Week 11 - Day 51

the students had state testing in math and language arts today. the schedule is all goofed up for today and tomorrow. the testing started at 7:50 and ended at 11:00 a.m. due to the schedule, i only had to plan one lesson for two days. there was only one class in which i had them for both days...and for that class (6^th period), i had the lab for one day and we read and discussed an article i had found in a grossology book on toilets. the toilet article talked about a lot of funny little interesting tidbits on toilets, different cultures, etc., but the main reason i had the class read it was that it talked about waste treatment plants and the role of bacteria in eliminating waste. the students did enjoy my stories about my experience with toilets in europe and taiwan...i had some funny and gross experiences with them and survived!

the lesson was a lab on testing antiseptics and bacteria. the potato lab dealt with disinfectants...so now we’re trying something else; rubbing alcohol, hydrogen peroxide, and listerine. our control is water and we’re using cut up apples that have been exposed to the air for 5 minutes. the students are then to put a piece of apple in a petri dish and wait another 5 minutes. the students are to notice that the side sitting in the antiseptic turns white again like right away it was cut. they then had to fill out their lab report. it was a shorter lab for a shortened class periods. the lab went well and the students were all engaged in the activity.