AP, Selected Topics, softball and lots of rain!

We had a big rain this AM but have cleared off tonight and turned cool.  I hope my clover seed is still around somewhere.  Our softball field was wet so we headed to the HS gym for practice this PM.

In AP Biology today we finished the write up on the Cardiovascular Lab and worked on our discussion questions for Mitosis and Meiosis ... will head to genetics tomorrow ... lots to review there.

In Selected Topics, we worked on Astronomy ... speed of light, stars life cycles and lots of general questions.  Students are designing a Space Truck (deep space vehicle) for tomorrow!

Softball in the gym today and to BSA to hit tomorrow.

rr

Sunday - Clover seed and our scrimmage.

On Saturday we had a intrasquad scrimmage ... Our pitching/catching is ahead of our hitting and defense but it was nice to get on the field with a sunny warm day and just play a little.  Makes it much easier to see what we need to work on this week in practice.   It appears we will have another good team this year after finishing 3rd at the state tournament last year.  Since 1997 we have had winning seasons and for the last 13 years at least 20 wins each year (and over 30 in many) ... also 13 straight Distict 15 titles in a row.  This years team appears to be on track to keep the winning tradition rolling.

We have several people helping again this year and I really appreciate them all!  We would not be able to keep as many girls on the team if were not for them.  I am always hesitant to ask anyone to help ... no money really and a lot of sacrifice away from their families ... I know, because for years I have coached and often I wish I had coached less and spent more time with my own children now that they are grown and live away from Allen County.  Like Coach Bear Bryant of Alabama once said ... "If you can live without coaching - do it".   That would also be my recommendation.  Now if you coach either of the BIG TWO ... then at least there is a little money in it!

Sunday included some hand seeding of white dutch clover in a couple of areas when I worked up last fall and seem to be bare.

John and Claire was up and that was great to visit and talk with them ... also talked to Rachel on the phone.  Hannah checked in on Saturday.  I am grateful to hear from them regularly!

Tomorrow back to work after testing on Friday.  Things are really starting to green up as Spring continues to unfold ... makes it hard to stay inside!

AP Test I over and Scrimmage on Saturday afternoon!

We had our first test in AP Biology today after 15 chapters and labs.  It was tough ... with difficult Campbell questions (70 MC) and 1 Free Response from the 2009 exam.  If you want to see the rubric from that year as well as, the free response questions the link is below ...

http://apcentral.collegeboard.com/apc/public/repository/ap09_biology_sgs.pdf

I ran the scantron sheets and the class high (both sections) was 56 with a few 40s and many in the 30s.  I always feel that if you can get half the questions correct, you are in the three range.  The free responses seem good and the graphing of data was great!
On Monday, we are to hand in our Cardiovascular Lab and start back on discussion questions Chapters 11-14 ... mostly mitosis and meiosis.  Should go quickly into genetics ... our flies and biotech labs (restriction enzyme analysis and bacterial transformation lab) have been ordered so we will probably start those week after next.

In Selected Topics, we finished our Earth Science Unit with a test.  On to astronomy on Monday ... star life cycle, the universe and some planetary study.  Should be fun!  Our lab for this section is the modeling to scale of our solar system with the sun being a tennis ball.  We will do some data collection from internet sources.

No softball practice today but, we have a Blue vs. Red scrimmage tomorrow starting at 1:30 ... players there by 1:00.  Will get some picts.

We got our schedule for the Beech playday on May 12th ...  Goodpasture, Hendersonville and Father Ryan ... all good teams for an AM rolling scrimmage.  Also, we have our pool play games for the Owensboro Catholic tournament ... Madisonville North Hopkins, Fern Creek (Louisville - good pitcher!) and South Spencer (IN) ... looks good, maybe OC will have good weather this year!

A couple of our former players have started up their seasons in college. Emma at Campbellsville is playing well but the team has had a slow start.  Caley at Bellarmine is starting in left field.  Bellarmine played Georgetown this week and I have the link below:

http://athletics.bellarmine.edu/news/2011/2/22/SB_0222113052.aspx

I had a former student from last year now in the NAVY stop by school late today ... Chris.  He is doing well and will be stationed in Hawaii ... his ship is out of port and he will join it in two weeks in Bahrain. He seems very happy to be serving in the Navy.

  Daffodils are out and I will take a walk tomorrow to survey the Spring plant growth ...

rr

Cardiovascular Lab today!

In AP we have our first of three tests ... Ecology and the first 10 chapters of Campbell up to and including photosynthesis (PSII, PSI, Calvin cycle, photorespiration, C4 and CAM). Today we took a lot of blood pressure and heart rates under different conditions ... this lab write up is due Monday.  Some students were ranked with good cardiac fitness ... it is all about stroke volume of your left ventricle as we learned!

In Selected Topics, we reviewed for our test on Earth Science and will have that test tomorrow.

It was hit at BSA day today under wet conditions ... tees, pitching machine and 140 live at bats with our older pitchers shouldering most of the work ... 51 strikeouts out the 140 at bats ... pitching is ahead of hitting for the most part ... no practice tomorrow but scrimmage at 1:00 on Saturday.

Stormy tonight later ...

Five overtimes ... WOW!

In AP today we prepped up our Cardiovascular Lab today.  We will do this tomorrow since everyone will be tired from the district tournament at Monroe County tonight.  Our first test will be on Friday.

In Selected Topics today we continued our weather study and spent some time on the USGS website looking at earthquakes recorded during the last week on the earth and in the USA.  We then finished our Rock Lab / Density calculations.  We are going to try and finish up our Earth Science Unit tomorrow with our unit test on Friday.

We had softball practice on the field today... varsity/jv first and freshman team afterwards ... working on bunting.  Tomorrow we are hitting in flights at BSA.  OFF on Friday and a scrimmage on Saturday afternoon if we can get the field ready.

Drove up by some of our beehives on the way home after dark ... still having problems with skunks or raccoons scrapping the bottom boards out.

Boys varsity basketball team lost in 5 overtimes tonight in the first round of the District 15 tournament against Monroe County at Monroe County.  Wow!

AP Test moved to Friday and a picture!

With many students going over to Monroe County for the boys district tournament game on Wednesday night, I am going to move our AP test to Friday ... that moves our next lab to Thursday ... will try and prep it tomorrow and make that happen.  Tomorrow we are continuing our review for the test,  prep our lab and move on in Chapter 11.

In Selected Topics, we did our Rock Lab today and will finish it tomorrow.  This means we can finish earth science by Friday.

Softball practice today was moved to 4:30 in the gym to work on signaling and defensive infield sets.  We had a booster club meeting after that at 6:00 so, I was late getting home.

Below is our Great Plant Growing winner, WC.  I had his uncles in science classes years ago.  He has that same genuine personality and is a great to have in class.  Congrats WC ... you can always get a job in horticulture!

AP, Selected Topics and Softball

We finished up our first unit in AP Biology ... all Ecology and the first ten chapters of Campbell through Photosynthesis, with six of the 12 required labs completed.  We are trying to make up time and content since we missed three weeks of class because of snow.  Test is on Thursday ... we are doing some review tomorrow and looking at some essay questions from the past.

In Selected Topics tomorrow we have the rock lab ... as we continue in earth science.  Today we worked on plate tectonics and the rock cycle as well as, continued our weather observations.

After school we had a varsity softball practice ... we were able to get in over an hour and a half before it rained.  Stopped by to see our shortstop, Macey, on the way home.  Her broken leg is mending but not fast enough to suit her or anyone else.  We are planning on her to return before season's end.

Lots of rain on the way home and listened to our girls play in the district tournament tonight.

I promised I would get WC on my website tonight as the winner of the Great Plant Growing contest but left my camera at school ... will do that tomorrow.

Last weekend checked my beehives and all were doing well ... noticed some workers with pollen on their back legs.  It was red so I am assuming there may be some maple trees blooming.  It won't be long to Spring and some flowers and I for one cannot wait!

rr

Stand by ...

Got home really late last night (for me).

Yesterday we hit in flights at BSA starting at 3:00 and ending about 6:00 ... with live pitching.  I pitched some to the younger players and will be on some kind of medication all weekend!  Went back to school after hitting to work on the Science Olympiad problem I am to conduct today and clean my room (lab stuff everywhere from the work we did last week).  Got home, ate and went to bed.

I am going to post the softball team rosters this weekend.  As always we have some students that are not very good players trying out for the team ... either they are not very talented athletically, never given the opportunity to play (no travel ball or lessons of any kind)  or they are just want to belong to something.  We will try to keep as many as possible ... it is public school team (mission impossible!) and even though our varsity team is very good (should be ranked in the top 5 preseason in the state), we should try to make room for projects and for people to participate in some way ... it helps the student but more work for coaches.  Will see.

Will update tonight or tomorrow.

Another AP Lab completed ... and picts!

Today we did AP Lab #5 ... Respiration Lab using germinating pea seeds and respirometers to measure respiration (by oxygen used) at two different temperatures ... a couple of picts from todays lab ... including the third picture of Oscar our cooler we use for ice during our experiments ... now decorated!  Oscar is the one in the center of the picture.

AP will finish up some paperwork on our respiration lab and go over discussion questions in Chapters 9-10.

Selected Topics took their first unit test today and will finish it tomorrow.  Also, we are now in earth science currently working on weather.

Softball tryouts continued today ... just got home a few minutes ago so will write a recommendation for a student and go on to bed.

Another beautiful day in Southern KY!

It was beautiful here today ... lots of sun and temperature in the 60's.  Wish I had more time to check my bees ... I put pollen patties in the top of the hives a couple of weeks ago and some sugar ... I will check them on Saturday and Sunday.  Meanwhile, I have been feeding them in open buckets with sugar water each morning before I leave for school ... when I get home the buckets are empty ... will see on Saturday.

Saturday is also Science Olympiad scrimmage at our high school ... good luck ACS

Softball tryouts continued after school ... we are having a separate tryout for middle school students ... so, we didn't finish until about 6:00.  Tomorrow we have a rolling scrimmage, starting with the oldest players after school.

In AP Biology we reviewed the labs we have done to date and had a lengthy discussion over aerobic respiration (Chapter 9).  Tomorrow is the Respiration Lab (#5).

In Selected Topics we finished our review of biology and will take our unit test tomorrow.  We also started earth science with a weather project.

Will try and get some picts of the lab tomorrow and post them.

rr

First day of softball ... 2011

Tryouts started for our softball teams today.  The field was a little soft but it worked out with some diamond dry.  Weather was wonderful with temperature around 60 at the start of practice.

In AP today we finished our Mitosis and Meiosis Lab, took a quiz and prepped up our lab (AP Lab 5) for Thursday.  Tomorrow is a lecture day with work on Respiration.

In Selected Topics, we are reviewing for our biology test which will continue tomorrow.  Also tomorrow, we will start our Earth Science Unit with some weather analysis.

Got in late so cutting it short ...

Picture of the Dance Off Champions 2011!

To mark the end of winter conditioning, our softball team held a dance off competition (Wii) ... it was very competitive with the coaches hanging in for a couple of rounds.  Below are the final four ... Kensi, Allison, Ali, and Katelyn.  Allison dominated in the last round to become the overall individual Champion ... congrats!

Tomorrow is the first day of the softball tryouts ... good luck to all!

Back in the saddle again ... Happy Valentine's Day!

We had our softball dance off today ... will post a picture when I get home ... still at school and I have a beekeepers meeting at 7:00.  Congrats to our winner, Allison ... you had all the moves!... final 4 included Allison, Kinsey, Katelyn and Ali.  The coaches ... well, it is a good thing we are coaching and not playing!

Happy Valentine Day!  and Happy Birthday to my youngest daughter, Hannah.  27 years ago was one of the four best days of my life!

It was a tough day getting everyone going today.  AP Biology did most of AP Lab #3, Mitosis and Meiosis Lab and should be able to finish during the first twenty minutes of class tomorrow.  We have Lab #5 on Thursday and Friday ... Respiration Lab.  Tomorrow we are going over discussion questions from Chapters 6-8 and we will be doing some reviewing since we have missed so much school.

In Selected Topics we finished our Great Plant Growing Contest ... congrats to WC ... for growing the largest pea plant over the last three + weeks ... being able to grow plants means you might be able to have a garden!  An important skill for a citizen of the USA!  We also began work on classification or organisms and taxonomy.  We will finish that and review for our first unit test on Biology.  This test will be on Thursday.

Tomorrow is the first official day of softball ... can use balls and bats instead of just conditioning.  We will be having tryouts from February 15-18.  Our team has come a long way since we started the program in 1995.  Thanks to many many players and coaches that moved the program forward.  It has been a long and winding road to be one of the very best programs in Kentucky.

Also, made a trip up to Champaign IL to see my oldest daughter and son-in-law this weekend.  It was a great trip and I really enjoyed seeing them!

Picture of the Snow ... Spring around the corner?

A picture of the snow from the window near where I usually work ... I love the hickory trees on the ridge!  Makes it hard to grade papers!  Birds feeding on sidewalk and feeder to the left.

2 more inches of snow and NO SCHOOL again!

We had two more inches + of snow yesterday afternoon and evening.  We have several dozen birds at the feeders this morning eating sunflower seeds like there is no tomorrow ... our feeder up by the back porch has about 25 golden finches, a few juncos and two cardinals.  Our feeders down by the woods have a broader assortment of birds.
Occasionally a red-tailed hawk or sparrow hawk (actually American Kestrel / a falcon, as Uncle Glen has pointed out on occasion) will raid the feeders.  I had not seen the red-tailed hawk in action until the other day when our local resident hawk flew across the side yard at about 40 mph at two feet off the ground into a group of mostly mourning doves ... panic set in and there were birds flying in ever direction ... not sure the hawk was actually successful or not ...  I love watch our hawks and owls.

Today we were to have our last conditioning session for softball ... this has been postponed to next Monday after school.  Tryouts start on Tuesday and of course we will not be busy nearly daily until June.

Working on my AP Bio Cheat sheet this morning ... we are now in Plan Z.  We will get in all our labs but, some content will have to be sacrificed.  The biggest problem is that students will not have enough time to digest the material and review ... we have missed so much school and of course, we will have to take the test in May regardless of the days we miss.

Yesterday, I walked on the last of the clover seed (yellow sweet and ladino) on the fields where I planted hairy vetch and austrian peas last fall.  It was snowing and easy to see where I had been when walking back and forth across the field. The farmer's legend is to seed on the snow in the dark of the moon in February and as the snow melts, the seed is taken into the ground and germinates at a high rate ... we'll see.

Yellow sweet clover is not native and a biennial ... our soils are low pH which is not good for clover and we will not have blooms this year for our bees.

We still have 15 hives buzzing ... but February and March is a critical time as honey stores run low.  I have put in a protein patty and some sugar candy (one batch = 7.5 lbs sugar, 1 pint of corn fructose syrup, 2 cups of water and  1/4 teaspoon of cream of tartar ... bringing to boil, mix at 180 degrees and pour) on a warm day about two weeks ago ... if it warms up this weekend, I will open the hives and check to see if they are using it for food and if there is still capped honey in the top frames.

Lots of seed and bee catalogs coming in the mail over the last few weeks ... something to read at night instead of doing school work ... Walter T Kelley's Bee catalog is local and better that it has ever been but my favorite bee catalogs are Betterbee and Bushy Mountain Bee Farm.  I still like the Stokes Seed Catalog which I have used for years.

Allen County Beekeepers will meet on Monday evening ... 7:00 pm at the Allen County Extension Office / downtown Scottsville.
                                                           http://www.allenkybees.com/

Hopefully we will have school tomorrow!

No School again tomorrow ... AP stand by ...

We did not have school today and we will not have school tomorrow ... it is serious now for our semester AP courses.  On the AP page of my website, I have discussion questions for the next two chapters you should spend some time with them!

Today our softball team had their last winter conditioning session.  After a little dance competition later this week, we will have tryouts February 15-18.

Today, I put together 30 medium supers for Spring ... tonight I am painting them with primer ... may work on the frames tomorrow.  It occurred to me the other day that with 15 hives, I do not have enough supers if we have a good Spring for honey.  Since later this Spring we will be playing softball nearly every night and AP will be in hyper speed by then ... I better prepare now.  All these medium supers are from Kelley's beekeeping supplies in Grayson County and were sawed out well.

  I will update my google docs for AP tonight or in the morning!   ... Keep working if you want a 3-5.  Otherwise,  ...

rr

Snowing and a short day at school!

School let out at 12:40 in advance of the rain turning to snow.  The ground is warm so not a lot sticking to the ground at Holland.

Our Softball team's shortstop had surgery on her leg today ... she is out now and we all hope everything went well and she will be coming home soon to start her rehab.  Hopefully, we can get her on the field for at least part of her senior season ... she is a tough one and if anyone can do it, she can!

AP Biology - A disappointment that several students did not have their labs ready to hand in when they came to class and we had to use some class time to finish them off ... that is going to end next lab!  We did a background prep on our next lab ... Mitosis and Meiosis.  We spent the remaining time on our discussion questions.  Change of plan tomorrow, Club Schedule Day (can you believe it!) ... if that is the case, then we will continue our discussion question on Chapters 5-7.  If not we will start our lab.  Hard to tell if we will have school ... I have given up guessing.

In Selected Topics in Science, we did a lab that simulated how proteins work.  We subjected our "human" proteins to room temperature, heat, a lot of heat and boiling.  Each change in our human proteins, resulted in a reduction in rate of reaction ... our substrate was toothpicks ... hence, The Toothpickase Lab.  This explains the proteins in all organisms work under certain conditions and changes in temperature or pH can alter their shape and how they work.  This took up most of the block because we headed to the buses to leave early.  We are going to start our review of our biology unit tomorrow ... earth science and astronomy are on the horizon.

The Great Plant Growing Contest will wrap up toward the end of the week.  We have some budding botanists/farmers in our Selected Topics Class ...

Be careful driving tomorrow ... the road will refreeze.   rr

The Agenda for school tomorrow ... Monday Day!

In AP Biology classes, we have the mitosis/meiosis lab on Tuesday.  Tomorrow we hand in the write up on our last lab ... finish cell science questions ... a quiz on cells ... and prep up Tuesday's lab.

Selected Topic in Science ... we are going to finish up cell biology and replication ... tomorrow we have a short lab on how enzymes work ... The Toothpickase Lab ... hopefully we can finish our biology unit by Friday and move on to Earth Science and Astronomy.

Best of luck to Macey tomorrow as doctors operate and put a rod in her leg.  We will be thinking about you!

See you all in the morning ... drive carefully and wear your seatbelt every time you drive!

Coach Roberts

WKU Football and Clover Seed

I saw this weekend a list of the recruits for Western Kentucky University Football ... probably top recruits on the front page list of the BG Daily News ... with only one player from Kentucky and most from Florida and Georgia (Thursday paper).  I hate that and still believe that public colleges should have half their recruits from Kentucky.  Of course I know what you are going to say ... "But we cannot win with these KY players!"  I think WKU football probably could win just as many games with KY players!

My opinion all along has been recruit KY first and often ... their parents, grandparents and friends pay taxes for those schools and recruiting should reflect that ... in the end, it is higher education and about education and not sports.  Let's go with 50 percent of all athletic scholarships in public university must go to Kentucky student athletes ... and not Fl!  Maybe coaches would have to coach and not buy their players. Don't get me started on UK basketball!

This afternoon, I walked on some more clover seed ... 80% yellow sweet clover and 20% ladino clover ... all seed was coated and inoculated.  It was beautiful outside and a good day to do it (not too wet).

Here is the problem getting seed local or at least coated seed ... 50 pounds of coated seed means that when you buy the seed, 34% of the weight is coating and the germination on this seed was 80%.  Which means of the 50 pounds ... only 26 pounds of live seed.  I always try to buy local but seems like I just keep getting burnt and Southern States - Scottsville.  I am going to try and plan ahead and stick with OutsidePride.

Also walked on some Pacific Gold Mustard for some early blooms for the bees ... will see how it works and post some picts.

Bee school at the HS went great on Saturday ... it was fun!

rr

Friday ... some bad news ... bee school tomorrow.

Today after school our softball team was hitting in flights on their own at BSA.  Our shortstop, Macey was in a car accident going to practice.  Her car hit a pothole and she over corrected, running off the road (Franklin Road) and hitting a large rock.  She has a broken femur and will be operated on this Monday after the swelling goes down.

Taking into consideration the seventeen year program of fastpitch softball at ACS, Macey has been one of the best.  She was our MVP at the Azalea Tournament in South Carolina and since then has won many awards.  She is one of the smartest players on the field I have ever coached.

This week, she and Catie were paired together during conditioning and I watched them as they pushed themselves to maximum reps at each station ... watching them do their best when no one was watching ...  I admire students and players that work hard each day ... doing their best, at whatever level.  Macey is one of those players that loves to play and more importantly passionately prepares to be the best player she can be ... and that is what I admire most of Macey.  Praying for your speedy recovery ... we want you back with our team as soon as possible!

At school today, AP Bio finished their Diffusion / Osmosis Lab.  Cell questions for Monday and on Tuesday we have the Mitosis and Meiosis Lab scheduled.

In Selected Topics, we finished our microscope lab.  We have cell science and ACT prep scheduled for Monday and a lab about how proteins work ... The Toothpickase Lab.

Tomorrow is the Allen County Bee School ... lots of smart people that know a lot about bees.  I for one will be on the front row taking it all in ... starts at 8:15 AM ... equipment vendors will be present.

rr

Picts - Osmosis and Diffusion Lab

Osmosis and Diffusion Lab continues tomorrow ... be ready for a ten question quiz before we resume the lab ... all the questions are concerning the lab we will finish tomorrow!   Biochem winners are posted under Contest Winners on Patscience.com.   AP Bio First Block class at work below!

Labs all day today! ... and picts!

Today in AP Biology we finished most of AP Lab #1, Diffusion and Osmosis (this is our fourth AP required lab since returning to school and starting AP).  There are five parts to this lab ... all focusing on the movement of molecules and water ... in and out of cells (we are using dialysis tubing to simulate cells).  Everyone did well and the results look good so far.  We will finish this lab tomorrow ... in addition, we will continue our study of cells ... we have a few discussion questions on this topic.

In Selected Topics in science, we are working on a microscope lab ... studying the phases of mitosis (onion root tip), slides on monocots and dicots and also, some wet mounts from my pond water / algae containers.  We had a little trouble focusing the microscope and finding the images but, by the end of the block everyone seemed to be doing well.  We will analyze of classroom data on mitosis tomorrow in class and finish this lab.

Winners of Biochem Poker / A Review of Biochemistry / I will download to my blog and website this evening ... sorry, you know how I feel about this ol' Dell I have at school.

Congrats to all but, especially to the four that lost everything from going all in on the last hand ... you know who your are!

rr

Lots of Biology and Can you save for your child's college education?

A reoccurring question that is asked by students and others is saving for my college education.  Yeah sure!

I was once at a teacher biotech program at Princeton University when my children were small.  An older teacher there was telling me about his son that had graduated a few years back from Bates College (Maine). I asked him how being a teacher he could have saved enough money to send his son there (one of the best small colleges in the country)?  He looked at me smiling and said, "Rick, you and your wife will never be able to save enough money to send you kids to a great school."  He, of course, was correct.

His point was that even if you do save a considerable amount of money for your child to go to college your first child will use that all up the first year or two, you will never qualify to need based aid and sometimes ruin your chances for other aid since your financial statement will show that money saved for that purpose.  What to do for you second or third child? 

This person went on to say that he thought the best chance to give your child a chance to go to a great school was spend all your extra money to enrich that child's life ... spend the money for every travel opportunity, books, camps and every other educational opportunities ... and hope it would be enough for a merit scholarship.  Even then, he said it would not be enough, but try to get them in and maybe they would find a way to stay.

When I went to Centre in the fall of 1971 (Wow! that seems old!) the cost for tuition,  room and board at Centre for the year was $3000.  I was signed, sealed and ready to be delivered to THE Ohio State University when fate stepped in and I scored 37 points in a basketball game vs Fairfield HS and the referee in that game (a friend of the coach at Centre then) made a phone call to make the connection there.  Long story short, I go to Centre instead of OSU.  The point is, that now it costs over $40,000  to go to Centre.  College tuition and room/board is out of control and even though there is more money available to some kids today, if you are a child of a dual family income, you are not going to get any/much need-based aid.

To finish this ... best case scenario and my advice to students here ... they will be parents soon enough ... save what you can, but, read to your children every day ...  then enrich their lives in every way you can ... and pray that will be enough to get them to that college AND they will be smart enough to stay/graduate.

Sorry ... all above was precipitated by a conversation today.  College cost is a monster ... if Centre continues on this pathway ... a child going to college in 2051 would pay over $500,000 a year. 

On to today's events ...

In AP today we handed in our Photosynthesis Lab, did a little technique prep for our Diffusion and Osmosis Lab tomorrow ... started our study of cells ... review biochem and played a little Biochem Poker ... first block winners were Buff, Hannah and Lauren ... second block winners were Brittney, Katie and Caleb.  Picts tomorrow!  Also tomorrow is the start of our Diffusion Osmosis Lab ... AP Lab #1

In Selected Topics we did some readings in science, followed by, a start on cell biology ... tomorrow, we will be doing a microscope lab ... mitosis of onion tip cells, and more.

rr

Photosynthesis Lab finished! ... moving on! Spring?

Sorry for the failure to blog yesterday ... lots going on this week ... two labs this week in AP and I am helping with the Allen County Beekeepers Bee School on Saturday ... starts at 8:30 and weather looks good.  If you want to some great bee info and look at some weird equipment (courtesy of Kelley's Bee Equipment / Clarkson, Grayson County) you should stop by.

We wrapped up AP Lab #4 / Photosynthesis today in our AP classes ... great results from chloroplasts extracted from turnips and mustard ... not exactly what the lab calls for but they were the freshest (and not very fresh) greens in the produce section at Food Lion.  I added some leaves from some of the plants I keep in my classroom.  The paper chromatography of pigments from geranium leaves yielded great results!
Students used our two spectrophotometers and that also went well.

Tomorrow is a short session of biochem poker to review biochemistry and the start of cell biology.  Thursday and Friday is our Diffusion / Osmosis Lab (five labs in one).  We will demo some technique for this lab tomorrow.  We are trying to complete all 12 required labs before Spring Break.

In Selected Topics in Science, we did a paper chromatography lab to separate different inks found in black ink ... The Who Killed Waldo Lab ... All but one group was able to solve the mystery!  Tomorrow is cell biology and some ACT prep.

This last weekend I was able to prepare a couple of small fields and plant hairy vetch (a legume) and clover.  Hopefully it will benefit our honeybees in the future and I am sure our deer will enjoy some for the their salads!

Also ... I have been hearing some sandhill cranes on the move between Long Creek and Barren River ... a sure sign that Spring is getting closer ... and I for one will be happy to see it arrive!

rr