Another Lab

The 5-6th graders haven't done social studies in a long time. It started because of the student who didn't have her ammonia for the science lab. We did a bunch of social studies in a row until she had all her supplies. So we needed to do a bunch of science to even it out. This week we were going to get back in our normal pattern, except, a student was staying overnight at her grandma's house today and tomorrow, and the lab has to sit overnight, so the parent asked if we could do the lab today instead of tomorrow. Sure. No problem. But this morning the student said she'll have to transport the lab anyway because she's going to her aunt's house tonight.

We did the lab anyway. I wasn't going to do it, but enough of them had troubles figuring out which direction to put their box, I ended up setting up one cup. We're doing something called chromatography, which is where you separate the inks/dyes that make up a color. It's pretty simple: pull a pen apart, cut it so ink drips into some rubbing alcohol in a plastic cup, stick a strip of coffee filter in the bottom so it absorbs the alcohol/dye, tape the top of the strip to the top of the box. Let sit overnight so the ink molecules have time to move. 

I used a black pen. My students are doing black, blue, and one other color. A bunch are doing red, one is doing green, another purple, maybe someone is doing orange? On my experiment, I can already see yellow and purple molecules making up the black ink. Pretty neat. It's climbing pretty high! Normally it only goes about two inches up the strip. It's already up to four inches. Maybe I put too much ink in the other times. 

So tomorrow we'll examine our results and then if we have time we'll do social studies. I hope we have time, because we need to talk about the next project we're doing. 

Speaking of projects... The 7-8th graders were supposed to present their Europe projects today. Only two groups out of six had theirs finished. (Well, one more was done, but he said he wanted to polish up a few things and would be very happy if he could go on Thursday). It's been on their assignment sheets for at least a month. Two students said they forgot all about it over the weekend. Sigh. That's one of the problems with online learning; it's too easy to just shut the computer when live classes are over and forget all about the homework you still need to do. 

That goes for me as well. I forgot Friday was midterms and I needed to get enter grades over the weekend. Thankfully, I don't need to send them out until this Sunday's drop day, so I have time to work on them. But online learning has made me even less likely to want to correct papers. They come in such big bunches! I still have spelling papers from two drop days ago to correct... My plan is to correct them this afternoon! Just in time for the next round of papers from this Sunday.