January 2015

Welcome back!! I hope you all had wonderful and restful breaks! I wanted to share with you an outline of the upcoming science unit on cells. I know you studied cells last year in 6th grade, so this unit is a quick review. I emphasis cell parts and organelles, and we do a lot of work with vocabulary, analogies and compare and contrast.

For example: a cell wall is like a door, because it controls what goes in and out of the classroom

Essential Questions 
Some of our essential questions (EQ's) we will discuss this unit include; why are cells vital to our daily living? How is the basic structure of a cell related to its function? Why is the function of each organelle within a cell? How do specialized cells allow organisms to have specific traits that allow it to grow and reproduce and survive in a given environment? Why is variation (or diversity) in a population important for survival?

Learning Targets
Our Long Term Learning Target (LTLT) for this unit is:
I can develop, communicate and justify an evidence-based explanation for cell structures, components and their specific functions in determining traits in organisms.

Our Learning Targets (LT) are:
*I can describe multiple parts of animal and plant cells
*I can compare and contrast animal and plant cells
*I can describe how the basic structure of the cell is related to its function
*I can explain how cells replicate
*I can explain how specialized cells allow organisms to have specific traits.