Class Korowai on Mr Bones

Every year I get my students to decorate two feathers for their class korowai - one with images or words that represent who they are, and one with a specific goal for their time in science. 

This year I decided to merge all the feathers from my four classes to make one large korowai rather than four smaller one, and actually have it worn as a cloak by Mr Bones rather than displayed flat on the classroom walls. 

Here is the finished product:

Year 12's Respiration Song

Hey Tyrone, what are you listening to? 

Oh it's a new song, it's called the Respiration Rap Trap!

How does it go, maybe I know it!

"oxygen and glucose, this changes to CO2 and water yaaaa, don't forget the ATP-"

"-ok ok, let's just listen to the full rap!

Here you go:

Lyrics: 

Tamaki Production

Biooo Babes

Yaa-a-

Oxygen and Glucose

VERSE 1

I’m like hey what’s up? Respire.

Need some energy for my cell life pro-ces-ses.

I just wanna turn, (pause) some glucose into it.

Use mitocondria, oxygen and the glucose.

Show you how to change it, making ATP for sure.

Make some more stuff, like water and a gas.

Carbon dioxide, what a waste product.

Energy requires, four main reactions.

With in and outer membrane, and a cristae, matrix though.

Man I swear I love it how it works in me for,

Making energy, in my different tissues,

Muscles they have many, cause of work that they do,

Other tissues they have less, less energy on show.

CHORUS

Oxygen and glucose

this changes to, CO2 aaandwater, yeaah,

Don’t forget the ATP,

It’s the energy for the cell from respiration yeaah

Mitochondria baby,

The folded cristae in-crease surface are-aaahh

Mitochondria baby,

Found more in the tissues that need more energy

I’m like “hey whats up?” Respire.

VERSE 2

Glucose enters the cell, in the cytoplasm it sits,

splits in two, this is called glycolysis.

I just might tell you now that the two molecules

Are called pyruvate, and now more reactions accelerate.

They go in mitochondria, and the link reaction happens,

on the cristae they roll through to the Krebs Cycle happy that they’re still on the cristae, there’s like a thousand reactions,

all you need to know is,

that the Krebs cycle happens.

CHORUS

Oxygen + glucose

this changes to,CO2 aaandwater, yeaah,

Don’t forget the ATP,

It’s the energy for the cellfrom respiration yeaah

Mitochondria baby,

The folded cristae in-crease surface are-aaahh

Mitochondria baby,

Found more in the tissues that need more energy

I’m like “hey whats up?” Respire.

VERSE 3

Electron-tran-sport chain pumps out hy-dro-gen ions,

Falling down concentration gradient it’s own,

Makes the ATP, now you definitely know,

Cause respirate or nothing,

Re-re-respirate or nothing!!

Yeah,

You heard my class.

We sound like a million mitochondria on this track.

And there’s more mitochondria in cells and tissue that need more energy to do more work.

Put your mitochondria where your mouth is so it can keep running.

Mitochondria make cell money.

We rollin in it.

Yeah.

Tamaki Productions.

Shh.

Earthquake Engineers

By the last day of Term 1 9KMn was ready to put what they had learned about earthquakes, P-waves and S-waves to the test! 

First I shared this presentation with students, who quickly flew through the vocabulary to get to the exciting practical! 

Once students could show me their finished vocabulary I gave them each 30 marshmallows (15 large and 15 small), and 24 sticks (8 long skewers, 8 medium skewers and 8 toothpicks). 

(Next time we do this activity I would give 30 large marshmallows, as the smaller ones proved little use).

The brief was to design a two-story building that would survive through the primary wave of an Earthquake without toppling over or crumbling. 

Jayden and Chase design a pyramid shaped structure. 

We would test their structure in a tray of jelly that simulates P-waves. Students would observe what happened with their design, record their observations, then make improvements to their structure. 

Autymn and Paris designed a cube-and-pyramid 2-level structure and got ready to test it...

The structure proved to be a bit wobbly - back to the drawing board! Perhaps more cross-beams needed? Failure is the best way to learn :) 

The overwhelming success for the day came from a group of boys - PJ, Antonio, Auri and Tionee. Check out the video below to see their design!

Click here to see an example of Autymn's finished engineer work, although noone in class had time to design a poster to sell their idea to an engineering company (on the last slide).

By the end of the lesson I wanted students to have learned that structures are more stable lower to the ground, if they taper or have less mass at the top, and if they have additional support from things like cross-beams.

To revise these principles we finished the lesson off with a class favourite - a Kahoot quiz! Click here to be taken to the quiz I made to summarize this lesson.

The idea for this lesson came from this webpage