Hey there everyone. This week we started a very interesting lab. Unfortunately it also our last lab. We started our week off with observing a fetal pig. IT WAS NOT ABORTED. It was either miscarried, still-born, or a leftover of the pork industry. So no, we did not murder little baby pigs, if that is what you are thinking. We observed the outside first, then we went on to looking at the skeletal system, though we did not cut him open. After that we did end up skinning it to look at the muscles. The next day, we cut out the muscle to see its digestive system. Next week, we are going to start with the nervous system and circulatory system, as well as some other things, I think. We have been studying for our science final, and I think I'm going to do pretty well.

I need to work on studying for my exam on Friday. I am not really nervous about it, but I still need to study a lot. I also need to work on my boat for our cardboard boat regatta. Anybody got any refrigerator boxes I can have. Just kidding.

For the boat regatta, we are only allowed to use untreated cardboard, and only allowed to use duck tape around the edges of the boat. THIS I am nervous for. How bout that. I'm not that nervous for one of the biggest tests of the year, and yet I am nervous for a boat regatta. I want to do the design below of the wheel, but I 'm not sure how functional that will be. Thanks guys talk to you soon!

Hey guys. Sorry about last weeks sub-par post. I was really tired after Science Olympiad and traveling. We lost the competition, but several of our groups got medals, so that is something to be proud of.  One of our students spewed chunks after his event, so I covered for him in anatomy, on top of three other events. Suffice to say, my brain was fried by the time we were done. It was a long day, but I did learn that I really, really like chai milkshakes. I would also like to give a big round of applause to Mrs. Giacomelli for bringing new inspiration to the
Sciences" in our school name.

I really need to start working on studying for my final in science as well as my EOC in math. I am not that nervous about it, but I also want to get e really good grade.

This week in science, we did a sheep eye dissection while the sixth and seventh graders were out of town in Washington, D.C. After we finished that, we basically just worked on whatever until the end of class because there was nothing else we could really do without the sixth/seventh getting behind. It was  a lonely week without them. And to leave off, below in a lovely picture of a sheep's brain. "Good night, and good luck."

Hey guys. This week was very... interesting to say the least. We did our owl pellet dissection lab. I didn't know that owls could eat things so BIG. We also did our Marine Quest field trip where we learned all about marine ecology, and different marine sciences. Other than that, it was a pretty average week. We learned all about birds and mammals, and how they fly, run and how they take care of their young. And no, I didn't mean the Angry Birds that get shot out of a sling-shot. SO yea, pretty fun, if I do say so myself.

I understand almost all of the concepts of this chapter, and I don't really need to study for the test as it's open note, but I should probably organize and review for a few minutes tonight. I am sorry that this post is rather short but I had a really long weekend and I am pretty tired.

Hey. It's me again. This week was mainly dedicated to finishing up the frog dissection, learning about reptiles, and studying fir the reptiles and amphibians test. The test was rather simple but I got and 88. I probably should have studied more for that, but I thought I knew most of it. The end of the frog dissection was pretty fun. I removed most of the organs from our frog, and laid them out like a display. I felt a little bit like a mad scientist, or a psychopath.

I really need to work on my homework habits. I was dropped to a B last semester because I wasn't tweeting often enough. I also need to study more for my quizzes and tests. As the creatures we are studying get more complex, the more I need to study.

We had standardized tests this week, so not much else happened, except my group, and every other group from our school, moved on to State for NHD. And again, this history contest happens to be on the same day as Science Olympiad. I mean really. Two years in a row? I am going to be running back and forth pretty much all day for my events. Good thing the two locations for the competitions are close together.

Hey people of the world. This week, we started a very popular lab, as well as a new chapter, and even had an open note test, which I got 95 on! On my report card I ended up getting mostly B's which is pretty good considering I had a D in English at the beginning of the third quarter. It will be a small jump to get to and A now. We also have a new friend in our class, the neighbors cat Chloe, or as we call her, Waffles. She has completely taken over Mrs. Giacomelli's leather rollie chair. Mrs. G has actually taken to rolling Chloe outside and leaving her chair outside at the end of the day because the cat won't move. Strangely enough, Chloe is a super affectionate outdoor cat.


This week, we started our frog dissection lab, which I know most people have done or will do. As with all of our other dissections, the frog is gigantic. I don't know where our teacher orders these from, but there must me something in the water there. Our new chapter is on fish, reptiles and amphibians, hence the frog lab. We just opened it up on Thursday, and we had our quiz Friday.

I think I really understand this chapter so far. The concepts are fairly simple, except for some of the aspects of the fish. I really need to start tweeting more though. That is what brought my Biology grade down to a B. It's a simple assignment, but since I have trouble remembering things, it has become difficult for me. Maybe I should write it on the back of my hand so that I remember.

Altogether, I think it was a very productive week at WAAS, and ver fun. Ben and I met on Thursday after school for the Heredity part of S.O. It was very fun, and I really enjoyed doing the research. I learned a lot and it wasn't boring like studying alone was.

Hey guys. This week seemed to be all tests and papers, because we had sooo many. On Friday, we had both a math test and a science test. We also had a research paper rough draft due Friday. Suffice to say, I did a ton of studying. We finished our echinoderm dissection lab, and let me tell you, the smell of formaldehyde and fish is not a pleasant one. In fact, I almost threw up. Twice. I hardly ever get squeamish, but this was nasty. I now know why Patrick is so... you know. Echinoderms don't actually have brains. Another cool thing about echinoderms is that they shoot their stomach out their mouth to get food. The enzymes in the stomach break down food, and then the stomach retracts. On another note, we also finished our biodome lab. R.I.P to Beau our shrimp, and two of our crickets. Rihanna the snail is still alive, surprisingly , considering the terror my group mates put her through.

I need to work on tweeting. I think that is what brought my grade down to a high B. All in all, think I did fairly well this quarter, considering I pulled my English grade up pretty far. I still need to work really hard to keep the grades I have in those classes. I let my grades slip in the second and third quarters. I have always had problems with that, and I need to work on my work ethic.

Hey everyone. We didn't actually do too much in science. We finished up the grasshopper dissection lab. Did you know that the reason they can reproduce so fast was because they had sooo many ovaries? I didn't. They pretty much lined the sides of the grasshopper. To get to the intestine, we had to dig through a pile of ovaries. We also had a quiz on Thursday on Arthropods. I did well. I got a 97% on it. I would have gotten a 100, but I forgot to answer one question, which kind of stinks, but oh well!


In Social Studies, we did National History day through-out the day. I missed the last ten minutes of science because of it. Our group got second in the school, so we are moving on to Regionals. I am kind of put out because I didn't really want to go to Regionals because of all the extra stress. But it mean we will probably get a good grade on the project.

I need to work on the chapter again as we will be doing more with this unit before taking the test, as well as learning about echinoderms. I dare you to try saying that ten times fast! I knew pretty much the whole unit, but I still need to study.

Hey guys! This week, we did more dissections! I mean wow! We have done more dissections this year then we did labs last year. It's awesome. I also caught up on what I missed last week, including that test. I think I did ok, but I know I missed at least a few questions.

Foe labs this week, we dissected a squid, and boy was the smell of that thing rank. It made my eyes water worse than onions. We also started a cricket dissection lab. Like the giant worms from Australia, these giant crickets from Africa are as long as your middle finger. I swear, any animal off either Africa or Australia is mutated to be gigantic. I think I handled it pretty well considering I have an intense fear of bugs.

I need to work on lots of things. I don't really understand all the different groups in this chapter, but I do understand most of their body parts. I also need to make improvements to my hydrometer/salinometer, because during Science Olympiad, the marker on it washed off. Luckily I had a pen.

Tomorrow we are excused form all our classes to go to the library for a research paper in Social Studies, so I will miss some of the cricket dissection, which I am sad about; I really want to cut that thing open. I know I did this blog late at night, so night y'all. Have to get up early tomorrow.

Hey guys. This week, I don't have much to talk about from school, because I was sick, yet again. Basically, I slept all day or studied for Science Olympiad. I was there Monday/Tuesday, but couldn't get out of bed Wednesday. I even missed a field trip Friday, which I was not happy about. But what can ya do, right?
On Monday, we finished up our giant worm dissection lab. I didn't have mine because I let my lab partner borrow it because he was behind. Only he didn't give it back. So I still have to bug him to get it tomorrow. On Tuesday, we reviewed for the test we were supposed to take Wednesday. That wasn't the big part of our science week, though.
We got up early Saturday put on our safety green shirts, and headed out for UNCW. It was the day of Science Olympiad! We had to be there at eight o'clock for check in, and we hung out for another ten minutes. Then I went to my first event, Water Quality. The event was fairly straight forward, a simple test. Only two questions required the homemade Salinometer. The only thing I didn't understand was naming actual sea-creatures, which was no-where on the Science Olympiad study guide. I knew some from seeing the in pictures or hearing about them, like the redfish, carp, cuttlefish. I knew the difference between sponges and cnidarians because we learned that in class.
Then, I had a two hour break before Road Scholar, which is using topographic and road maps. Our director brought pizza and a bunch of other foods. Lunch was pretty awesome. The Road Scholar test was pretty hard because I couldn't find one one of the towns that was required through all the other towns and cities. And I needed that particular town for about eight or nine different questions.
The third event of my day was Heredity. Again, the test was very straight forward and we had studied a lot of the material in class, but there was one topic that was on there that we hadn't studied. It was on the study guide that we needed to know it, but we didn't study it, so whatever.
For the last hour of our day, we sat sweating in the UNCW gym. I swear that place didn't have any central air conditioning. WAAS got a lot of medals. I got fifth place out of seven in Water Quality, and our school got fifth in the region. We were so excited, because the top six schools go to state. You should have seen Mrs. Giacomelli's face! She was so shocked! At the end of the day, I had sooo much fun. I am also glad I found out that ninth graders can compete with a middle-school team! I am gonna do it again next year! Thanks to Mrs. G for being an awesome coach and teacher.
Some things I can work on are my study habits. I always wait to the last minute and get really stressed out. I will try to start studying when I hear about a test instead of waiting. I also procrastinate on projects and other work. It is a terrible habit that I need to break. I understand what we are studying in class to a T. If you ask me anything about worms, sponges, or cnidarians, I will be able to tell you.

Okay everyone. We did a lot this week and some of it is kind of gross, but really fun. We did three labs this week, two involving a microscope, one involving dissection. The first lab we did was finishing our sponges and hydra lab. We really made our hydra mad and he tried to sting us. Good luck with that little guy. They look like tiny sea anemones and the venom in their nematocysts isn't strong enough to hurt humans. So jokes on you. The second lab we did was observing flatworms. The worms were much more active than the hydra, but mine was very lazy. We created a false magnetic field to see how it affected the worm. Mine turned in a certain direction and stopped. Then it didn't move. I really couldn't tell if it was dead or not. Of all the things it could have done, it decides to die. Sad. The third lab was dissecting these enormous earthworms. These things were more than a foot long. They didn't fit lengthways into the dissecting pan, so we had to go corner to corner.

We are having a test once we finish our earthworm dissection lab, and I know most of it, but I need to touch up on my vocabulary a little bit. I also need to work on my Science Olympiad. I finished my salinometer/hydrometer so thats out of the way,  but I need to study my marine ecosystems and estuaries. I didn't realize how much work this actually was, so I took on three events, which was a bad idea on my part.  I mean, heredity I'm not worried about because one, we studied heredity earlier in the year, and my partner is researching what we don't know.

Another thing that happened this week was our science teacher, Mrs. Giacomelli, got slimed for charity. Our seventh grade students have to pick a UN Millennium goal and try to help bring it along for a huge part of their social studies grade. One of our students, Zane, picked education in Afghanistan for his project, and he somehow talked Mrs. G into getting slimed. For ever dollar donated, he would add an ounce of slime to the bucket. Zane raised three hundred dollars! Great job Zane! And a big round of applause to Mrs. G for helping out. Here is the link for the video that was on the news! http://www.wect.com/video?clipId=9868527&autostart=true

As my Aunt would say, Heeeey Y'aaallll.  Today we are going to be talking about Sponges and Cnidarians(pronounced nidarians). Sponges and cnidarians are actually pretty cool creatures. Sponges are not the sponge you use in your kitchen sink, although they look very similar. Sponges are known as the vacuum of the sea because they suck in dirty water and then they push it back out clean of all the little micro-organisms. Cnidarians are a class all their own. These are the jelly fish, sea anemones, etc. They use little polyps full of poison to catch their food, although many do not contain enough of this toxin to injure a human. An interesting fact bout jellyfish is that they do not actually have a brain! They simply float along and the food kills itself.

I understand most of the concepts this chapter, but I need to work on my vocab and some of the information. I also need to get my Science Olympiad stuff together. I am building a home made hydrometer/salinometer.

We did a lab using the microscope. We viewed sponge and Hydra parts under the microscope. On Monday, apparently we are going to abuse a living hydra cnidarian and try to make it sting something. Oh boy! I feel bad for the little guy. Haha. We are not going to actually abuse it. Just poke it a little. I don't really know how well the bio-dome lab is doing. Lat I checked, the egg sacs were developing nicely. Thanks for reading. Be back next week!

Hello everyone. This week was pretty interesting. I turned in my plant tissue lab that wee started two weeks ago before the snow days. We also did another lab called the flower dissection lab. It taught us about the male and female reproductive parts of the flower. The plant tissue lab wasn't that interesting to me because I wasn't there for the microscope part of the lab. I hate being sick. I really do. I am now going to start taking in more antioxidants to boost my immune system. It's a really good thing that I like blueberries. We also took a test  on the plants. I got had one of the best grades in the middle school. I got a 96%! I am proud of that. I know my blogs the last few weeks have been short and boring but there haven't been too many labs to talk about that you guys can do at home. The whole school has been set back because of that stupid ice storm, and now we have to make up days, which I am really not going to enjoy. We had a ton of work to do over that 'break' and we still have to make up a few days at the end of the year.
We did fun projects on Friday. We made fake 'snow' that is actually made up of a water absorbing polymers. It started out as a light coating of dust at the bottom of a cup that as soon as wee added water, poofed up. It was really cool. We are also growing crystals out on pipe cleaners. The crystals are made up of borax, which is used in laundry detergents. As the water evaporates, crystals form on the pipe cleaner. We twisted the pipe cleaners to look like snowflakes, and at the end of the lab, they should look like the picture on the left.

Wow guys1 what a week! I was out Monday for because I was sick. Then school was canceled because of a sheet of ice on the roads. It was super dangerous to go places because of the ice patches. Plus nobody here is used to snow, or for that matter ice. I really need to study for a couple of tests that were rescheduled because of the snow storm. Math science and spanish tests, oh my! I chilled this week and worked on a couple of projects. Hope you guys have had a good week and weekend. Stay safe!

Hi all. i'm not exactly feeling great right now as I went on a 15 mile backpacking trip in Uwaharrie National Forest. It was 9 degrees Fahrenheit, which is pretty cold! Pair that with the wind and it made it sort of miserable. Two summers from now, I am going to have to do that distance times five when I go to Philmont Scout Ranch in New Mexico. There really wasn't that much that we did this week except for one BIG lab. The bio-dome. A three litter bottle high tower made up of clear plastic soda bottles, potting soil, randomly assorted twigs and leaves, and crickets, earthworms, shrimp, and snails. Paired with the plants in the habitat, the bio-dome is a self-sustaining ecosystem, which is really cool! It even waters itself through evaporation and condensation. Each level serves a different purpose. The top level is the terrarium level. It houses the twigs and leaves as well as the earthworms and crickets. The second level is the evaporation condensation level. This is how the top level is watered and how water falls into the aquarium giving it nutrients from the soil above. The bottom level is the aquarium level. It houses the most water as well as two pieces of elodea, a water plant, and shrimp and snails.The one problem is the shrimp in the aquarium level are suicidal.

Hey guys! This week is pretty much gonna be me blabbing on and on about my observations from the labs we started last week. While we didn't start anything new because we had our midterms, we did observe our Lima Bean Lab every day. Mine has begun the crack open, mean it is going to grow soon! I need to get my grade up! I have an 88% and thats not good enough for me. I really let the ball drop in the second quarter, and now I need to work hard to get it back to an A. I got a 90% on my midterm, so I know I studied, but could have studied harder. My bad. I thought midterm was fairly easy, but that may just have been me. This is just a recap of last weeks post with some new things added, so if this is your first time reading my blog, make sure to go back to last weeks post. Thanks all of you reading this!

Hey y'all! Big week for my class and I this week. Our science mid-terms are this Tuesday! I am not that nervous about it, but I know I need to study. We had a rather slow week this week, but that is because of the holiday messing up our sleep schedules. Did you know that it's not healthy to sleep in on the weekends? I found out a few months ago that sleeping in on Sunday messes up your schedule for the entire week causing you to be tired and less productive. I just thought that was interesting. I almost forgot to ask! How were all your breaks?  My condolences to all viewing from the North-Eastern portion of the Untied States. Stay safe guys!

This is what I felt like the first day back.

I most definitely need to study on my mid-terms. I know most of the information but I do need to touch up on my small details. We started two new labs this week and finished up our mold terrarium lab from before winter break. We identified leaves, which I didn't find that interesting, but we did start a lab where we can actually see the roots on a plant grow! I forget the name of this lab, but  I most definitely want to see this. We are watching store bought lima beans, which I though were dead, grow into full fledged plants inside of CD cases. So cool! Anyway. Have you heard about the huge snowstorms up North? I love the snow but that much would drive me batty along with the wind chill and the ice. In other news, a man was convicted of murder by killing his stepfather, by accident, with an atomic wedgie during a drunken fight between the two. Apparently, the man suffocated on his own underpants. How awkward would that be? Thanks for looking in again and tune in next week for more on all things science( and maybe some social studies)