Welcome to the Blog!

Welcome Students and Parents to Ms. Wiens Science Blog!

Every day I will post in point form what material was covered in class and the homework for the evening. Upcoming assignments, and quizzes will also be posted.  Students may also register a Google account (free) and post comments or questions pertaining to the material covered in class. Please feel free to test out this feature any time and just post "test" as your comment. Students may select their own user ID provided it is school appropriate.  I will try to respond to any questions by 9 PM that evening. Comments posted after 9 PM will have to wait until the next day to be answered.  If inappropriate comments are posted, the function will be disabled for all.

In the first week of class students will learn safety and general scientific practices. All students will write a safety quiz and must pass with a minimum of 80% or better. If a student is not successful on this safety quiz, he or she may re-write it before or after school or at lunch until an 80% or better is earned. The student must see the teacher immediately to schedule a re-do time as soon as possible.  Until students successfully demonstrate their knowledge of safety in the lab, they will not be able to participate in laboratory activities which may results in a mark of zero that cannot be made up. Students will also be bringing home a safety consent form on the first day of class which also must be completed and returned prior to lab participation.

We have 1 class set of textbooks for the class and 3 classes of Grade 9 Academic Science first semester, however, textbooks will not be our main resource for the class.  If needed, students may either sign out a hard copy of a textbook overnight, provided they return it prior to period 1 the next day or they may get an online code to access the online version of the textbook. Please note, the textbook contains additional information not in the course curriculum so not all material in the textbook will be covered. Additionally, some concepts in the course will be covered more thoroughly than in the text, to best prepare students for the following year of study.

Marks will be posted on this blog according an individual student code (not their student number) at the right hand side. Each student will be given their code in class and instructed to share it with their parents. In the event a student's mark is below 60% a phone call home will be made. A student's code name will be different for each class he or she is in to protect their privacy. Please note, marks will not be posted for several weeks to accumulate several assessement's prior to posting.

Day 1 Agenda
Course Information Sheets
Safety Consent Forms
Get to Know You
An introduction to classroom procedures
Safety Introduction
Red Fish Inquiry Activity - an introduction to the Scientific Method
HMK
Get your Safety Consent Form Signed
Get any other school forms signed (for Period 1 students this means - the school computer use policy and photography consent form)
Safety Quiz will be Monday September 10
Picture Day will be Friday September 7 for Grade 9 and 10