They're Lurking Everywhere!

Wow - you found so many diseases lurking out there. If you're traveling to a third world country over the holiday, be very cautious of what you eat and drink.  Many of you found out that 'pathogens' breed in dirty, stagnant water - and that water in many places you're visiting is not fit to drink. It's not 'potable'.  Have a fantastic adventure this holiday but be sure to take the necessary precautions.
And.... while on vacation, if you notice anything disease or water quality related - post it on your blog - or upload some photos of it on your blog.  I took some pictures when I went to my workshop in Jakarta last month. We visited the 'trash pickers' village.  They have no access to fresh water other than what they collect. They also have no toilets so everything is mixed together!

This is where they get
their fresh drinking water

This is where they live

Happy Holidays..... Happy Blogging.

What's Lurking This Holiday Season?

Yesterday for homework, you looked at travel  destinations and diseases around the world.

Today, revisit the link -  find the country you're traveling to over the holiday and go to "Travel notices in effect". http://wwwn.cdc.gov/travel/destinationList.aspx  -

Make a new blog post - titled Holiday Microlife and answer these questions in your post:  

• Where are you going over the holiday break?  
• What are a few (up to 5 or 6)  of the most common diseases in the country your visiting?  
• Give a few details about some of the diseases and point out which diseases are water related.  
• Click on the different notices and list how the diseases can be prevented or treated.
• See if you can find the 'microbe' that causes one of the diseases and embed it into your post.

Our Blog Code of Conduct

Our Gamma A-Team blogs are a way for us to share our learning and ideas with our classmates, teachers, family and interested readers anywhere in the world. We enjoy sharing our educational adventures and love receiving feedback from others about our postings. We also understand that our school core values and technology code of conduct apply to our work on our team blogs just like they do when we are working in the regular classroom. We agree that we will abide by the following blog expectations:

• I will create a personal avatar of myself and not use a personal photo on my blog.
• I understand that this is a school blog, not a personal blog, and will use it to share ideas about my learning.
• I will never put my own or others full name, address, phone number, email or other personal information on the internet.
• I will not write the names of people in pictures that I post. I will describe what’s happening in the photo, just not WHO is in the photo.
• I agree to use a maximum of three gadgets/widgets on my blog at any time.
• To keep my blog organized and to help my teachers with monitoring my blog, I will label all blogs with category labels.
• If I post photographs, videos, or work that is not my own, I will acknowledge where I got it from.
• I will share these expectations with my parents so that they know they are expected to follow the same guidelines.

Finally, as a special note to anyone viewing our blogs from outside our learning community:

We use these blogs to share our learning experiences. While we aim to publish error-free work, some will be in draft form and sometimes we will make mistakes. We ask that you focus on our achievements and not our errors.

Welcome To Sixth Grade Science!

Welcome to Mrs. Hill's  blog site - where indeed learning occurs in the oddest of places.  We'll be using our blogs throughout the year for homework and to document our learning and share information.  I find it to be a fantastic way to interact with each other and give each other feedback as we go along. You can embedd images, videos and much more. You can even create computer games and then embed it into your blog. There are so many creative programs to use out there. For those who aren't the super techie types - don't worry - we'll all learn it together in class. I think the most exciting thing about blogging is that it's interactive. We will be doing alot of sharing and commenting after we set up some blog guidelines.  I'm excited! For now, start decorating your science journal. Fill it with stuff that interests you. The funkier the better!