“I felt like I was going back in time. We
were doing exactly what they did in the
Colonial Era.”
—Jade Pettis, Patterson Park Public Charter School
City Schools has done an article on Peace Canoe and the Star Sangled Banner Trail National Park Service project we are doing.
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A few weeks ago our students took part in an exciting "Coding" activity at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, MD. Students were putting codes in their robot/computer using math formulas to do simple tasks. Just yesterday an extremely interesting article came out with quotes from Mark Zuckerberg (facebook) and Bill Gates (Microsoft) on the future of coding. Long story short they said they are looking for as many people as possible who can code. There are 1000s of jobs waiting for people who can do it. It looks like our own 5th graders have a head start! Article Over the last few weeks we have been discussing the effects of fossil fuels on our environment. Students have even pointed out examples of pollution they have seen day to day around Baltimore, but also on our trips to Philadelphia, D.C., and other destinations. Ask your children what the difference is between chemical and physical weathering. You might want to also get in a discussion with them about various ways to conserve energy around the house. We have also learned about alternatives to fossil fuels. Almost all of the alternatives have little to no pollution. But they also have some major disadvantages. Hydroelectric power has had a major impact on the Colorado River. Look at this brand new video I found on twitter @NatGeoGreen on the dwindling Colorado River. For more information on fossil fuels and alternative energy sources look in pp. 230-241 in your child's textbook. Today each group presented the information they acquired in their research of their territories. SOme of the territories, like the Louisiana Purchase, were familiar to the students. Other territories, like the Gadsden Purchase, had history that is not all that well known amongst most Americans. Ask your chidren tonight what they learned about the Lousiana Purchase, Texas Annexation, Mexican Cession, Gadsden Purchase, and the Oregon Territory. In particular ask them how the land was acquired and the benfefits each territory had for the country. Each one has a unique and important story! The last two months our students have been charting and graphing the dissolved oxygen, salinity, and turbidity levels of the Patapsco River. Some of it we have done in person aboard the Snow Goose and some of the research has been conducted in the classroom using the NOAA website. At the end of each week the students found the range, median, mode and solved other problems with their data they have collected. This week we added the James River to our graphs. We will be comparing and contrasting the two rivers and discuss the differences. Talk with your children tonight about the graphs and specifically why the James River has a much higer turbidity rate than the Patapsco's! Over the last two weeks students have individually conducted research on an assigned territory acquired by the United States between 1800-1860. Today and tomorrow the students are putting the important details on a poster board with their group to share to the class. When your children come home tomorrow ask them how the US acquired territories like The Louisiana Territory, Texas, Oregon, etc... Also ask them how they benefitted from having these territories as part of the US. Last Friday The Reginald F. Louis Museum had a temporary exhibit on display in our school library. The exhibit walked us through the African American history of the park. From slavery to the civil rights movement of the 1960s, the park is full of history. Ask your children about the exhibit when they come home tonight! Tornado Activity Today we were invited to do some Science and Math activities with professors at THE US NAVAL ACADEMY in Annapolis, MD. Students were broken into groups after lunch and were each able to take part in 4, out of 9 total, activities. My group did severe storms (pictured left), code breaking, aquaculture, and robotics. In the storm acitivity the students worked in groups and built a house out of wood and tape and then put it in the wind tunnel to simulate a tornado over the house. One group managed to hold of the tornado winds up to 150 mph! In the robotics course students embeded codes into their robots for various movements. Once they had the codes down they had their robots go through mazes. I had the professors tell me that they have had high school groups come thought that were unable to do what our own fifth graders did today. Ask your children tonight about what they did today! More pics coming! Yesterday we visited the Smithsonian Musuem of American History in Washington D.C. We walked through the "Price of Freedom" exhibit which is a timeline of American history and wars fought to preserve our freedom. We also went through the Star Spangled Banner exhibit and learned even more for our research for the Star Spangled Banner National Historic Trail. Afterwards the students took in the sights and sounds of the National Mall and even got in a game of hackey sack with Mr. P! Many more pics to come! What an amazing event we took part in yesterday! Students had front row seats for the beginning of the parade. One of our students was interviewed on CBS Radio and we had our pictures taken in the Sun and WJZ. Make sure to check up on the Ravens History assignement our students were finishing up last night. They wrote the latest chapter in Ravens history themselves! They were there for it! |
Welcome to the 5th Grade Blog!
This blog is dedicated to the fifth grade at Patterson Park Public Charter School in Baltimore, MD. Our hope is that this blog will keep students, parents, and anyone else interested up to date with all that we have going on during the school year. Let us know what you think! Archives
September 2015
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