the 5 question multiple choice quiz on QuizWorks as a mini-self assessment.

6b. Assessment 2 (in class)-Bulletin Board Task

Students will be broken up into three groups and each given one of the types of mangroves (black, white, red) to create a bulletin board of showcasing the types of plants, animals, and issues found in each. Students will use the internet and books from the library to research the three main types (see above #3).

At the end of the project, students will present their boards to the class describing some of the key features of their mangrove.

example found on pintrest

7a. Extra: Why are mangrove habitats important?

The mangrove roots hold the soft ground together and prevent erosion.
The roots help to keep the water clean and provide habitat for animals.
They provide nursery space for small animals.
Many living things (including people) use them to find food such as fish, shrimp, and clams.

7b. Extra: Things you can do to help protect mangrove habitats:

Walk on the boardwalk if there is one.
Do not let rubbish get washed down storm drains and into rivers.
Do not pour oil down the sink or drain.
Talk about mangrove habitats with friends and family.

Sunday, August 17, 2014

Science: NEWS!

Dust from beyond our solar system fell to Earth from space probe

Detectors dropped off by the Stardust probe in 2006 carried particles that may have originated in interstellar space.

Ian Sample, science editor

The Guardian, Thursday 14 August 2014 14.01 EDT

A technician unbolts a canister containing cometary and interstellar dust from the Stardust capsule.

It could be the most exotic material on the planet. Seven particles of dust brought back to Earth by a spacecraft nearly a decade ago appear to have come from beyond our solar system.

The specks have all the hallmarks of being created in interstellar space. If confirmed, it would make them the first material from outside the solar system to be brought to Earth for study.

Scientists found the tiny particles – including some shaped like fluffy snowflakes – on detectors carried by Nasa's Stardust probe which launched in 1999 on a mission to capture dust from interstellar space and the tail of comet Wild-2.

The detectors were dropped to Earth by parachute when Stardust flew past in 2006. Each detector worked like cosmic fly-paper and collected particles as they hurtled past the spacecraft.

An optical microscope image of a track through aerogel made by Orion, one of the dust particles believed to be from interstellar space.

The dust might have been created in a supernova explosion millions of years ago and shaped by their exposure to the harsh extremes of space. "These are very precious particles," said Andrew Westphal, a physicist at the University of California in Berkeley, who worked on the dust.

The two largest fluffy particles contain a crystalline magnesium-iron-silicate mineral called olivine, which suggested that they came from the discs around stars and were altered by the interstellar environment, Westphal said.

If the nature of the dust is confirmed, then studies of the material could shed light on the origins of interstellar dust. Almost everything known about interstellar dust has come from observations, either with ground-based or space-based telescopes. "We seem to be getting our first glimpse of the surprising diversity of interstellar dust particles, which is impossible to explore through astronomical observations alone," Westphal added.

The international team of scientists sought help from more than 30,000 citizen scientists to scan thousands of microscope images in search of the particles. The largest of the particles was only a few thousandths of a millimetre across, considerably smaller than this full stop. Most of the specks weighed a few millionths of a millionth of a gram.

Two particles, named Orion and Hylabrook by their discoverers, were found from the tracks they left in detectors made from aerogel, an ultra-light and porous material. Scientists found a third track from a particle moving in the same direction, but it was evidently moving so fast, at more than 15km per second, that it vapourised on impact.

Four more particles, with the right chemical make-up for interstellar dust, were found at the bottom of pits left in thin aluminium foils built into the detectors. "They were splattered a bit, but the majority of the particles were still there at the bottom of the crater," said Rhonda Stroud at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington DC. More tests are planned on the particles to confirm or rule out their interstellar origins.

Besides the exotic dust particles, researchers identified more than 50 other particles of spacecraft debris in the Stardust detectors, according to a report in Science.

Anton Kearsley, a microanalyst who took part in the study at the Natural History Museum in London, said recognising interstellar dust was a huge challenge.

"In the end, 30,000 people around the world worked through thousands of digital microscope images of the main part of the collector, the aerogel, and eventually found the tracks that included interstellar dust particles," he said.

"As the results came in, the numbers and sizes of dust grains were not what we'd expected, and many seemed to have come from strange directions," he added. "Only by careful plotting of impact directions was the team able to identify the seven particles that must have come from outside the solar system."

Social Studies: The Agricultural Revolution

We use The Story of the World series for our Primary grades (K-8) Social Studies program. This series by Susan Wise Bauer is an easy to use combination of text book, activity book, and test book. Of course, these are just the bases for the program.

Activity: The Agricultural Revolution

Text Book: Vol. 3: Early Modern Times (From Elizabeth the First to the Forty-Niners) Ch. 16: The West - Scientific Farming.

Time Limit: 2 Hours

Learning Objectives: Students will understand the implications of the Agricultural Revolution on modern farming.

Activities: Students will master the vocabulary list. Students will know who William Penn, John Locke, and Isaac Newton are. Students will read portions of the Principia Mathematica. Students will discuss the difference in social standing between peasant farmers and English Lords. Students will discuss the Universal Laws of Nature and what they mean. Students will learn about crop rotation and the life cycle of a cow, wheat, and apples. Discuss the difference between the British Acts of Enclosure and the American Law of Open Range. Watch clips from the BBC's Tales of the Green Valley. Discuss advents in Agricultural Technology such as the Seed Drill and Seed Hoppers. Work in the School Garden on two planting boxes: Wheat and Vegetables using Heirloom Varieties. Discuss Agricultural Wheel of the Year.

Languages: Japanese 101 Phrases

Click each phrase to go to the Kids Web Japan Site to hear each phrase.

Languages: Japanese 101

Lesson 1: The Japanese Language

How many letters are there in the alphabet? Do you know how many letters there are in the Japanese alphabet? Actually, the Japanese language consists of 3 different writing systems!!! The Japanese alphabet consists of 99 sounds formed with 5 vowels (a, e, i, o, and u) and 14 consonants (k, s, t, h, m, y, r, w, g, z, d, b, p, and n), as is shown in the chart above.

Why do the Japanese use three writing systems? The Japanese use three different systems to represent different words and meanings and to make the language clearer for the reader. Let’s look at the different types of writing:

Kanji - 漢字

Kanji are symbols which represent a whole word. They can be quite complicated to write and often involve many strokes. Kanji came to Japan from China and are now used with the hiragana and katakana alphabets to form whole sentences. Children are expected to know around 2000 kanji characters by the time they leave school and indeed need to know this many in order to be able to read a newspaper! Children have to sit frequent kanji tests at school.

It is sometimes quite easy to see how kanji characters developed. Look at the following kanji and try to guess their meaning.

山川月

Because some kanji characters can be so difficult to write and remember, the Japanese simplified some of the symbols to form the katakana and hiragana alphabets：

Katakana - カタカナ

Katakana consists of 48 symbols, each one representing a sound. They are put together to form words, much in the same way we use the letters in our alphabet together to make words. Katakana is used for all words of foreign origin, so your name (unless it’s Japanese) will be written using katakana, many place names outside of Japan and loan words used in Japanese etc will also all be written using katakana.

Katakana is also used for onomatopoeia – such as animal sounds etc.

Hiragana - ひらがな

Hiragana consists of 48 symbols, each one representing a sound (the same sounds as the katakana alphabet). Hiragana is the traditional Japanese script and is used to write words of Japanese origin. Hiragana may also be used as a verb ending after a kanji character. All primary school students are expected to learn the hiragana alphabet soon after they start school. Like the English alphabet, each hiragana letter represents a specific sound and does not have any meaning per se. But unlike in English, there is only one way of pronouncing a single hiragana letter or combination of letters. For example, "e" can be pronounced many different ways in English, as in red, redo, and poorer. The hiragana though, is always pronounced as "a" in father.

Sounds -

The Japanese alphabet has fewer sounds than the English one. This means that the Japanese are unable to hear the difference between the letters ‘b’ and ‘v’ and ‘l’ and ‘r’. They also have difficulty in identifying the differences between ‘th’ and ‘s’. So, the words ‘pray’ and ‘play’ will sound exactly the same to the Japanese ear as do the words ‘berry’ and ‘very’. If you have a ‘b’,’v’,’l’ or ‘r’ in your name, how might your name be pronounced? Have a go and check with your Japanese teacher! What about if you have a ‘th’ or an ‘s’?

Exercise:

What would you say in the following situations:

Your friend gives you an apple.
You meet a friend in the afternoon.
You come back from school.
You meet your friend in the morning.
You say goodbye to a friend.
You meet your friend's parents for the first time.
You run into a friend in the evening.
You leave the house to go to school.
You head for bed.
You accidentally bump into a friend.

Answers:

Mountain

River

Moon

Social Studies: WW1 on the Home front

Activity: World War 1 on the Home front

Learning Outcome: Students will understand what was it like to live in the U.S. in WW1 in the context of their local community and how it relates to the state and country.

Time Allotted: 2 hours

Activities: Students were first introduced to the vocabulary list and then asked to show which countries were involved in the war on the map. Clips from Niall Ferguson's War of the Worlds was shown to give a background on the start of the war. Audio files were played of Archduke Ferdinand's death and funeral and first hand accounts of the war. Music samplings were also heard. Students then discussed what was happening in Europe with what was happening in America. Timelines of America's wars from 1861 (War between the States) to entry in WW1 (1917) were shown and discussed. Questions such as "Why did the US not get involved in 1914?" and "How did the war affect the average household?" were discussed. Students discussed the sinking of the Lusitania and arms running. Students discussed income levels between New York union workers, Detroit auto workers, and Rural farm workers. Students discussed inflation between 1914 and 2014 (2,208% btw) and what the gold standard means. Students then learned about rationing in the US and Britain; created their own ration book and discussed menu planning. Students were divided into 'family units' and given a weeks rations to create a menu from. Students worked collaboratively to break down an average 2014 weeks menu and see what ingredients they would need to purchase, then went to a historic grocery and checked the costs. Discussions on rationing, home economics, and women's roles took place in the store. Students discussed the benefits and problems associated with keeping a garden and animals during the war and also discussed social standing and problems that arose in their local community because of them. Students then took a WW1 recipe for an eggless, milkless, butterless cake and baked/taste-tested it. Discussions on emergency shelter and legal penalties for breaking regulations were discussed. Video clips of PBS's Frontier House, BBC's Victorian Farm, and PBS's 1940's House were shown. Replica newspapers and pamphlets were passed out and discussed. Class ended with students huddled in a closet, all lights out, and the sounds of a zeppelin attack echoing around them.

Assessment: More time needed. This could easily have been a week long class with more in depth coverage on each topic. As it is we merely scrapped the surface. Students did have a better understanding of what specific families and women in particular had to contend with during the war years, however, we did not get to adequately discuss the difference between lives on the US home front and British home front; namely, the scale of destruction in the UK and Europe. Program worked well with the students learning styles. Would have been more engaging to see/hear more first hand accounts from our geographical area to really hit home with the students.

Learning Style: Blended, face-to-face with technological resources added (video & sound).

Pictures:

WW1 Cake Making

Making Ration Books

Welcome to Serenity Valley Academy!

This blog will showcase class activities, homework, projects, book lists and other information for the SVA home school community. Please email Mrs. Soto with any questions. Thank you and good learning!

1. "O-GENKI DESU KA?" -"How are you?"	9. "KASHITE KUDASAI" -"Please lend it to me."
2. "ITTERASSHAI" -"Have a good time";"See you later."	10. "KORE, IRU?" -"Do you need this?"
3-1. "SUMIMASEN" -"I'm sorry."	11. "IRASSHAI" -"Come in"; "Welcome."
3-2. "SUMIMASEN" -"Excuse me."	12. "KORE KUDASAI" -"I'll take this."
3-3. "SUMIMASEN" -"Thank you."	13. "IKURA DESU KA?" -"How much is it?"
4. "DO ITASHIMASHITE" -"You're welcome."	14. "OMEDETOOGOZAIMASU" -"Congratulations."
5. "MOSHI MOSHI" -"Hello."	15. "CHOTTO MATTE KUDASAI" -"Please wait a second."
6. "JAA NE" -"See you."	16. "OHAIRI KUDASAI" -"Please come in."
7. "ITADAKIMASU" -"Let's eat."	17. "GANBARE" -"Hang in there."
8. "GOCHISOOSAMA" -"That was delicious."	18. "YOROSHIKU" -(greeting phrase)