The seventh graders began exploring Google SketchUp. They practiced making and designing houses. They made doors, windows, roofs, and even arches. They built unique houses and painted them.
Category / 7th-Grade Post
LED Light Bulbs vs. Regular Light Bulbs
This week, the seventh graders carried out experiments to see whether regular lights or LED lights were more efficient. The students split up into five groups. Each group had a battery pack with two batteries, six wires, three regular bulbs, and three LED bulbs. They had to set up different types of circuits, such as series or parallel, for both of the kinds of lights. They then used multimeters to measure the voltage in volts and current in amperes.
Catapults
The seventh graders had to design catapults that would be able to launch a marshmallow the farthest. They only had ten minutes to plan and work together to build their catapults. The materials they had to utilize were popsicle sticks, rubber bands, a binder clip, a spoon, and some marshmallows to test their structures.
Solar Power
The seventh graders learned about solar power and how it was affected by different aspects. Some of the aspects that impact solar power are weather, seasons, and location. Today, the seventh graders performed experiments to see how heat and light affected solar power. They used lamps and shined them onto small solar panels. They learned how to use multimeters to measure the amount of voltage the solar panels produced.
Aluminum Foil Boats
The seventh graders were given the challenge of designing an aluminum foil boat that would be able to float in water with marbles in it. They were given only fifteen minutes to come up with a design that would be able to withhold the most amount of marbles. They had two pieces of aluminum foil. One was for practice and the second one was for the real challenge. They came up with unique and different ideas. The winner was a rectangular-shaped boat with 107 marbles in it!
Spaghetti Noodle Towers
The seventh graders worked on their team building skills this session by working together to build the tallest structure they can out of spaghetti noodles, string, tape, and a marshmallow. The groups had to think about the kind of base that would be best to support their structure. They came up with unique ideas. They also performed experiments to find out which wind mill blades were the most efficient.
Paper Cup Buildings
This morning, the seventh graders did an activity that involved them to work in teams. Their task was to build the tallest building out of paper cups in ten minutes. Through this activity, the teams had to work efficiently to build the structure. They had to share their ideas of which techniques would work the best and listen to each other, too. All of the teams worked well together and this reflected in their paper cup buildings.
First Day in 7th Grade
Today, the seventh graders were introduced to their new class and teacher, Ms. Nemeth! The students will learn about many things, such as environmental engineering and renewable resources. The students watched a video about nature and saw a presentation about Ms. Nemeth’s profession as an environmental engineer. They took an environmental challenge quiz and a math diagnostic test to see how much they already knew. They did an ice breaker activity called “Find a Classmate Who…” and walked around the class to find other students with the different characteristics. The names could only be used once, making them converse with everyone to fill out their papers. The sparked conversations helped them get to know each other better!
End of the year!!
It has been an awesome year, you guys have accomplished a lot over the school year. have a great summer and good luck next year in eighth grade.
Last Day
Today is the last day for the class to finalize anything on their green home projects. It has been a great year, and can’t wait to see their finalized projects.
