Safety First!

On Friday, we spent a little more time talking about safety.  I also handed out the Safety Contract which all students and their parents/guardians must sign and return before the student is allowed to participate in lab activities.  Here are some of the most important rules from the contract.

Safety Contract Highlights:
 - Follow all written and verbal instructions carefully
 - Never eat, drink, chew gum or taste anything in the lab
 - Report any accident or injury to the teach immediately
 - Wear proper lab attire: no loose clothing, hair tied back, close toe-d shoes and safety goggles
 - Know wear safety equipment is locate: fire blanket and extinguisher, eye wash station and evacuation procedures
 - Clean up after yourself

We also starting talking about the idea of being able to think and what that means.  To me, thinking means being able to figure something out or solve a new problem based on what you already know.  Thinking could also mean reflecting on or evaluating some idea.  A lot of you guys also came up with some really good definitions of what it means to think in your journal entries.  My goal is for all of you to be accomplished 'thinkers' by the end of this class.

Journal Question #1 : Why is it important to have rules?

Journal Question #2 : What does it mean to know how to think?

Team Building and Syllabus Day

The first two days of school have been pretty low key.  On Wednesday, we started off with a group activity where you had to stack up plastic cups using only a rubber band with strings tied to it.  Most of you did and awesome job working together to accomplish this task!  I also started getting to know you all by having you fill out a 'Facebook profile' and I really appreciated the few of you who volunteered to share theirs.

Today was 'syllabus day'.  I know going through all the rules and expectations and grading policies isn't a lot of fun, but it is necessary every year because every teacher does things a little differently.  If have any questions throughout the year, you can find my syllabus posted on here in the column to the right.

Once we got through all of the rules, we started talking a little bit about safety.  Most classes don't have any safety issues, but since we will be working in a science lab, we need to take extra precautions.  Today, we learned where most of the safety equipment is located and we drew diagrams and labeled all of these items.  Tomorrow we will talk more about appropriate dress and procedures to follow when working in the lab.

Safety First

I hope everybody is learning their way around the building.  I promise, it gets easier :)