SCIENCE CHRISTMAS HOMEWORK

Remmember that you have to do your homework these Christmas. Enjoy your holidays, but do not forget your duties. Your teachers wish you a Really Happy New Year!

A GHOST STORY

In the city of Edinburgh, under its bussy streets, there are hidden corridors and quarters. It is a hidden city, used for different purposes through out history. Some people talk about ghost haunting the place. One of the most famous ghost storires is tha of Annie, a small girl, who is said to have died of The Sickness, who has been seen looking for her lost doll. Now, in one of the quaters of Mary King's Close, people leave dolls for Annie. You can find more information in the official Mary King's Close website or in the page of the Royal Mile. Do you know any ghost story? Is there any local ghost story? We could try and find one. Write one as a coment.

A HILL AND A RIVER

In the battlefield, landforms are very important. They serve as defensive or attacking positions, depending on their geographical characteristics. In Scotland, one of the most important battles fought for Scottish independence is The Battle of Sterling Bridge. It is represented in the film Braveheart, starred by Mell Gibson. The scottish took a hill across a river where there was a castle. They waited there until the English crossed the river. The bridge was very narrow. So only two men could cross at a time. The Scots ran down the hill and slayed the English. In the film they didn't use the bridge. You can see the castles position in the map.


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Why do you think a castle could be built in this position?

LOCH NESS!

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One of the most famous landmarks in Scotland is Loch Ness. Why do you think this is so? ... Yes you got it: beacause of the Loch Ness Monster legend (?). What do you know about Nessy? Zoom out with google maps and see where the lake is in Scotland. Can you give us its coordinates? That's a difficult one, isn't it? Click on ver mapa más grande. I'll give you a hint: you can find the coordinates in enlazar, top right corner of the map. Add the coordinates in a comment under this post. To find out more information about Nessy and Loch Ness, visit this page.

THE QUIZ

Just in case you want to have another copy of the quiz we are working in class with.

DAYLIGHT!

You can check here where in the world there is light from the Sun. You can check every now and then on the side of the blog.

SOME WEATHER FORECASTING?

Many factors affect the weather we enjoy (normally) in the Canary Islands. The weather elements are Temperature, atmospheric pressure, humidity, precipitations, wind and the sky. Take a look at some info in this BBC page. After you do that, you can do your own weather forecast. There is a nice game (based on the US, but I think it could be useful anyway) that would give an idea. Have a look here.

EARTH TILT

WHAT'S THE WEATHER LIKE IN YOUR CITY?

It is interesting to see our islands from above, isn't it? This picture probably represents one of the main characteristics of life in the Canary Islands: the weather. People normally say we are in Spring all year round. But, what are the seasons? What makes the change of seasons happen? There are many myths (see some here), but we now know what the reason is. In the National Geograpics web page they state that "the Earth rotates on an axis that is tilted. In other words, our planet never stands upright—it is always leaning to the side. The direction of this lean never changes. As the Earth travels along its orbit, it sometimes leans toward the sun and sometimes away from the sun".

To get a visual impression of the phenomenon, "point at an static object in the classroom and walk in a circle around a friend while he/she remains static. Remember to keep pointing at the object; this way you are always pointing in the same direction, no matter how you move. As you "orbit your friend", observe that the direction you are pointing sometimes goes directly toward your friend, sometimes directly away from him and sometimes to the side; the Earth behaves in the same way toward the sun." (slightely adpated from http://www.nationalgeographic.com/xpeditions/activities/07/season.html).

So, what is solstice? Check the difinition in the Simple English Wikipedia (click here) and try to draw the phenomenon in your notebooks. Do the same with equinox (click here).

Now, let's go to National Geographics again: find and click on the text "cosmic map." We'll do this on the board.

A SITE TO SEE

Mt Rushmore is one of the icons in American culture. Its coordinates are 43.875584,-103.453252 (if your are using google maps). Some other interesting sites in anglosaxon culture are Stonehenge (51.17898,-1.826177) and Sydney Opera House (33.857444,151.215305). These are just examples. Could you give us a general idea about one of them? Do it in groups of four. Use pictures, videos (even your own), text... We will give you time to do part of the work in class (computer lab?)



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SOME RUSSIAN MULTIPLICATION?

I'm learning a lot too! I never thought there could be such a nice way of multiplying. If you click on the picture you will see a large view of the image, with very clear instructions on how to do russian multiplication. We will do some more of http://www.hunkinsexperiments.com/ experiments. They look great.

WHAT'S THE UNIVERSE LIKE?

Here you have an overview of the main concepts we are going to be learning during this unit. You also have a link to other pages where you can learn more. Find the video, it's quite interesting!

RUSSIAN MULTIPLICATION

It is definetely a delight to see how much we can get from TeacherTube! This is a video that explains how Russian peasants used to multiply (and apparently some still do). You don't need to understand the whole video but simply understand the mechanics of the multiplication. You could find helpful to know the meaning of "even number (2, 4,...)", as opposed to "odd number (3, 5,...)". Try it out for yourself. Have fun.

WHAT IS CLIL

The teacher speaks less... the students participate more. Message is what is important. Can you do the exercise? Then go ahead! You don't need to understand every single word the teacher, or class mates, or people in the video, say.

CLIL: WHAT YOU SEE IS WHAT YOU GET

Using CLIL in English learning is not only translating from Spanish toEnglish. It is more than that (and maybe the opposite). We learn English as we change our way of seeing learning. When you are learning Science, the most important thing is that you understand how life is created. To do that you have to read, speak, listen, write, interact with classmates and teachers... You have to understand and communicate. Errors are not important. The Message is what is important. With time, we will also correct our own mistakes.