Welcome to Tri. 3: A new unit and some policy changes.

The first week of the third trimester is almost complete and that means a new unit for 8th grade Science!

This week we started learning about Space-even though it was a short week!  On Wednesday each class had a Space Inquiry on Google Classroom where they had to make predictions about what they thought could be found/seen in our Solar System.  They then had to find evidence supporting their predictions and write a brief explanation of that evidence and cite their source in MLA style formatting.  The last step of the inquiry was to look at some examples of space exploration.  They had to research four different examples of space exploration and write a 2-4 sentence paragraph explaining their research, and again, cite their source.  This assignment is due today-so please remind your student to double check that they've hit the "turn-in" button on Classroom!

This trimester will be a busy one, not just in Science class, but school-wide.  Namely due to the Iowa Assessments that are coming up NEXT WEEK.  All students should have received a summary of their percentile rankings from the last time they took the assessments and a sheet that they are supposed to review with their parents/guardians.  Please remind your students to go over these with you!

As an incentive to study not just for their Iowa Assessments, but to remain on task and focused on doing well all trimester a new policy has been adopted.  At the end of the trimester students will have the option to not take their final exam for Science if:

• They have an overall score of "A" at the end of the trimester.  (Remember this is on a class by class basis.)
• If your student improves on their Iowa Assessment they can opt out of the final for that subject.  For Science that means they have to improve by the percentile ranking discussed during Seminar-if you have questions about this I'll include a link to the blog with these scores here!) 

If they don't quite make the requirements to opt out of their final, there's an option they have to get a little help on their test.  

If they have all of their homework complete and turned in ON TIME they can use 1 note card (front and back) on their final.  

I know it seems strange to be talking about the final test at this point but it'll be here sooner than we all think and I wanted to let everyone know about the new policy right away!  

Let's all have an awesome trimester!

-Ms. Trecek