2/29/2012

Freshman English with Mrs. Walz

Break-ups? True love?  Gossip? These are all things that young people encounter in their lives, but they are as old as . . . well,  Shakespeare!  The freshmen are studying a Shakespearean drama and learning that some things never change.  They have also been learning about "the story of English" and how English came to be the language that it is today.  If you run into a freshman, be sure to ask them to recite the prologue to "The Canterbury Tales."

Freshman Science with Mrs. Schroeder

In Freshmen Science, we just finished up a unit on acids and bases. We did a few labs determining the pH of different substances using litmus paper, pH paper, and a variety of liquid indicators. It was fun to see clear substances turn bright pink, yellow, or blue depending on what indicator was used.

We also conducted a lab about super absorbent polymers. The kids "dissected" diapers, put 2-3 grams of polymers in a beaker, and then added 10 mL increments of water to see how much the polymers could absorb. They were surprised to see how the polymers grew and could hold over 100 mL of water.