It was a great first week and a half back at Tok School. Classes have been off to a crazy but wonderful start! It's great to see so many familiar faces, exchange stories, and see that my 8th graders have become highschoolers!
Updates: Biology and Physics started off with a "bang" (figuratively, I promise) this week in our introduction to science units. As I set up every year, a "crime scene" was constructed in the lab and the students used their knowledge of the scientific method (observing, making a hypothesis, experimenting, and analyzing and writing their results) to solve the mystery. It was a little bloody, but fortunately no actual teddy bears were harmed in the making of this lab :-). To see if you can solve the crime for yourself,
see the full lab here!
Biology class also started on our moose and wildfire project, which we will update you on more this week. For this project, we are studying the relationship between wildfire, plant succession, and moose habitat. The project involves both setting up trail cameras in previously burned / unburned areas as well as studying plants and moose sign in both locations. Thanks to Jeff Wells from Fish and Game and Timothy Lorenzinni from Fish and Wildlife for assisting with this project!
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| Heading to the field site |
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| Jeff Wells in the center point |
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| Tim Lorenzinni and Jeff Wells explaining the moose study and importance of science to wildlife conservation |
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| Revyn Almquist proved invaluable in setting up the trail cameras high enough! |
In Animal Science, the middle school students dived into dog health with a veterinary lab detailing a basic dog check-up. Of course, this wouldn't be fun without real dogs, so four puppies were brought into the classroom. Thanks to Mari Hoe-Ratio and Sarah Richards for helping with describing the physical exam, and handling the dogs! There was only a minor disruption to normal class as Copper decided to bark at Mr. Holmes repeatedly in the hallway.
In Math, the students got started thinking logically with a lab study of fish racks and rectangles. Thousands of years ago, no one was able to measure with inches, meters, or standard units. Yet, indigenous people realized that a rectangle or square was the most sturdy structure for a building or drying rack. Using basic geometric principles (in a rectangle, the diagonals must be the same length, and the opposite sides must be the same length) perfect rectangles could be made without modern tools. The students used string; can you figure out how to mark four perfect corners of a rectangle just using string?
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