Here is today’s “What do You Know” presentation. Make sure at the end of this series of stations you can answer each question. (Check the presentation again as it now contains many of the answers)

There has been a lot of concern over the first FCAT Station Quiz so here’s a link to a review document that goes over each of the questions.

Homeostasis has come up a couple of times on your post-it notes. It refers to processes that help keep an organism in a healthy, balanced state. So that would include fighting disease, maintaining proper nutrition, eliminating waste, etc.

Mitosis & meiosis are answered in the comments.

Rarefaction and compression refers to parts of a longitudinal or compression wave (such as sound waves). You illustrated this by moving the slinky forward and back creating a wave something like the one shown below.

You are not expected to know any chemical equations. However just for those who asked one equation combining carbon dioxide and water to make glucose and oxygen was photosynthesis. The other equation was almost the reverse combining glucose and oxygen to form carbon dioxide and water plus the release of energy in the form of ATP.

Preparing for the FCAT is not about learning new stuff it’s about remembering what you already learned, so I hope the activities we are doing will spark some memories, like Sponge Bob genetics, bird beak mutations, rockets and geodynamic models (candy bars).

As you work through the stations sometimes you might encounter words that sound familiar but their exact meaning just escapes us. That’s what the vocab board is for; just jot the word down on a post-it and put it on the board. I’ll try to explain as many as I can here or in the comments. Below are the words/phrases from today’s board.

•  A number came from the heredity station:

• gametes are sex cells, sperm and eggs, they contain half a set of chromosomes
• heterozygous means a cell has 2 different alleles (an allele is half a gene pair) for a particular trait
• homozygous means both alleles are the same for a particular trait

• acids are compounds that give off hydrogen ions (H+) in water, they have a pH of less than 7 (7 is neutral like water), lemonade is acidic
• bases are compounds that give off hydroxide ions (OH-) in water, they have a pH greater than 7, most soaps are bases
• salts are compounds that typically form from the combination of acids and bases in a process called neutralization
• compounds are substances made of 2 or more elements that cannot be separated by physical means

• autotrophs are organisms that make their own food from an energy source such as sunlight
• heterotrophs feed on other organisms
• microgravity is often referred to as weightlessness such as what astronauts experience in space
• prominences are large looping features that extend out from the surface of the sun, caused by twisting magnetic fields
• polarity strips are records in the rock of the Earth’s magnetic poles reversing.

Have more questions? Remember activities from previous years? Add to the comments.

Ever feel like this??

Naples Florida second grade teacher Rachel Miller hits FCAT booklets with a hammer during an FCAT pep rally.

You’re about to take your FCATs; what do you think of them? What do they mean to you, your school, your teachers, your future?  Are they important?  Should we be doing them? Do they measure what you know? Are you prepared?

Practice good argumentation in your response. Be thoughtful and defend your position with sound logic and evidence. Voice your opinion.

By-the-way are you wondering how you did on the sample questions? Grades are in Progress Book, but here is how we did as a whole.

This is just a small sample test so I don’t know how well it will predict your actual FCAT score. If you want a better idea take the 2007 test mentioned in the post below.

Want a better idea of how well prepared you are for the science FCAT?

Try this — 2007 Science FCAT. This is the actual test from 2007. While this year’s test will not include extended response questions, the content should quite similar.

Now check your answers against these – 2007 Science FCAT Answers.

Let me know how you did.

More FCAT study resourecs can be found on the study resources page.