Allele superlatives, Transpiration Lab and Structures are ready!

Earlier this week we did our required lab on Population Genetics studying genetic drift, selection and heterozygote advantage. Below are the Superlative Winners from Second Block AP (not a part of the lab, but fun!) ... Categories included Most Likely to Succeed (in Fertilization), Least Likely to Succeed, Most Likely to get you Grounded by your Parents, Most Colorful, Plain Jane/Joe, and most Environmentally Sound ... can you pick them out!

Congratulations ... Sara, Caroline, Hannah, David and Caleb!

Today in AP, we started our Transpiration Lab.  We tested Brussels Sprouts to four conditions ... wind, mist, light and room conditions.  Students used potometers (tubing with a glass pipette) to measure the amount of water moving through plants under each condition.  We were able to run the experiment and collect data.  Tomorrow we will analyze the data and examine some cross-section slides of monocots and dicots.  Our Drosophila continues ...

In Selected Topics, students worked hard to finish their towers for testing tomorrow.  Lots of good thinking and planning!  Will have the results tomorrow!

Played South Warren yesterday evening in the rain and won 16-1.  We had 11 hits but, South Warren had 9 errors ... not good!  Our game with Blackman HS (TN) tonight was cancelled due to rain. We play Monroe County tomorrow.

Lastly, out high school softball team is ranked #1 in the latest Kentucky coaches poll.

http://www.kyhighschoolsoftball.com/rankings.htm

This is the first time our team has ever been ranked higher than third.  It is only a ranking and we have a lot of work to do but, we have had lots of good teams and this team is very talented.  Beating Mercy has vaulted us in the spotlight and I am glad it is now rather than later ... it will give us time to feel the pressure and get use to it.  It is a long road to post-season ... we are going to keep working and be better in June than we are now.

Spring Break in two more days!

Structure competition and more ...

Yesterday near sundown I got out of softball practice and raced home to see the twinleaf bloom ... they were closed.  Either it as too cold to open or the close during the night ... in either case several have blooms but none were open, there still no picture.  Lots of other woodland flowers blooming ...

This week in Selected Topics, we are building a tower that will hold a maximum weight ... students are using popsicle sticks ... 34 gram max and must be between 7.5 and 8.5 inches in height.  Our students have worked like troopers after a discussion on load-bearing members, laminations and the force of gravity.  We will move out to the weight room on Thursday to test our structures ... the best ever structure held 207 pounds.

In AP we are working on geologic time, taxonomy and evolution.  We have a lab tomorrow on plant transpiration. 

Softball game with South Warren today ...
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May-apples, Twinleaf and Rue Anemone

On Saturday, we played the Siegel HS Stars in Murfreesboro.  It was a single varsity afternoon game.  We won and played all 16 players in the contest ... score 11-0 in five innings.  We had a light rain for two innings of the contest ... the girls played and hit well despite the rain.

Today, I took a walk in the afternoon.  It was wonderful to be outside. Some of the early wildflowers were blooming.  Lots of things getting started in the woods.  I am looking forward to the days I do not coach and I can spend more time in our woods and on our farm. Too cold to work bees today ... maybe later this week.

 I saw several colonies of May-apples (Podophyllum peltatum).  Just coming up ... I was looking for dry land fish (mushrooms) but, did not find any.  I am actually not very good at finding dry land fish ... might be my color-blindness problem.

Twinleaf (Jeffersonia diphylla) has just came up and already flowered.  There were still several plants with buds (shown above) about to open.  I have tried to get a picture for three years and this is as close as I have come.  We have two large patches of twinleaf on our farm.  Named after Thomas Jefferson ...

Among the twinleaf plants were what I believe is Rue Anemone (Anemonella thalictroides).  The blooms were beautiful!

Oh Say Can You Sing and Population Genetics

In AP Biology this morning we wrapped out our Population Genetics Lab, simulating random drift, selection and heterozygote advantage.  On Monday we will hand this lab in and have our annual gamete superlative contest ... let me tell you there were some pretty spectacular gametes operating in Room 509 this morning!  Will have some picts next week!

In Selected Topics, we had a reading day ... articles on puffin reintroduction to the USA,  new thoughts on the BIG BANG theory and more.  Some great discussions!  We will finish up physics next week before leaving for Spring Break.

After school our varsity softball team hit at BSA ... raining and cool!

Last night at the softball game against Mercy, we had Larry Stovall throw out the first pitch of the season.  Larry has been a long-time supporter of Patriot Softball and our school.  I appreciate and admire his dedication and sacrifices for others!

After the lineup announcements, our announcers tried and failed to play the national anthem.  After a few seconds, I ask the crowd to join me in the National Anthem and everyone responded with a great rendition.  It was loud and on key ... I even heard some harmony.  I was so proud of the way our softball team played last night but, I was just as proud of fans singing the national anthem.  

When I was overseas in Peace Corps/Brazil and in Africa on an AID project I missed our country and my family.  In appreciation of returning to this great country I always sing the national anthem when it is played.  ... and lately from time to time I have disappointed in my fellow Americans for not supporting our community and country.  But, last night, I was so proud of our community as they belted out our National Anthem.  It was a hopeful moment for me!  Beating a private school from Louisville ranked #1 in the state was just icing on the cake!

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Pat Softball Good Win and Lots of People Gone today.

We had lots of people gone today ... I only had seven students in my first AP class so we reviewed. Second Block AP had only one student gone so we did most of our population genetics lab.

Only three students in Selected Topics today ... tomorrow we will continue on our physics unit ... vectors and velocity.

We played #1 Mercy in softball this evening ... we won 2-0 ... timely hits, great defense, good pitching and a great team effort ... congrats on a great win!

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Rain out with wind and how things change in AP Bio

In AP Biology, we worked on our questions on evolution ... lots on natural selection and survival of the fittest ... proofs of evolution and population genetics.  We had a great serious discussion with some great ideas and thinking!  Tomorrow we will wrap up this discussion.  Most of our flies seemed to survive the transfer yesterday.

In Selected Topics, students designed their own labs to test batteries and prove Faraday's Law.  It is much harder to design your own lab to prove YOUR hypothesis than to do a canned lab.  Things went pretty well but students don't feel comfortable designing their labs ... too much thinking for most and fear of failure.

Pictured below are Rebecca and Cassie ... Champions of making Electromagnets ... their entry picked up 79 paperclips !!!!  A new school record!  They recommend Duracell!

We had varsity practice after school ... hitting and infield practice.  Our freshman double-header was rained out when a front came through ... blowing down the scoreboard on the baseball field and blowing our bleachers against the our backstop.  Rained hard for about 10 minutes with small hail.  We will be able to play tomorrow against #1 Mercy, should be a great game!

Redbuds are out and I did some late pruning of my pear trees since it was still light when I got home.  It appears the fruit trees I set out two years ago will yield some cherries, apples and pears this year!

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Warren East Win, AP starts flies and a magnet making contest.

In AP Biology today, we started fly cultures with F1 flies ... sepia mutant for the autosomal recessive cross (3:1), white mutant for the sex-linked cross (1:1:1:1) and a dihybrid cross with sepia eyes and apterous wing mutations.  Lots of fly nap!  We worked on some review questions and started our section on evolution.

In Selected Topics, we made electromagnets and held a competition ... picts of the winners tomorrow.  We will finish this lab by having students design their own experiment.

Our varsity and JV teams played at Warren East HS tonight ... the varsity run ruled them in 5 innings, 14-0.  We have had some battles over there in the past but tonight was different.  JV lost 4-3.  Freshman double header tomorrow and #1 Louisville Mercy comes to town for a single varsity contest on Thursday.

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Drosophila Lab starts today, Softball Win and a pict!

Yesterday, was our first softball game of the 2011 season.  Long trip to Russell County after school.  Varsity won 11-0 and JV 12-0.  Russell County is in a major rebuilding program with good young coaches.  One of their coaches is a former Patriot player (on the 2000 team that was third in the state tournament)  and the daughter of long-time softball coach ... Coach Mike Marr.  It was good to see Jamie and she has coaching in her genes just like Mike!

In AP today, we are going to start I fly crosses.  One of the required AP labs.

In Selected Topics we worked on map reading the speed, density and a few other simple physics concepts.  Today is the Electromagnet Contest.  Students will build and test the magnets and design an experiment on their own.

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Catapult Champion and busy weekend...

Congrats to the Selected Topics entries on this semester catapult championship ... and the champion is Dylan (pictured below) with 28 points out of a possible 50.  He tied with Cody but, won in a shoot off. Nice job!  ... and if you don't need a catapult, you might use it to ward off vampires!

This weekend, we had freshman practice after school on Friday ... I got home in time to disk a small area and plant some clover before what I thought would be a shower that night.  We had an intrasquad scrimmage on Saturday morning.  Got home in the afternoon and built some frames for our hives.  On Sunday, I built a wheelchair ramp for Granny's door, worked all fifteen hives and added about 80 frames (they look good so far and I got stung on the hand when I had my gloves off) and mowed most of the yard.

Softball games start today so some late night blogs will be on the way.

See you at school!
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Saturday and real Springtime!

Saturday morning and heading out to an intrasquad scrimmage game that starts at 9:00 ... I hope to be home by 1:00.  Really need to do some yard work and bee work later today.

On Friday we had club schedule but in AP Biology we were still able to review Chi Square Analysis, Hardy Weinberg problems and DNA mapping using gel analysis.  We will start our fly crosses Monday and next week is our bacterial transformation lab ... we are using the pGreen lab from Carolina that incorporates a gene of interest - a jellyfish gene!  Lat week was a long interrupted week but we did make some progress toward May 9th!

Selected topics in science finished a pHET simulation lab with springs/weight and another on wavelength and amplitude.  We also did a small lab on hang time ... congratulations again Mr. Vernon and Coach Bonds!  ... sorry Sir Charles!  Then we went outside to the stadium to prove to Brook that heavier objects do not fall faster that ones with less weight ... softball vs. a gallon jug of water ... Galileo would be proud! ... 9.8 m/s*s.  We started on some vocabulary but will finish on Monday.

Softball season starts on Monday ... It is a long haul to June.  Should be an exciting season with our goal to get back to the state tournament and finish some business there!

I will have to mow part of our yard today ... especially around the house.

Stopped by Granny's yesterday when I went up to get our tractor from her barn.  The pear trees were loaded with honeybees.  You have to admire their work ethic ...  Planted some clover in a bare area near our barn where Randy buried some burnt wood and fence.  Had to disk it first and pick up some limbs and boards.  Finished in the dark but with the Supermoon was not a problem.

Hope you have a great weekend ...  70+ degrees here!

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No Scrimmage tomorrow ...

After some persuasion from KHSAA we will not have our softball scrimmage with OCHS tomorrow.

In AP we worked on Hardy-Weinberg problems ... a former AP free response question and some review.

Our Catapult Contest went well today ... lots of good problem-solving and designs.  Dylan was our winner ... I will get a picture tomorrow.  Our physics unit continues tomorrow.

Signing up for classes by homeroom in the AM tomorrow and club schedule on Friday ... lots of distractions from class time.

Got home late after practice ... had to turn everything around after finding out there is no scrimmage tomorrow.

The weather was great today ... and looks good through the weekend.

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The ACT Blues!

Our juniors took the ACT this morning.  Reports were that most students worked hard and took the task at hand seriously.  This ACT counts toward of school assessment which is a reflection of not only our school but our community.  I appreciate most of students digging in a working through the test.  It also counts for our students applying for college or tech schools.

However, a few of our students cannot take a 3 hour test.  They are not use to concentrating that long on something difficult.  Some are not good readers which is a real problem.  The ACT is a reading bias test!  Others miss school frequently and do not take difficult classes ... all which does not make for a optimistic outcome.

Doing your best regardless of the situation has been lost in some students.  I grew up on a farm where you always did you best in every situation ... fencing, building a pole building, hoeing tobacco, baling hay and on and on!  Some of students have that attitude but many do not.  When presented with a difficult task like the ACT we took today.  They give up easily and just bubble in some answers to get it over with.  That is unfortunate since our school and our community will be judged by there effort.

I applaud most of the students in my home room that worked with great intensity during each of the four tests ... checking their answers if they finished early and making sure they answered every question.  Most of the students in my homeroom were in this category.

I love to teaching ... always something to work on to make better ... just like farming years ago in Ohio.  We have some great students at our school and deserve a great education!

We had our Selected Topics class today after the ACT ... students finished and tested their catapults for the championship tomorrow ... shooting full size marshmellows between two tables 12 feet apart into a bucket. They will shoot 10 shots ... 5 points for in the bucket, 3 points for hitting the bucket, two points for the top of the table and one point for any part of the table ... classroom record is 40 points... Chris Medley!  We will resume of study of physics with some computer simulations on Thursday.

Softball today was in the gym ... working on signaling, defending the bunt and baserunning.  Tomorrow hopefully we can get back on the field.  Scrimmage at #4 Owenboro Catholic is Thursday after school at OCHS.  JV-F intrasquad scrimmage Saturday morning.

Good weather the rest of the week!!!
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Gel electrophoresis, catapults, indoor hitting and beekeepers!

Tomorrow we have our ACT test for juniors which is part of our school's assessment.  Good luck to all!  This ACT test can be used by colleges or technical schools so is important to many of our students.  It is also important to our community ... no one wants to start a business or bring a business (jobs) into a county that has a weak school.  The science section is unfortunately last and some of our weaker students' performances falls off after an hour or so ... I am hoping for the best!

In AP today we finished the paper work on our gel electrophoresis lab.  Our quiz was on reading gels. We also started our study of population genetics.  We will miss AP tomorrow for the ACT test.

We started construction on our catapults today in Selected Topics.  This is part of our physics unit.  Some students have great designs and we will have our shoot off on Wednesday.

After school was softball practice indoors at BSA.  We hit off tees, Mike worked on a bounce tennis ball drill and I was in the cage with two pitching machines ... fastball / screwball.  We had 41 players through in just under three hours.  A lot of work, but, we are looking better hitting ... our young players have really improved!

I finished the night at the Allen County Beekeepers meeting.  The program was by Barry Richards on catching swarms.  Some excellent video and ideas.  I love the casual conversation at these meetings ... would read like a Steinbeck novel.  As always, my beekeeping mentor, Gordon, had some good advice for my continuing adventure as an amateur beekeeper.

ACT tomorrow ... get some sleep!

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Weekend over! Softball begins!

It was a busy weekend.

Friday after school, we had softball practice

Got up a 4:15 AM to get ready for the scrimmages at Beech Play Day.  Bus left the HS at 6:15 ... some people need to go to bed earlier!  We returned to the school in the early afternoon.

We played a good Goodpasture HS team that beat us at their field last year.  We played well and won 2-0 against their best pitcher.  We also beat Hendersonville and Father Ryan.  We took down 23 girls and all got to play at least a little.  A good start to the beginning of a tough schedule.  We only gave up one run all day!  The weather was great and it was good to be out and playing someone else for a change!

We are scheduled to play Owensboro Catholic on Tuesday but it may rain ... will probably fall back to later in the week.  Practice tomorrow is on the field but that may change if the rain comes in early.

We finished the week in AP with analyzing our DNA gels ... lab is due tomorrow and we have the ACT on Tuesday.

Selected Topics is into physics now and we have the catapult lab starting tomorrow ... all will be taking the ACT on Tuesday and our shoot out will be on Wednesday.

Today after Sunday School,  I checked all my beehives and was greeted at most hives will not very happy workers trying to figure who took the top off their hive.  I have one weak hive at the goat field but most are doing fine and still have honey.  I added a protein patty to each hive and some sugar water to the weaker hives. I will have to put on some supers soon.  It was a beautiful day to work outside

1st Block AP gels look good!

Stained and destained the gels from first block after softball practice this evening and they look good.  2nd Block's were ... well, not so good!  Pays to take Genetics/Biotechnology.

It was a busy day at school ... had to set up the Restriction Enzyme Lab ... preparing agarose gel takes time and I am about to invest in a better microwave.  Luckily most of the first block class had loaded a gel previously in Genetics and we finished loading the gels just before the bell rang for second block.

Second block struggled and the results I saw before I left school were not good.  A few picts from todays lab ...

I was not in Selected Topics third block because of a PD.  Mr. Vernon took them up to the Mac lab to start of physics simulations.  The first one is studying gravity in space, the moon, jupiter and earth.  This software is PHET simulation software from the University of Colorado ... great software!
We have our catapult lab on Monday and Wednesday.

ACT test next Tuesday ... good luck juniors!

Softball practice in the gym today ... we held our annual indoor home run contest ... it was fun!  Also worked the infield looking at combinations!

Tomorrow ... analyzing gels!

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Restriction Lab tomorrow ...

In AP Biology we will doing one of our required labs.  This lab is the restriction enzyme and gel electrophoresis lab in which student will prepare an agarose gel to separate DNA fragments from lambda cut with restriction enzymes (EcoRI and HindIII).  Given the size of the standard they will use log paper to calculate the size of unknown fragments ... In this lab students learn about the science of separation by using electrophoresis.
We did some background work today about restriction enzymes ... where they come from and how they work.  This lab links to our other biotech lab next week ... bacterial transformation lab.

In selected topics today we worked on ACT science questions and started our catapult lab ... we will building catapults on Monday and having our competition on Wednesday of next week.  We have moved from astronomy into our physics unit.

Practice today for the most part was at BSA ... live hitting, tees and cage work.  We had to move to the gym at 4:30 to finish practice.

We will have to go to Plan B tomorrow in practice ... I will send something out by noon.

Rain and ACT prep up ... Go Rockets!

Our juniors will be taking the ACT next Tuesday.  This is part of school's assessment and import to our school and community to perform well.  This is a tough test for some of our juniors that are not good readers and for others because you have to concentrate for a couple of hours.

In the science section, it is about analysis of data or science arguments.  In Selected Topics, we will be spending some time each day on strategies for the science portion of the test.

Watching Toledo play Ohio University on the internet from the OU website.  My youngest nephew plays for the University of Toledo ... but not getting a lot of PT as a freshman ... more importantly has done well in school!  Go Rockets ... they are way behind OU (not to be confused with THE OSU!)

http://www.utrockets.com/ViewArticle.dbml?SPSID=89712&SPID=10721&DB_LANG=C&DB_OEM_ID=18000&ATCLID=205024454&Q_SEASON=2010

We missed first block AP for filling out ACT forms.  Second block we continued to work on transcription and translation of mRNA to proteins.

In Selected Topics it was graphing and ACT prep for Science.

We had Varsity only practice today before it started raining ... we are back on schedule tomorrow ... hitting at BSA.  Hopefully we will play a little better tomorrow!

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Transcription. Translation and ACT

In AP Biology today, we started with reviewing the major players of a replication fork.  We did some genetics review and did an overview of transcription and translation.  Tomorrow we go to homeroom to do some prep for the upcoming ACT exam next Tuesday.  We will continue our study of transcription and translation tomorrow.

Selected Topics - We had a guest speaker from the Army today.  In addition we discussed some strategies when taking the ACT science section and took a sample reading passage.  Tomorrow we continue with some ACT prep and graphing problems.

Softball was on the field today ... we worked on catcher throw downs, stealing, baserunning, 1-3 situations and signaling.  We have our first scrimmage on Saturday morning ... the Beech Play Day.

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Saturday at the beehive construction factory! 400+ frames!

I am so far behind with two AP sections and softball that I had some students come out to paint supers and build frames.  It was a big day ... a good breakfast of barnyard casserole (one of my few specialties) and lunch at the store at Amos.

We built over 400 frames for medium supers and painted forty supers with three coats of paint and primer.  Below are two picts ... the assembly line with Thaxton, Jared and Daniel ... the second pict is less than half the forms we built ... I will have to find time to put in the foundation later.

The Elephants in the Classroom ...

During the past week, Bill Bennett and Bill Gates gave their illuminating thoughts on the state of education and America's teachers.  Pundits both. Everyone has an opinion.

The saying ... "you can never pay good teacher enough and all the rest are overpaid" continues to apply.  Whatever the argument about pay and teacher tenure (any teacher can be removed if incompetent and the administrator wants to take the time to document the incompetency ... or, perceived incompetence ... my cousin needs a job, aka KY), teaching is now much more than regurgitating of facts and concepts ... or it should be!

Many children come to high school hungry.  A few students do not have electricity or choose not to use it. Teenage pregnancies are numerous and in some weird way acceptable and desired.  A few students have more than one child.  There are drugs both prescribed and other.  Students now have many labels to identify their problems and perceived problems which, ends up defining them.  Many high school students are not readers or read poorly.  Many have jobs to help support their car, car insurance and gasoline (now going to $4) habit.  Computer games, facebook, texting, cable TV with 1000 channels and on and on ...

All elephants dancing around the room of education but, rarely if ever mentioned.  We instead spin our wheels tweeking the curriculum, learning goals, standards and then the NEW standards and every gimmick some retired administrator, curriculum expert or medicine man (person) comes up with ... of course for $$$.

A teacher now has to ... in some way ... convince students that education and the content they are being taught is important in some way either now or later  ...  THE BUY IN!   Sometimes this only takes the first day and sometimes it never happens because of one or more elephants above.

Then there is THE SHOW!  If you can't compete at the level of a great TV show or video or song ... then you get tuned out ... this means you better have some great labs and learning events to keep their attention and it all better be relevant in some way ... still an elephant might not make that student available on any given day or week ... THE SHOW is very important and it can't be a long running show ...  you must have a repertoire of shows!  Learning for a grade?  That is history!

Then as testing begins you arrive at THE SELL!  This is convincing students that in some way it is in their, their families', their children's or the communities' best interest to try on the test (that's what politicians and many pundits consider evidence of learning ... if they can test  ...  ACT, CATS, TBA or ???)

THE BUY, THE SHOW, THE SELL ...  that is teaching!

I really like teaching ... there is something to fix each day, just like when I use to be a farmer.  Providing opportunities for young people is a worthy use of my life and an honorable way to make a living. I am from a farm family and making an honorable living is important to me.

I cannot figure out what to do about the elephants in the classroom.  You talk with kids and hope a good education and pointing them in a direction to continue their education or find a profession can help them rise above the herd.  It takes generations to fix some problems.

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3000 swings and Friday ends a big week!

We hit at BSA this afternoon ... about 3000 swings ... tees, front toss and the three plate drill with a pitching machine.  Everyone is in a good routine and our players that do not have the opportunity to hit in the off season have been making good progress.  One week until our first scrimmage ... Beech Play Day / hosted by Beech HS (TN).  By Saturday we will be ready to put in on the field with someone besides our intrasquads.
Next week looks good for getting on the field a lot ... except for Wednesday ... will try and get up to BSA on the rainy day.

In AP Biology, we worked through most of Chapters 15-16 ... linkage, non-disjunction and the events leading up to the discovery of DNA ... The first of next week ... Crick's Central Dogma ... Replication, Transcription and Translation.  Later in the week we will do our Restriction Lab and start our Drosophila crosses.  We are working hard to make up the content from miss days during the snows.

In Selected Topics in Science, we finished our unit on Astronomy ... some vocab and H-R diagramming of stars by luminosity and temperature ... Test next Tuesday and we will review on Monday.  The Catapult Lab is on the horizon.

Hope you all have a great weekend!!!

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Another long day ... and a pict!

These double practices with our newly formed freshman team is killing me and making for getting home pretty late.

Today in softball we had a group picture of the seniors taken professionally ... Macey came in for the picture and we were all glad to see her back in uniform. I believe she could play short from a bucket if she had to ....  it is great to have her out at the field!

In practice, we worked a lot on outfield drills and coverages for bunts in both sessions.

In AP Biology today  ...  Happy Birthday Lauren!  ... We looked at some free responses from previous AP tests.  In addition, we worked in genetics and went over some odds and ends vocabulary in genetics. In first block we went on a short tour to sing, "DNA BABY!" ... since we are starting on our study of the discovery of DNA ... Chapter 16.

We had several people out of Selected Topics in Science to a job fair.  The remaining students and I went outside and built a model to scale of the solar system using the a softball for the sun ... at this scale, former planet, Pluto was 400 yards away.  We hope to wrap up our study of astronomy tomorrow with some H-R diagram problems.

Goodnight!
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A Pict, Punnett Squares, Solar System and a late practice ...

Today during AP second block, we had a guest from last year's AP Bio class in for some tutoring ... Bradley was a great bio student and of course a 5!  Here is a pict of one of his favorite students to help ... B-Gun ...

The tutoring must have worked since she her quiz score today was higher!   

We worked in AP Biology on more genetic problems and Chi Square Analysis of Data. 

In Selected Topics, we started our modeling lab of our solar system. Tomorrow we will go outside a build the model using a softball as the sun and scaling the rest of the solar system object to it.  It should be fun!  We will finish our solar system unit on Friday.

We had a teacher's PD until 5:00 and varsity softball practice afterwards ... finishing up late under the lights.  Tomorrow we are back on schedule with all players attending practice.

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AP starts Genetics and 2000+ swings!

We are into the genetics portion of our AP course.  We should be able to make good progress since many of the students took our Genetics class last fall.  Tomorrow we are going over several genetic problems in class, pedigrees and Chi Square Analysis.  Our Drosophila Lab will be next week.

In Selected Topics we continued our study of Astronomy.  We have an lab for Thursday ... solar system modeling lab.

Our softball team hit at BSA this afternoon ... with tee work well over 2000 swings.  Several players have already improved in the batting cage ... we worked a lot today on batting posture and swing mechanics.  Tomorrow's practice is late since I have a PD after school from 3-5.  Varsity practice will start at 5:00 PM and all other players will not practice tomorrow.  Back to our original schedule on Thursday.

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