Weekly Newsletter
Investigations in Science 7
October 18, 2019
Announcements...
​ What We Did This Week…
Click on the link below for additional resources:
Additional Science Opportunities
Ask Your Child…
​ Students then rearranged the same beads to create
● What is needed for photosynthesis to occur?
Where do those reactants enter the plant?
● Have you turned in your Medieval Times field
trip form? What about your Online Digital
Tools Consent Form?
Upcoming...
​ presence of carbon dioxide, it turns yellow. We watched a
Topics:
● Cellular Respiration
Dates:
● October 18 - Medieval Times Permission
Slip and Money due
● October 18 - Online Digital Tools Consent
Form due to Tech Grab Teacher
● October 23 - Community Circle in Science
Classes
● October 21 - 25 - Red Ribbon Week
● October 24 - Wear ​Red ​Day
This week was a lab centered week.
Cycling of Matter during Photosynthesis, takes a look at
what the molecules are doing while going through
photosynthesis. We used different colored beads to
represent different elements: carbon, hydrogen, and
oxygen. We made molecules with the beads of both water
and carbon dioxide to represent the ​REACTANTS​ or what
is needed before the chemical reaction of photosynthesis.
molecules of glucose and oxygen which are the
PRODUCTS​ or what is created because of a chemical
reaction, of photosynthesis. Students should notice that
the number of atoms (or beads), is the same for the
reactants and products. The atoms just get rearranged
and attach to new things to make new molecules.
Wednesday, we started off with a lab to show evidence of
photosynthesis in plants. We looked a chemical called
bromothymol blue. It is a dark blue color and in the
demonstration of someone blowing bubbles through a
straw into the bromothymol blue and watching the color
change from blue to yellow. Then we watched a
demonstration of 3 different air tight test tubes which all
contained carbon dioxide rich bromothymol blue (so they
were yellow in color). Two of the tubes contained a plant
elodea. One of those test tubes that contained elodea
was wrapped in foil so that light could not get to the plant.
The other two test tubes were placed in direct light. We
noticed the test tubes that had elodea and in the direct
light, the bromothymol blue changed from yellow to blue
because the elodea was using the carbon dioxide to go
through photosynthesis. The test tube that was wrapped
in foil and no light could travel to the plant, the
bromothymol blue stayed the yellow color because it was
unable to go through photosynthesis and was not able to
● October 24 - Ireland Student/Parent Meeting
6:00
● October 25 - SGA Dance 7:00
● October 28 - School Picture Make Ups
● October 29 - Humanities Field Trip
● October 31 - No After School Activities
● November 8 - Early Release/End of Quarter 1
● November 11 - Early Release
● November 12 - Early Release
● November 15 - Medieval Times
● November 27 - Early Release
● November 28-29 - No School
● December 5 - International Night
● December 23 - January 1 - No School
● January 20 - No School
● January 24 - Early Release/ End of Quarter 2
● January 27 - Professional Day/Possible
Instructional Day
● February 17 - No School
● February 28 - Early Release
● March 23-25 - Bay Trip - I will be out of the
building
● March 27 - Early Release/End of Quarter 3
● April 6 - 13 - Spring Break
● April 23 - Take Your Child to Work Day
● April 28 - No School
● May 25 - No School
● June 15 - Early Release/Last Day of School
use the carbon dioxide. You can see the experiment at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KpgZG9T0y34
Thursday, we focused on photosynthesis. We took notes
on chromatography. We talked about how it is a process
that separates different pigments. We did a
chromatography lab where students rub a piece of spinach
on chromatography paper using a coin. The bottom of the
chromatography paper (filter paper) is then placed in
rubbing alcohol. The plant material starts to move up the
filter paper by the end of the class and the different
materials will separate. We will notice that the material
inside the cells contains both green and yellow pigments.
Students discover that the function of a plant’s pigment is
to absorb light energy for photosynthesis.
Another lab we conducted this week was allowing the
students to see the type of cells that takes in carbon
dioxide so that it can go through photosynthesis. We had
a leaf and put some clear fingernail polish on the
underside of the leaf (carbon dioxide enters through the
bottom of the leaf so the cells can only be found there).
We applied a 2​nd​ coat and then waited for the nail polish to
dry. Once it was dry, we put a piece of clear tape on top
of the nail polish and carefully pulled the tape off.
Attached to the clear piece of tape was the nail polish and
the cells from the underside of the leaf. We put the tape
on a slide and looked through the microscope to be able to
identify ‘guard cells’ and the ‘stomata.’ We also completed
an interactive to see how the cell reacts different to
photosynthesis during the different seasons of the year.