Data Team looks at Bike Safety

Bike Safety Presentation from David Bouchard on Vimeo.

Scientist in Residence Wrap-up

We had a super spring finish to our Scientist in Residence program thanks to the dynamic West/Dewaard husband and wife duo. Chris West is a building science engineer who studies, designs and cures houses of their heat loss problems. He explained to students the difference between being an engineer and a scientist. Chris explained that a scientist identifies the problems and engineers create the systems to fix them. One of the key concepts Chris talked about was the way heat moves between objects (see photo right). He stressed that heat always moves to cold. Following his awesome and informative presentation on properties of heat he demonstrated a high tech heat imaging device used to find heat loss in an object.  Below is an image of Mr. Botzojorns face, notice the dark areas where he is loosing heat.  Students were excited and engaged learning from Chris- Thanks again Chris!

Mr. Botzojorns loosing heat!

Anita DeWaard, our Scientist in Residence parent coordinator, finished out the year by following up her husband Chris.  Anita is a physicist and she works for a science publishing company.  She spoke with students about how information becomes fact and how important publishing a good scientific report is.  Anita showed students how solving a problem in science is a lot like how the problem in a story is resolved.   She shared with students some science journals.  They were very interesting to look through.  She also showed student scientists how they could be active researchers on-line.  Students helped classify galaxies and identify whale calls through on-line citizen research sites.

Thanks again to all those that made this fantastic program a big success- especially Anita.  We will continue our program next year and hope to have even more super scientists in residence!

Wonderful Wed Weather

Wonderful Wed Weather from David Bouchard on Vimeo.

Wet Wet Wet weather 5/29

Wet Wet Wet from David Bouchard on Vimeo.

Rain with a chance of more and more rain

Wed. Weather from David Bouchard on Vimeo.

Weather update

Weather from David Bouchard on Vimeo.

5/16 weather

5/16 from David Bouchard on Vimeo.

Last sunny day?

Good Day Weather 5/8 from David Bouchard on Vimeo.

Friday Weather

<iframe src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/65560434" width="500" height="281" frameborder="0" webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen></iframe> <p><a href="http://vimeo.com/65560434">Friday Weather</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/user13958174">David Bouchard</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com">Vimeo</a>.</p>

Wednesday Weather

4/17 Weather from David Bouchard on Vimeo.

Weather

Weather from David Bouchard on Vimeo.

Mixed Bag on the Way

Mixed Bag from David Bouchard on Vimeo.

Cold and Sunny 4/3 Weather

Cold and Sunny from David Bouchard on Vimeo.

3/27 Weather

March 27th Weather from David Bouchard on Vimeo.

3/22 Weather

3/22 Weather from David Bouchard on Vimeo.

Wednesday's Weather

3/13 Weather from David Bouchard on Vimeo.

Physicist Madalina Furis WOWs Students

The laser apparatus 

Setting-up the 3D cameras

"Wow- there I am in 3D!" This was something that was heard over and over again last week as students entered the Enrichment Room and saw themselves on the big(ish) screen set up in the front of the room. Physicist Madalina Furis, a professor from the University of Vermont, took time out of her very busy schedule to spent the entire school day meeting with just about every class. Her assistant David Hammond showed up bright and early to set up the three dimensional cameras and the laser. Dr. Furis used the laser and cameras to help her explain the work she does studying light. Although the concepts were high level, Dr.Furis did a wonderful job explaining about her research on a level students could understand. Dr. Furis also talked about her life as a scientist and how one gets to her level of expertise. She left students with this thought- "If you become a physicist you will always work with people that are smarter than you, and this is a wonderful thing!" Thanks again to Anita de Waard for helping us get Dr. Furis and all of the other great scientists in this year, the scientist in residence program has been a great success.

Live weather 3/6

March 6th from David Bouchard on Vimeo.

Feb 22nd Weather

Great Day for Winter Fest!

Feb 22nd Weather from David Bouchard on Vimeo.

Grade 2 Rocks the Rock Candy

Ms. MacDonald's class paid a visit to the Enrichment Lab this week to explore the question: How does heat change matter? To do this the class compared two solutions. One was cold water with sugar added, the other was boiling water with sugar added. Students noticed that the boiling water dissolved more sugar than the cold water. The hot water also turned a brownish color. The amount of liquid in both containers almost doubled as well! Students had a broad array of ideas on where the sugar went when it was no longer visible in the liquid solutions. To conclude the investigation students put the warm sugary solution in test tubes with a stick. They are hoping to grow sugar crystal. A follow-up will take place after winter-break.  If crystals do grow, we will have to figure out how it happened.

Hot vs. Cold 

Will sugar crystals grow?  Wait and see.

Wednesday Weather 2/20

Snowy Morning 2/20 from David Bouchard on Vimeo.

Friday's Weather 2/15

2/15 Weather from David Bouchard on Vimeo.

Cloudy chance of flurries

Scientist in Residence - Our Own Lupe Sears

Stepping out of her roles as JES E.L.F. coordinator, JES Ski Program co-coordinator, emergency vet technician, Bolton Valley Ski instructor and mother of two we were lucky enough to have Lupe Sears step into her role as a wildlife biologist for the day on Wednesday. Lupe left her usual spot in the back of school-wide meeting Tuesday to introduce herself to the school and to give a preview of her visit on Wednesday. Lupe spent Wednesday visiting just about every class in the school. Students learned about her past research studying birds and other wildlife on Midway Island in the South Pacific and her current work studying Common Terns on Lake Champlain. Lupe shared bird calls, interesting photos and she brought in some of the tags she uses to tag birds so she and her colleagues can track their movement. She stressed to students the importance of being precise and accurate when collecting and reporting data. Her current work with terns is very important. The Federal Government depends on the data she helps collect to determine if the common tern should remain on the Endangered Species list.  Students asked great questions and showed an interest in studying to be biologists!  Students will be glad to see Lupe around the building and a few teachers have asked her to come back to help on future life cycle units.
Thanks SO much Lupe for sharing your work and inspiring the students at JES.

 We are looking forward to next week's visit from two UVM physicists!

Weather 2/15

Weather 2/13 from David Bouchard on Vimeo.

Weather 2-6- 2013 - Keeping an Eye on Friday

Weather 2/6 from David Bouchard on Vimeo.

It's Freezing Out There! Weather 1/24

1/25 Weather from David Bouchard on Vimeo.

COLD COLD COLD 1/23 Weather

1/23 Cold But Sunny: Dress Warmly! from David Bouchard on Vimeo.

Weather 1/18

1/17 Weather from David Bouchard on Vimeo.

Scientist in Residence- Geologist Ashliegh Bellrose

This week students were awestruck by the stories and pictures that Ashliegh Bellrose shared when she came in to talk about her life as a geologist. One little girl was over heard saying, "That's the coolest thing I've ever heard." Ashliegh is a research student at the University of Vermont. She has traveled all over the country to study the Earth. At this point in her career she is researching the bottom of Lake Champlain. In a few weeks she will be extracting and testing lake bottom core samples- how cool is that?! Ashliegh adjusted her presentation to match the grade levels she was presenting to. She moved between kindergarten, grade three and grade four grade. She had rock and fossil samples and a host of cool geology tools. A few teachers even asked her to come back. She was not able to visit every class, but she did see the classes that have studied or will be studying geology this year. The good news is we have more scientists ready to visit, so all the classrooms will have the chance to be inspired by an active scientist. Look for the next post on our February physicist visit.

Ashliegh sharing her stories with Mrs. Bouchard's Class and

Tools of the Geologist

1/17 Weather

1/16 Weather from David Bouchard on Vimeo.

Kick-off to the Scientist in Residence Program

This week at the school-wide morning meeting we met our first scientist in residence, Jamie Abaied. Jamie is a Jericho resident and a research scientist at the University of Vermont (see this link). Thanks to the hard work of Anita de Waard we will be hearing from a new scientist almost every week through February. Anita herself is a scientist and the parent of a student here at JES. Anita was the inspiration for the program, and we could not have gotten it off the ground without her help and determination, so many thanks. During Jamie's visit grade 3 and 4 students were introduced to a world of science many had not been exposed to in the past. As Jamie shared her work in studying child development, wide-eyed students were surprised to learn that not all science is done in labs with test tubes and chemicals. Jamie described the steps she goes through when exploring a research question. She shared videos of other scientists conducting research with infants and she had grade 4 do an activity to give them a feel for what kind of work she does. It was very exciting to have her in. We are looking forward to our next visit from Ashliegh Kollmer, a geologist from the University of Vermont.

Jamie Abaied being introduced at school-wide morning meeting

Jamie working with students in the Enrichment Room

Weather Friday 1/4/13

Weather For January 4th from David Bouchard on Vimeo.

Back to School Weather 1/2/13

1/2/2013 Weather from David Bouchard on Vimeo.