Mist Flower, Ironweed and Photosynthesis

Today in AP Biology was photosynthesis day ... Light Reactions and the Light-Independent Reactions ... C3, C4 and CAM ...  We finished the class with sample questions from our Campbell Test Bank ... still lots of students not doing their questions before class voluntarily.  A lesson soon to be learned!

Checking problems today and tomorrow in Introduction to Computer Programming as we begin to wrap up Karel programming with the final two problems ... Karel can Add and Mission Impossible.

Stayed after school late to work and was hoping it would rain but, no rain in Holland.  Fall wildflowers are in full bloom, especially wingstem.  Below are close ups of ironweed (some ironweed plants I have seen this year are over ten feet tall) and mist flower (wild ageratum).

The two Monarch caterpillars I have been watching have crawled off and have pupated into a chrysalis ... or was eaten.  I have not been able to locate them but will keep looking.

Eight period Monday ...

Today was eight period Monday and also, the first Club Schedule of the year.  Each class met for 45 minutes except for lunch period which was 60 minutes.  Each period has 1-4 clubs meeting.

Environmental Club will for the second year help with the Patriot Pollinator Project which supplies milkweed and nectar plants to area gardeners and farms.

I had most of my students so we continued on ...

In AP Biology, we had a morning quiz followed by an overview of photosynthesis and respiration.  Tomorrow, we will dig a little deeper into the steps and particulars of photosynthesis ... proteins, pathways, chemiosmosis and some sample AP questions.  If time permits, we will start on aerobic respiration.

In Selected Topics we wrapped up our Great Plant Growing contest ... I will put the winners picts on tomorrow.  We finished the lab write-up and handed it in at the end of the period.

Computer programming classes wrapped up their carpet problem and we will start checking their programs tomorrow.  Karel Can Add is next ...

Fifth Instar, DNA Baby and Skyscraper ...

Today was Selected Topics day.  In these classes, we went on tour of a couple of classrooms to sing our DNA song ... you can thank your Dad and thank your Mom for your DNA ... it was fun and a little break from our microscope lab.

We got good classroom data in the cell count of onion root tips in both classes with nearly 90% of the cells being in interphase ... we made a pie chart of our results and wrapped up this lab.  The Great Plant Growing Contest will conclude on Monday.  Monday will also be club schedule so, a disrupted day.

Most students are working on the skyscraper lay the carpet problem in programming today.  We will check the problems some time next week.  Karel programming will wrap up next week before we go on to Microsoft qBASIC.

Checked out my two Monarch caterpillars on the butterfly weed in our garden.  They are in the 4th or probably 5th instar larva stage (they are over two inches long ... five instar larva stages for Monarchs).  They might form a chrysalis this weekend.   They need to hurry up and head on down to Mexico!  My pictures below ...

http://www.monarchwatch.org/biology/cycle1.htm

Goldenrod and Enzymes ...

Today after school in the evening I took some pictures of flowers on our farm.  I chased a buckeye butterfly around for several minutes trying to get a good shot before it became annoyed and flew over some blackberry briars and out of sight.  Below is a coneflower beginning to bloom and a picture of the goldenrod and common milkweed pods in the long field beside Highway 100.  The honeybees were still working the goldenrod late in the evening.

Also, the two monarch caterpillars on our butterfly weed plants in the garden have quadrupled since Monday. I put them on separate plants so they would have more leaves to eat.

At school today, it was AP Bio day.  We worked through Chapter 8 ... Enzymes and biochemical pathways.  Afterwards, we had time for some sample questions for a quiz score.

Most of the computer programming students are working on the skyscraper problems which requires nested if-then statements and is proving to be difficult.

Tomorrow is Selected Topics day and we will finish our microscope / mitosis lab.  The Great Plant Growing contest continues.

Microscope and Mitosis Lab

Today in Selected Topics, we started our microscope lab which included several slides of interest, a wet mount of algae and prepared slides of onion root tips for collecting mitosis data.  We have a little left to do on this lab for Friday.  The Great Plant Growing contest continues with seedlings about 6" tall.  This contest/lab will wrap up on Monday.  Students in action this morning ...

This evening I disked our turnip patch and then watered some of our plants ... fall flowers are about in full bloom ... goldenrod, wingstem and ironweed.

Tomorrow in AP Biology we will review Chapter 7 - cellular transport and discuss Chapter 8 ... enzymes and chemical reactions.  We have questions for Chapter 8 and a quiz.

PSAT is just around the corner ... sign up!

Deer and back to school ...

After plowing the turnip patch late this evening I saw two bucks with a few does grazing on buckwheat in the small field behind our house.  It was pretty dark so the picts were not that good.

Today it was AP Biology day and we worked on review, cell transport questions and a sample free response question from 2011 on cells.  We have enzymes, chemical reactions and feedback pathways for Thursday.

Tomorrow is Selected Topics and we have a microscope lab with mitosis slides as the main focus.

Computer programming classes are wrapping up their first three problems with decision statements and a second set of two advanced problems were assigned for this week ... The Hurdle problem and Carpeting Skyscrapers.

Red Spotted Purple and more Monarchs!

Over the Labor Weekend I saw five more Monarch butterflies (total this year ... 13) and found two Monarch caterpillars on the butterfly weed I planted in the garden.  The the big show for butterflies this weekend was the Red Spotted Purples ... there were several flying around.  They are very active and it was hard to get a good picture ... my best pict is below and a picture of the Monarch caterpillar was only about 1.5" long.

Also this weekend, we set up a bright light covered with sheets to draw in some moths.  We had several attracted to the light including some European hornets.  Rachel got our best picture ... a Southern Tiger Moth below.  Caterpillars feed on tobacco and watermelon.  

Friday at school, Selected Topics in Science finished our study of cells and prepared for our microscope lab on Wednesday ... mitosis and meiosis.  The Great Plant Contest continues!

Tomorrow the AP Biology classes will meet.  Tomorrow, we will finish cell transport and work on Chapter 8 - Enzymes, Biochemical Pathways and Metabolism.  We have questions assigned for tomorrow.

In Computer programming, we will check the first three problems using if-then and while do statements.  On to some tougher programming techniques later in the week.