Class happenings and germs

On Friday an example had to be set. During our Virus Factory Challenge, there was a class that could not quiet down, no matter how many warnings I gave. After a while, this class clearly showed to me that they were not capable of controlling themselves and would not take responsibility to help me find the individuals who were responsible. Thus, I could not allow the students to get their points for the quiz, as I did not know who was cheating. I have absolutely no tolerance for cheating and will continue to take strict measures against it. Any further consequences for cheating should not come as surprise. It is in your interest to report any cheating to me in order to narrow the blame to the individuals at fault rather than the classroom protecting them and suffering injustice in the shadow of the culprit's disregard for taking responsibility for his/her own work, or a lack there of. Please, respect yourselves and respect others, this is what it all comes down to.

On Monday, the grades thus far will be entered into your progress reports. Any questions or concerns about them have to be dealt with outside of the class time -- not during an ongoing lesson. All your grades up until Tuesday still stand. Since then, you had three graded assignments. The printouts of your progress will be posted on the wall in class, so you can compare everything you have and contact me about any discrepancies.

On Tuesday we are starting to work on our section about bacteria. If anyone is still not surprised by their abundance in our lives, it would probably be interesting to know that a recent study has suggested that the vast majority of snowflakes form around airborne bacteria. You can find a news article describing this here:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-sci-bacteria1mar01,1,541887.story?ctrack=1&cset=true

Happy learning!

-Miss Ivanna