Molecule Madness

Funded Feb 24, 2023

I want to express my sincere gratitude for your generous donations to my classroom! Through your donations, my classes were able to explore concepts across different science disciplines. They were able to learn new skills and explore lab techniques to enhance their skills. This was the last year both 7th and 8th grades would be at this particular school site because the following school year would no longer have middle school grades. This was an opportunity to make their last year at the school more fun, exciting, and engaging. From your donations, the eighth grade class was able to practice skills they would use in their next years during high school and enter feeling more prepared.

This year, my students were eager to learn to use the microscopes they had been seeing on the shelves since the beginning of the school year. Because we did not have adequate slides for viewing, they were limited in what they were able to learn and how much they were able to practice their microscope skills. They were so excited to finally have the resources to look at and explore various common and new specimens and tissues microscopically.

The molecular sets were greatly appreciated as we covered a unit on chemical reactions and atomic structures. Having a tangible model to build examples of what they were learning throughout the unit helped them to better visualize how atoms came together to form chemical structures. They were excited to search up common chemical structures such as caffeine and build physical models of them. The slime project was a fun way for them to engage in something they had all made in the past from a more scientific lens. They practiced experimental design and came up with their own variations of slime recipes to test out what recipes would make the best slime.

The marbles were used by both 7th and 8th grade classes for their paper roller coaster projects. At the end of the project, all groups got to showcase their structures to parents on back to school night and during class. They then got to vote on the most successful and creative build. Class speakers had been a high need since the beginning of the year. Their curriculum utilized several videos throughout the unit and the sound quality and range of the projector and laptops were not sufficient. Having good quality speakers allowed me to also show supplemental videos throughout the year.

Thank you again for contributing to my class this past school year. My students appreciated having their final year at their school be more exciting and having projects they could look forward to throughout the year.”

With gratitude,

Mrs. Avery