8th grade Unit 2

So far 8th grade at WAAS has been great. We have done many fun things in science, my favorite part of science class are the labs. I really like the acid,bases,and buffers lab because it was interesting to see how much an acid or base can affect water. It was cool to literally see the changes. Unit 2 was hard and confusing at first but at the end when I studied, I understood all of the big words and I understood how they all correlated to each other. It was really intimidating at first because there were so many words that I couldn't understand and didn't know the meaning. I want to be able to remember all of this so that I will have a base knowledge of biology in high school. I also have a goal to pass the EOC at the end of the year so that I can get credit for this class. 

We also did a fun lab where we were testing to see of certain foods have Vitamin C,fat,Protein,Salt,Starch,and Sugar.I think that the most interesting part of this lab was when Mrs.G blended up a "meal" from McDonalds. This was disgusting to see, but it was also interesting to see that the meal didn't have any protein. I thought that was the most interesting part of the lab considering the fact the there is a piece of meat in the burger. 

We also did another lab that tested the effects of acids and bases on water and buffers. This was a fun lab because we got to add acids and bases to water and see how the pH changed. We also got to see the effects of acids and bases on buffers. Buffers are interesting because it doesn't let acids and bases have a big effect on them. I feel like this lab was a good way to demonstrate and understand acids and bases. We used an electronic pH tester to determine the pH of the liquid. Another interesting part of this lab was that we tested the effects of buffer and acids on liver  and potato homogenate. That is basically liver and water blended together. 

On September 12-14 the whole middle school went to Kanuga. Kanuga is an outdoor school for kids to experience learning outside. This was pretty fun and all of the activities were interesting and hands on. My favorite activity was rock climbing and learning about how mint mentos create a flash in your mouth when you bite on it hard. To be honest, the food was ok but I feel like it could have been better. There was one other school there but they didn't really seem to bother us. My most favorite part of the trip was rock climbing. It was a good exercise and it felt satisfying to get to the top. We climbed on a natural rock with harnesses. 

The Start of 8th grade blog (Unit 1)

Last Friday, we finished unit 1 in 8th grade. Unit 1 was mostly a review of general science and  mostly safety. We took the test last Friday. The first day was great, it was fun to get back into science and get my mind turning. My most favorite activity that Mrs.G demonstrated in science was dumping liquid nitrogen in hot water. This was cool because it created a big cloud. This year, I will be getting back into Science Olympiad and I will be doing 2 events. One of the reasons I want to do Science Olympiad again is because it will show up on my record for high school. One of my goals is to do very well in my events and feel accomplished and not really worry about the results. Some of my goals for this year is to learn more about science and get even better grades than last year.

I want to leave the school feeling accomplished and ready for high school, also I want to know that I left the school that I tried the best that I could.  Since science is the subject that I am most interested in, I want to leave strong. I like the experiments that we did in all of the years, I never really did not like a science a class or any activity that we did. I want to achieve good results in every subject that I do.It will be sad to leave the school and especially Mrs.G's science class, her class are amazing and interactive. I have had so much fun in 6th and 7th grade in her classes. WAAS has great teachers, they don't have the attitude of "it just another day at work".  They support the students and they help out.  I think that they are engaged in the class and they work really hard for us to learn.

The beginning of this year flew by for me, the first week was already two weeks ago. I hope that this year will be fun. I want this year to really prepare me for high school and I hope it does. This is my first blog of 8th grade! I want to do well in Science Olympiad, last year we had an issue with one of my events, but I hope this year will be better. I want to try my hardest and achieve my personal goals. I hope that I can leave feeling accomplished and like I did my best because last year I felt like I could have done better and the whole situation could have been less stressful.

My summer was really enjoying, my mom and I went to the Philippines to see my cousins and grandma. This was really exciting because I got to see most of my family and it was relaxing to go to a beach resort. After that, we took a family vacation to Hawaii. I liked it so much, I got a nice tan and this is where I really got to relax on the beach.We went to Oahu, Maui, the main island, and Molokai. I think that Maui was the best out of all, we went snorkeling and went up to the active volcano.

 This was the bubble lab, it was the second lab that we did, I liked this lab because it was fun and interactive. I had fun blowing bubbles on the table.

This was on the first day of school. Mrs.G mixed liquid nitrogen with hot water. I thought this was cool because it made a big cloud.