When Whales Had Legs

Today in class we were riveted watching a television special following the evolutionary history of the whale.  Did you know whales started out as land mammals 50 million years ago?

I have linked to the 5 parts of the series through youtube. 

Part 1 

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

News On Our Environmental Fair

Look at the great article written about our environmental fair! Click on the link to read more. Great job to everyone involved! Keep tuned for more amazing things in the works.  Environmental Fair News Article

Evolutionary Vocabulary

Students created mountains of vocabulary Frayer models informing us of the meanings of some key evolution terms.  Pictured are students engaging in a gallery walk locating the definitions, examples and pictures for these key terms: Evolution, Natural Selection, Camouflage, Offspring, Fitness, Variation, Adaptation, and Species.  

Environmental Fair, It's a Success!

City year writing pledges to the environment

Ms. Yaniv planting vegetables, giving away seed packets and organic produce

LA Samba impressing everyone with their Brazilian drumming

Thank you so much to everyone that came out to support our first ever environmental fair on Saturday. It was amazing how all of our ideas came together!  The students ran the show doing everything from offering raffle tickets and goodie bags, serving snacks, helping out with the environmental organizations and doing an amazing job cleaning the community.  I am so impressed! So what are we doing next??

Digging compost 

Heal the bay teaching us some important information about the health of our oceans

CanLove showing us how much we fun we can have while recycling

The Environmental Fair is tomorrow!!!!

I'm very excited that tomorrow is the environmental fair! From 9-12pm in the front parking lot of John Muir Middle School we will be engaging in lots of fun activities focused on environmental activism, sustainability and the arts.  Involved in our special day we will have representatives from: The LA Astronomical Society, Tree People, Heal the Bay, The Audubon Society, Communities for a Better Environment, Manual Arts Food Justice Club, Mr. K, Jamia Weir,  Maya Yaniv, Mr. Orique, Can Love and the NRDC.

Tomorrow you can join in, plating our own seeds, writing pledges to the environment and creating some graffiti can art! Not to mention our clean up event, picking up waste around our community of South Los Angeles.

Please come join in the fun tomorrow, eat some free food, listen to some great music by LA Samba and learn about what you can do to cultivate a better environment.  Hope to see you there!!

<3 Ms. Salzburg

John Muir Middle School Environmental Fair and Clean Up Day

Saturday, February 22,  9am -12pm

5929 S. Vermont Blvd. 

Los Angeles Ca 90044

iPad Madness

So begins our foray into the wonderful world of technology.  With every student now with an iPad in tow, a lot of careful planning has to go into digitizing already existing lessons.  To get our feet wet we have been working with Near Pod and Notability with some exciting results.  Down below is a link to a reading we began in class focusing on the nuances of natural selection through the lens of a cricket and his song, or his sneak, to get a mate.  (With Notability you are able to annotate and answer the text dependent questions directly on the ipad! ) Check it out!

Survival of the Sneakiest!

Environmental Fair!

It is with much excitement that I advertise our first ever environmental fair and community clean up day! This coming Saturday 9am-12pm we will be in the front parking lot of the school engaging in tons of environmentally themed activities; planting seeds, writing pledges to the environment creating recycled art, creating amazing work with old pant cans, learning about clean energy and trees! Come out and join us for all of this, as well as, music, food, a walk through the community and a chance to win passes to the Aquarium of the Pacific!

Test Corrections

Homework: Friday February 7 is the due date for your test corrections. You have the opportunity to earn back 50% of every point that you missed! In order for your corrections to count you need to write the correct answer AND justify.  The final step to gaining credit is getting your test signed by a parent or guardian.  NO signature NO credit!

Remember that I am here early morning, lunch, nutrition and after school Wednesday for tutoring if you want help!