With Thanksgiving right around the corner, the students were tasked with several ongoing projects this past week in Science & Engineering.
In addition to some reading/research on the subject of the nervous system and the transmission of neural impulses throughout the body, they worked in groups to develop a lab. This had to be a new and independently developed procedure relevant to the nervous system, and most groups delighted in presenting their classmates and teachers with memory tests, Stroop tests, and all manner of challenges meant to explore how we respond to different stimuli. All aspects of the scientific method needed to be completed, and the groups rose to the challenge admirably.
Concurrently, students teams worked on our Mindstorms robots, completing a coding challenge to make the bots execute tasks in sequence and respond to visual stimuli. We took time to address the similarities and differences in how robots vs humans do this.
Fenris presented a very interesting Master Class on the subject of historical foods common during the colonial period including “burgoo”, hardtack, and hoe cakes. It was informative and… delicious.
Please note that we are beginning to approach the real go-time for this year’s science fair. Students should have pretty much all of the materials necessary to proceed. The experiments do not need to be underway for several weeks, but they may begin after checking in with me if they have adjusted their research plans as necessary.
Obviously, next week we are off for fall break! We will look forward to seeing everyone after Thanksgiving. Here’s wishing you all a safe & wonderful holiday!
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