12-9-13 Meeting

In monday's meeting the students finished up the ski jumps we had started a couple of weeks ago.  From there they turned the ski jump into a one loop rollercoaster.  Finally, they joined with another group and developed a rollercoaster with at least two loops.  All of this while still being able to get the "rider" into the cup safely.  There ideas were amazing!  Below is some of the groups work!

 Our next meeting is December 16th.  We will be showing the students the movie "Sneakers."  We are showing this movie to spark their interest in the next unit which is Code Breaking!!  They need to have their permission slip with them or turned in ahead of time.  They may bring snacks to eat during the movie.  See you then!

12-2-13

Hope everyone had a wonderful holiday weekend.

Just a reminder...... Mrs. Blust and Miss Dornon are at the IMSA Academy being trained on the next exciting unit (Secret Communications: Sharing Concealed Messages)!!

Due to this training there will not be an IMSA meeting tonight.  We will meet again on Dec. 9th!

Hopefully you all are as excited as us to get back to our ski jumps and take them a step further to build roller coasters!!!

See you next Monday!

Thank you

WOW!!! We were so impressed with the turnout at Parent Night!  Thank you so much for coming and supporting your child's math and science endeavors.  Hopefully each of you were able to see some of the things that have been going on at IMSA.  We encourage you to engage your children in conversations about the things we are doing in IMSA.  Also, be sure to check this blog on updates of various types.  At the parent night we began to hand out thank you notes for helping to support our field trip to the IMSA Academy!  Don't worry, if you have not received one you will very soon.  Again, thank you for your support and contributions to that trip.  We truly appreciate your support!

11-18-13 Meeting

Today's meeting was pretty much dedicated to the making of Egg Car for the parent meeting next week.  We did a sort of debrief of the fieldtrip with the kids to see what they enjoyed and what improvements they thought the trip needed.  We don't want to give away the final designs but here are some pictures of the students working on their Egg Cars.....

 As you can see, our groups have many varied desgin ideas!  Can not wait to see the results of the races and if the eggs "live" on Nov. 25th!!
Come and join us to find out the winners ;)

IMSA FUSION Fieldtrip 11-13-13

IMSA FUSION FIELDTRIP!!!

Everyone loved the trip to the IMSA Campus!  Here is an outline of what was experienced by our students.....

-Math lesson on Radioactive Decay of Skittles using graphing calculators!!
-Dissection of a Squid including extracting the beak and getting to see the brain!!
-A Delicious Lunch
-A Q & A about the campus and classes with current students
-A tour of campus with current students... including a view of the dorms!!!

The following are some pictures of the Math Activity and the Squid Dissection:

 Everyone getting on their lab coats, gloves and goggles!!

We have our squid.

We named our squid.

We are ready to go!!

We are learning the anatomical parts of a squid!  The function of each part also.

Having fun as we learn proper dissecting procedures.  We also got to identify the major organs in a squid!

 

Overall, it was a wonderful day and a great experience.  Thank you to the Galesburg Education Foundation and parents for their contributions to our travel needs, IMSA FUSION Teachers and Coordinator and the IMSA Staff in Aurora for hosting us. 

Parent Night has been moved!!!

Just a quick note.  We are going to have Parent Night from 4-5 on Monday the 25th of November.  So sorry but the kids are not ready yet to show off their cars!  We will finish those tonight and be ready for next week!!  Invitations will be coming home this week. 

**On a side note I will be posting about the field trip later today!  Thanks so much.

Schedule Changes & October 28th Meeting-- Hot Rod Hampster

***Our webinar for October 30 was cancelled.  It will be rescheduled for sometime in November, hopefully.  We will keep you updated as we get new information. 

***We have been having so much fun with some of projects that we have gotten a little behind schedule.  For this reason, we will be moving the Parent Night to November 18th.  We will be sending out invitations for this evening very soon!!!

On Monday the students were presented with a problem.  Hampton the Hampster wanted to be as fast as Tillman the skateboarding dog.  So Tillman asked the kids to build cars that Hampton could ride in to help him keep up with Tillman.  The students were given a list of materials they could use and how much each item costs.  They then had to come up with their design and purchase the materials at the store.  Finally, they built Hampton's cars. 

Below are some pictures of the test runs completed by the groups cars. 

Next week (November 4th) the students will get to make some last minute adjustments to their cars and then test them. We will then start to build a car that will hold an egg and be raced at parent night.  For this project we are asking the students to bring in any type of "trash" that they would like to use to build the "egg car." 

Oct. 21st Meeting

FINALLY!!!

At IMSA on Monday the 21st we finally got to test all of the things we have been working on in the last few meetings.
I must say that it seemed as though the kids LOVED it!
Below are a few picture of the groups in action with a brief description of the things that were done.

1st-- Finally the grass on our green roofs had grown in completely.  So we got to take those out into the courtyard and tested which shoebox would keep a cooler inside temperature, the green roof or the tiled roof.  In most of our groups we saw that the green roof would actually keep the inside cooler and therefore help with utility costs of buildings that choose to install them.     

2nd-- We had several different targets that were previously made.  These were used to test our catapults.  We had the student groups time the "air time" of the projectile after it was shot. 

We also had a contest to see which groups catapult would shoot the projectile the furthest into a bucket. (we measured this by the number of floor tiles between catapult and bucket.) 

 Finally, we had an accurracy contest between groups. We let each member shoot the catapult and try to hit the same spot as the other members in their group.

 

Pictures of the activities from 10-7-13

 The following pictures are from last nights meeting.  The pictures are of the students making targets and catapults out of various objects.  The targets and catapults will be used at the next meeting to see which groups design will fire the furthest and which is the most accurate.

10-7-13

Today at IMSA it will be all about CATAPULTS!!

We will be doing the following:

1.) Introduction Minute To Win It Activity with Marshmallows and Paper Plates
2.) We will then be making our catapults with rubber bands and popsicle sticks
3.) We will also be making targets so that we can test distance and accuracy.
4.) We will test our catapults.

This will be a very full IMSA meeting, yet a very fun one.  We are looking forward to see who can build the catapult that will shoot the furthest and which one will be most accurate.

On a side note.... Our green roofs are growing very well and will hopefully be ready to test the next time that IMSA will meet. 

Sept. 30th Meeting

At our second meeting the kids participated in the following activities:

1.) Paper clip Catapults
2.) Making of Targets
3.) Green Roofs assembly

We started with attendance and discussing future meetings/snack schedule.  We also discussed the IMSA trip and money collection.  We then watched a youtube video on how to make the paper clip catapults.  We then made the catapults, discussed targets and made some, and finally we tested our catapults.  After that we then took our research on green roofs from our previous meeting and built our own green roofs and shingle roofs.  We are letting the green roofs grow the grass so that then we can proceed with our experiment comparing the two types of roofs.  In the upcoming meetings we will also be delving further into catapults!  

IMSA Fieldtrip Letter and tentative schedule for Nov. 13th

Dear Parents/Guardians,

            At the IMSA Fusion parent information meeting earlier this year I mentioned the possibility of our program taking a field trip to the IMSA campus for a Science and Math Inquiry Workshop.  This has become a reality and we have been invited for a November 13th trip to IMSA!  This will be an all day field trip, and we will provide a schedule as we get closer.  At the meeting I also mentioned a potential fee that we would ask from parents to help offset the cost of the trip.  I am writing now to ask for your help with ensuring that we send our students on an amazing opportunity.  The total cost is looking to be around $1,100 dollars.  This cost would include 2 buses, 2 drivers and mileage charged by the bus company.  I am asking for a donation of $10 per student, to cut down the costs.  If you can give more that would be wonderful.  Please make checks payable to your respective school and submit the fee to your child's Fusion teacher.  Please feel free to contact me if you have questions at (309)-973-2282 or at nyoung@galesburg205.org.

Sincerely,

Nick Young
IMSA Fusion Team Coordinator

Jim Wilson
Principal

TENTATIVE SCHEDULE FOR NOV. 13th:  
6:45-7:00 a.m.  Leave Churchill

9:45 a.m.         Arrival (name badges distributed, restroom use)

10:00 a.m.       Math inquiry workshop presented by FUSION staff

11:00 a.m.       Science inquiry workshop presented by IMSA’s Student Allies (Squid Dissection)

11:50 a.m.       Lunch in the cafeteria 

12:30 p.m.      Students will participate in a question and answer session with IMSA Students and be taken on a tour of the academy 

1:30 p.m.        Departure

4:00-4:30 p.m. Arrival back at Churchill

1st Semester Snack Schedule

1st Semester Snack Schedule

Sept. 30th-- Emma Koval and Kaylyn Spencer
Oct. 7th-- Sophia Gebru and Lauren Palmer
Oct. 21st-- Kaitlyn Smith and Emma Hawkinson
Oct. 28th-- Jaci Childers and Alyson Wilt
Oct. 30th-- Joey Crawford and Kylee Wehrly
Nov. 4th-- Parent Night 5- 6:30
Nov. 13th-- Trip to Aurora
Nov. 18th-- Meghan Harms and Garrett Sprinkle
Nov. 25th-- Logan Greenlief and Quinn Anderson
Dec. 9th-- Dallin Porter and Morgan Reese
Dec. 16th-- Xander Gray and Vanessa Triplett

***Please bring enough for the 30 members we have in IMSA!!  Thanks so much for signing up.  If you didn't sign up this semester we will have a new sign up sheet in 2nd semester.

IMSA 1st Meeting- 9/23/13

With the school year back into the swing of things again we are now ready to start IMSA Fusion also.  We will do this on Monday, September 23, 2013 in room 60 at Churchill Jr. High from 3-4:45pm.  The following are the activities that will be achieved during this time:

1.) Expectations
2.) Minute to Win It Introductory Game
3.) Draw an Engineer
4.) Begin the Green Roof Experiment-- researching what one is, how to build one, pros/cons, etc.

We are excited about the Engineering, Design and Build unit and can not wait to get started.  Hope to see all of our Churchill IMSA Fusion Members there on Monday!