Back to blogging:
7th graders: you have a test on Friday on our Bodyworks Unit, and have had Study Guides since Monday.  Finish answering the questions today. Also, your "Feel the Beat " projects are due tomorrow.  As I've mentioned in class, extra credit posters are third priority (after studying for the test and turning in your completed project), so the posters may be turned in after the actual project.  Projects msut be turned in tomorrow (with after school detention on Thursday for those not yet done); I'll take your extra credit poster as late as Tuesday of next week. 

6th Graders: you have a test on Friday on our Chemistry of Materials Unit, and have had Study Guides since Monday. 
1. Finish answering the questions today through page 3; I'll assign page 4 for homework tomorrow night.   Those of you who are motivated  are welcome to complete the entire packet.
2. Also, most of you received a reading and note taking packet.  If you did not get it, it consists of the first 4 pages of each of the following activities: 25, 26, 27, and 28 of Unit B, Chemistry of Materials. So if you didn't get the package, check out the electronic version of our SEPUP textbook on line AND take notes in your science notebook as follows:
Conservation of Mass: The total mass of the reactants equal the total mass of the products in a chemical reaction in a closed system.  

• A closed system is a container that holds a chemical reaction so that none of the reactants or products can escape  from the reaction container.
• An Open System is where a chemical reaction takes place in a container that allows any reactants or products to escape.
• So, even though chemical wastes cannot be completely destroyed, they can be made less hazardous by:
• Diluting - adding lots of water.  Serial dilution means adding lots of water, then splitting up that solution into parts and adding even more water, and then doing the same thing over and over again. So you go through a whole series of dilutions to end up with a very large amount of a very diluted solution.  
• Incineration - burning of wastes at very high temperatures(greater than 1,200 degrees F or 650 degrees C).
• Reclaiming the metal (removing it from the waste) so it can be reused by combining the solution containing hazardous waste with another solution that causes the waste to
• precipitate (fall out of solution), or
• Replacing the metal in a waste compound with another metal.

I plan on posting the answers to the review sheets over the next two nights. If you have not been able to answer some of the questions, look for the answers tomorrow night.

AND If you did not do your homework, at least you will have some of the information going into the test. But then you're probably not bothering to look at my blog either....

Oh, yeah, there's a couple of cool science stories out there this week, most importantly, that the Higgs Boson may have been detected, and the huge new "space-vehicle-launching plane" being planned, and my personal favorite: "Camera captures light particles moving through space" by Claire Connelly at news.com.au.  See the video at http://www.news.com.au/technology/sci-tech/camera-captures-light-particles-moving-through-space/story-fn5fsgyc-1226222016231.