Day 110 - MSMS 7th Graders Write Letters of Support to Stoneman Douglas High School

In an effort to continue their efforts to participate in small acts of kindness, seventh graders at Marshall Simonds Middle School wrote letters to the students returning to school at Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. Their sweet messages filled with hope and comfort were thoughtful and inspiring. 

Day 55 - ABOVE and BEYOND SCIENCE ACTIVITY BLOCK - Mrs. Scelsi - MSMS Grade 7

This post originally appeared on Mrs. Scelsi's Blog

DNA during Activity Block

During activity block for the past two weeks our students - grades 6, 7 and 8 - have been learning about DNA.  Today we built nucleotides!

Day 115 - Millipore Sigma Visits 7th Grade Science to Experiment with DNA! - MSMS Blog

This post originally appeared on the MSMS Blog

7C Students build models of DNA 

Today, some scientists from Millipore Sigma visited Marshall Simonds to conduct a lab on the purpose, function, and components of DNA. During the lesson, students donned lab coats and took DNA samples from their cheeks. Following the extraction, the scientists from Millipore Sigma explained the importance of DNA and how scientists interact with DNA in their research. Students also built models of DNA which consisted of their 6 components: Sugar, Phosphate, Adenine, Thymine, Cytosine, and Guanine.

Millapore Sigma visited the school as part of the Spark global outreach program, which aims to spark a child’s curiosity and interest in Science. Our 7A and 7C science students really enjoyed this hands-on approach to learning about DNA and learned a lot from this visit!

Day 6 - Living Things Day - Mrs. Scelsi - Marshall Simonds 7th Grade Science

Today was "living things" day.  Thank you so much for supporting your students in bringing their living things to school.  We had representatives from the Animal Kingdom (birds, guinea pigs, geckos, boa constrictor, hamsters and fish), the Plant Kingdom (venus fly traps, dusty millers and a wide variety of other plants), the Protist Kingdom (red algae, amoeba, slime mold), Kingdom Fungi (yeast and mushrooms) and the Eubacteria Kingdom (acidophilus).  We had a great time investigating the various attributes of these organisms!  We will be delving a little more thoroughly into the characteristics of living things this week.