Science Conference is a Huge Success

On Wednesday, Dr. Natalie Gordon, PhD and Dr. Richard Gordon, PhD, two scientists who spend the winter doing marine biology at the Gulf Specimen Marine Laboratory in Florida, visited the Learning 4Life Success program at Tiospa Zina Tribal School. Their visit was the final activity of a two week science exploratory. The juniors and seniors in the Technology for Life Success and Communication for Life Success classes prepared for the Science Conference by studying mollusks, echinoderms, sea turtles, the geological history of South Dakota, and marine fossils.

Dr. Natalie Gordon, PhD teaches us about turtles. 

Dr. Natalie Gordon presented on her work rescuing sea turtles. Most of the seven extant (living) sea turtle species are endangered. They are at risk of becoming extinct. She explained how dangerous our human pollution can be for sea turtles. For example, sea turtles love to eat jelly fish. When humans throw away plastic bags, they end up in the ocean. Sea turtles mistake them for jellyfish and eat them. Unless the sea turtle is rescued and receives emergency care, it can die.

Sea turtles are also at risk from helium balloons (also look like jellyfish), fishing trawl nets, fish hooks, plastic debris in the water, and even human diseases. There is a lot humans can do to help sea turtles and other animals and plants that might become extinct. Some people say that homo sapiens (humans) need to take responsibility for stopping pollution to prevent extinction of animals and plants because without the animals and plants, homo sapiens will become extinct too!

Dr. Richard Gordon, PhD and Treyton Neilan (Future Paleontologist)
discuss sedimentary rock layers.

Dr. Richard Gordon presented a bit about his current research. He is researching the very beginnings of life. He explained how organisms with only one cell but no nucleus came first and then something made them get a nucleus. We do not know what made that happen but that is what he is trying to figure out. Also he explained that some scientists have a theory that the very first life on planet earth, like a bacteria, might have come from someplace else because at first, earth was molten magma. We don’t know for sure how all this works, but Richard does. We enjoyed learning from him. It really stretched our thinking.

4.5 billion years ago this was bivalves
on the ocean floor.

Natalie and Richard also brought some rocks from Florida. They are sedimentary rocks with marine fossils in them. We used a hammer to break open the rocks and chisel out the fossils. Then we studied them with magnifying glasses and used the internet and books to try to figure out what type of animal made that fossil. The fossils were at least 4.5 million years old. We had fossils of several kinds of gastropods, cephalopods, corals, and bivalves such as clams and scallops. It was amazing to think about the animals being alive 4.5 million years ago! And now here we were holding their fossils in our hands right here in Tiospa Zina Tribal School. We each got to take some of these fossils home to keep them. That is awesome, too!

Dr. Natalie Gordon examines a spiral marine gastropod fossil
Jaron Wilson discovered

We really enjoyed hosting the scientists and having this Science Conference like we will do in our future college or our work life. We were also really glad to have Lori and two students from Lori’s class come to the Science Conference. Everyone had to take notes, like you do at a real conference. We had to treat each other like colleagues. We also had to greet the scientists properly.

Our class prepared a slideshow which we used to explain about Tiospa Zina and about our Life Success program. We also introduced ourselves with a slide that told a little bit about us. Public speaking like that was a little stressful, but we are very satisfied with how our presenting went.

The science conference was a lot of hard work but we really got a lot of learning out of it. If you come to our classroom, you will see our display. We can also show you some fossils. We all wrote thank you letters today, and sent a booklet to Natalie and Richard with a summary of our learning.

We hope Sister Patrice invites Natalie and Richard back next spring!

Getting Ready for a Visit from Real Scientists

On Wednesday morning, March 29, we will have two real scientists visit with us. Dr. Natalie Gordon is a geneticist. Dr. Richard Gordon is a theoretical biologist. Both of them are colleagues of Sister Patrice. They came to PEACE last year. This year the Learning 4Life Success class gets them!

Research on sea turtle anatomy

To get ready, all of us are learning a lot. 


1. Sea turtles


We didn't know anything about sea turtles. Now we know a lot! Everyone had one question to research. We had to write research notes. 
We had to get good pictures from the internet. We had to type everything. 

We all had to make something to show what we learned. 

There are seven species of sea turtles.
Some are endangered.

We put it all on a display.

That was this Wednesday.

Facts about Sea Turtles

2. Echinoderms and Mollusks and Corals

What is that, you ask? 
These are marine animals. Echinoderms are animals like star fish and sand dollars. 

Jaron examines a horseshoe crab shell. Horseshoe
crabs are "living fossils" because they
have stayed the same for millions of years.

Mollusks are animals like bivalves (clams, scallops) , gastropods (conchs and snails), and also cephalopods (octopus and squid). 

Researching our topics

We also learned about horseshoe crabs, which are "living fossils" because they did not have an upgrade in their design for a million years.

We used books, videos, internet articles, and real shells.

We looked at a lot of shells. The shells came from Florida. We saw videos and studied pictures. We each had to pick a topic for research again. 


We made some more things for  the wall. That was this Thursday.

3. Friday was Fossil Friday

Did you know South Dakota was once at the bottom of a big ocean? Did you know the Black Hills have a lot of igneous rock and also Milbank and Yankton have some? But everywhere else in SD it is metamorphic and sedimentary but mostly sedimentary?

Did you know that glaciers are like bulldozers and they pushed all the dirt, stones, gravel, and even boulders to this part of South Dakota from Manitoba, Canada? The glaciers also made the Coteau des Prairies.  The glacial till is what we see: dirt, rocks, boulders, and gravel.

Fish fossils from Colorado

We also studied Sister Patrice's fish fossils. They came from Colorado, but when Colorado was under the ocean, it was not called Colorado. 

There was also a hard stone with a lot of sea shell fossils in it. We looked at the fossils with magnifying glasses.

A fake fossil of marine life

Then we made our own fake fossils. They are made with clay and sea shells. We made an imprint. Real fossils take thousand of years to make. Our fossils took about 20 minutes. 

Almost looks real, doesn't it?

We also did a lot of fossil research.

•  How are fossils really made?
• Where was the largest fossil archelon (prehistoric turtle) found in South Dakota? 
• Who is "Sue"?

It was a lot to learn. Hopefully we can remember some of it for next Wednesday when the scientists come!

How to remember anything!

Here is a summary of some of the ways we learned to remember things. We practiced using some of these in class. Now we are supposed to use them in our other classes (like for a test) or at home (like to remember to do things we're supposed to do.)

We would have put this up sooner except that Sister Patrice forgot where she put the pieces. (Joke!)

Healthy Relationships

We just finished a unit on "Healthy Relationships." We made a wall display near our classroom because we felt that everyone in our high school would learn something from it. We invite you to come and see the display anytime.

It took a lot of work to research. First, we talked about healthy, mature relationships we had seen. The, we read articles. We watched videos. We took a lot of notes using the Cornell notes method. We thought about our own lives and experiences. We added new things to our working poster every day. We talked about using "I statements" to say our feelings in a mature way. 


We also learned about unhealthy and immature relationships. A lot of people we know are adults but they still have immature relationships. We saw videos and read articles about this, too. We learned that some behaviors are right "on the line" between immature and abusive. But we all agreed that violence is always abusive, so is bullying. 

Local calls- Confidential help.

Hallway Display

We put all of our learning together into this hallway display. A lot of high school students already looked at it. We added the phone numbers for where you can get help if you need it. Sometimes you have to get help for someone else- a friend, a relative, even an adult. If someone is being hurt, you call 911.

We're grateful for extra work space in the hallway.

Making a part of the display helps us summarize.

Working on the posters to share what we learned.

We put information in our Handbook.

Tyrone and Jaron got the lettering up.

We also put foldables in our
Handbook for Adulthood and wrote
about how we wanted to be in our future.

If the relationship is all about power and control, it is not healthy and it
is probably abusive.

Equality in relationships means the relationship is healthy and mature.

Healthy Relationships (usually after age 15) look like this.

Mature people say this.

Immature relationships are pretty common between about 13 and 25.

Abusive relationships can be at any age. Abuse can look like bullying in younger children.

We learned that you never have to accept abusive relationships. You are responsible for getting help for yourself if you are a victim. You can also help a friend or family member get help if they are being abused. 

It is never too late to get help for abuse. Also, abusers of any age can become healthy with training, therapy, counselling, treatment, and maturity. 

Talking about all this was helpful because of situations we face every single day. 

March Madness Strikes Fifth Hour Math!

Fractions.
Decimals.
Percents.
Predictions!
Check it out on our Math Website!

Welcome to our Palace

Our "Memory Palace" that is!
[Want to see one of the learning activities we did to learn this? Here's the link>>> LINK]

We are making a hallway
display to share the information.
Come and see it next week!

 This week we learned a bit more about learning. We learned ways to memorize.

Here are some of the strategies:

• Repeat to yourself
• Writing things down
• Chunking (memorizing in pieces)
• Drawing (even if you’re a bad artist)
• Stories (make up a story to remember the items)
• Flashcards
• Making up a jingle or song or rap
• Erasing part of what we are memorizing (or making flaps)
• Making a tape of the lecture or yourself reciting it and listening over and over again.

These strategies help you remember things on a test, things like your social security number, or something like your boss’s phone number. Study strategies like this are important!

We learned about these by watching videos, looking at suggestions on the web, and sharing what works best for us. To practice, we made up our own stories and jingles to remember things. We added information to our Handbook for Adulthood so we will have it for our future. On Friday, Jaron, Raycee and Tyrone did a "stand and deliver" and could use the "Memory Palace" strategy if they wanted.

Learning these strategies will help us in adult life because we need to remember things such as filling out an application or going to the store. Memorizing strategies can also help us remember things for exams or big tests. These don’t only work in high school. They can work in college and adult life too.

We hope you can take advantage of some of these memorizing strategies too.