Investigation Teens

The teens decided that their group needed a face lift. Last week they discussed changing the room and made suggestions as to what they would like to see improved in the YES program overall. The group wanted to take more ownership of their space and their component so they have undertaken an overhaul of their room. This group is looking into changes  it can make to improve the use of space and to decorate it with their own flair. Teens made note of the Learning Places component's room and talked to some of the teens about their suggestions. They even worked on a group mission statement. City Science/Investigation teens have not yet decided on an inclusive name.

 They are also making progress on their Investigations. After brainstorming their interests they decided to split into several groups. One group is interested in animals and has been researching animals they have never heard of. They have a poster presentation almost ready. I'm curious what questions this has raised for animal behavior, habitats, and characteristics. There are two groups who were interested in architecture. One group has decided to create their own building. It resembles a hospital. They are thinking about making a survey asking patients about which aspects of th building make them feel most and least comfortable. The other architecture group has been looking into various structures in St. Louis. I believe they are wanting to redesign some of these famous landmarks;looking at other design processes.  

This semester the teens from the Investigation Stations and the City Science A group were put together to continue  to discuss System Dynamics. For most of the teens this is an entirely new topic and learning environment, but others have been exposed to the content since last semester. I'm looking forward to seeing things unfold. So far we've talked about systems; our place in them, the components neccessary for success, what defines a system, etc. We're trying to get the teens excited about how they effect their environments. Last week in lab we had an interesting discussion about the connections between components in different systems. We were talking about the involvment of "Rules" in systems and how, if at all, rules cross system boundaries and what would happen in mall systems if security was increased when one of the teens asked the question, "Would you rather have all your freedoms/rights but not feel safe or increased safety measures and lose some of your freedoms"? This encouraged a great discussion about the merits of rules, and whether or not certain behaviors are rights/responsibilties.

This semester has been a lot of fun we did a lot of labs. Some of the labs we did are lipids,root beer production,what affects the growth of yeast and many more. We also did a lot of scans and worked a lt in college prep.The sadest part of the semester was when pricilla told us she was leaving then she started cryiing.The funniest part of the semester ws when Blake almost burned up the lab even though it was an accident

today we played a game called fish we had to catch a certain amount of fish and make sure that there would not be too many fish or too less in the pond. do i put the figures as follow so i would be able to keep the same amount of fish in the pond.

fish caught in one year-100

reproduction rate-.5

fish in pond-200 

this is how we started out a nice good burger then suddenly  it turned into a hidious hairy object that seemed to look like mold. well guess what it is mold. right now we are experimenting the facts of mold and how it forms i am not really going to tell you the details but know it is going to be fun experiment!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

 

In this picture we are playing a game called fish in the pond. In this game what we did was we  put 75 cut out fishes on the table with paper clips on each of them. The point of the game is to get as much fish as you can with the fishing pole. After each round you give one of the fishes you caught to feed your family. If you get 10 fishes, you can sell them at the market and get a prize. After we were finished playing, we made a line graph of the fish that were in the pond after three rounds. After we were finished making the graph, we made suggestions of how we can have more fishes in the pond and we would test them next week.