Category Archives: Middle Level

The Mousetrap Car Tournament champion was Hally Johnson, followed by Toby Scherbarth in second place, and Mia Skinner coming in third. The object of the lesson was for students each to create a vehicle that was solely powered by an unmodified mousetrap. The vehicle was to be no longer than 18 inches and no wider than 10 inches. Students were encouraged to decorate their vehicles but the mousetrap couldn’t be decorated or altered in anyway. Students were able to earn points based on how closely they followed the project guidelines; those winning the tournament earned extra credit.

The sixth grade created Halloween cards as part of a unit on circuitry. The students learned about how to make open, closed, series and parallel circuits; using single and multiple LEDs, and troubleshooting their circuits. Every card was different, highlighting their creativity in design and circuitry. Of course, nothing goes right the first (or second, or third) time but the students persisted until things worked out. Sometimes they had to change the initial plan to make things work.

On Wednesday, September 29, we listen and learned about bees. Our speaker’s name was Chris McDonald. He brought in an observation hive of about 1,000 bees out of a hive of around 8,000 bees.

We learned that if a bee larva is not fertilized it becomes a male bee, if it is fertilized it becomes a female. With that being said the males will get kicked out of the hive at the beginning of winter because they don’t work and can’t feed themselves.

After hatching, the larva automatically becomes a nurse bee. A nurse bee feeds all of the baby bees royal jelly. Then they become a worker bee, who puts the honey in the honeycomb which is in the shape of a hexagon. Finally, they become a field bee which gets the pollen and nectar from the flowers.

Our favorite part about the bees was observing what they do in the observation hive and watching the baby bee pop out of the holes. We also thought it was cool when he showed us pictures of the bees.

In conclusion, it is pretty incredible that all those bees can have that whole thing running and making honey and it was awesome learning about it!

By the 6^th Grade Class