Mr. Walrath's Virtual Classroom
Welcome to Quarter 4!
Exams start this week!
Robotics exam is Monday, 1st period. Students will demonstrate their challenge beginning at 0950.
Cisco and CSS exams are Tuesday morning.
Science 6 exams are Thursday morning.
Antarctic Tipping Point?
NASA researchers have discovered data indicating the West Antarctic glaciers may be melting at a rate much, much higher than thought before... watch the video below:
ITE Practice Quizzes
CSS Students can visit http://quizlet.com/_ha8ic to get some tutoring on the upcoming final exam...
Telescope Night set-Final one for 2013/14
Weather dependent, the next HMHS Telescope Night is set for Friday 30 May. Rain/cloud/pollution will mean cancellation. The telescope will be set up on the "big" Green Roof (down the hall on the "A" wing, 2nd floor) starting at about 8 p.m./2000 until 2130. We should be able to view Jupiter, Mars, and very possibly Saturn as well. Students, family, school staff and faculty, and community members are welcome to attend. Please enter at the main door and go up the stairs... following the signs to the telescopes.
A new video from NASA's Science Casts is directly linked to topics we recently studied in Science 6 (and when you see the video, I hope you get the intentional pun above)...
Classroom Procedures and Policies
Science 6 Requirement
All Science 6 students are required to turn in an essay in support of Earth Day and the Humphreys MHS STEM Week Activities.The essay is due Tuesday, April 22. FMI on this contest, you can click here.
CISCO NOTICE:
Cisco students: NETACAD/NETSPACE will be unavailable on next weekend:
Please see the times listed below to determine the outage period for your location.
- San Francisco: 8 March, 9 a.m. – 9 p.m. (PST, UTC-8)
- New York: 8 March, 12 p.m. – 12 a.m. (EST, UTC-5)
- London: 8 March, 5 p.m. – 5 a.m. (UTC)
- Hong Kong: 9 March, 1 a.m. – 1 p.m. (HKT, UTC+8)
- Sydney: 9 March, 4 a.m. – 4 p.m. (AEDT, UTC+11)
Please make arrangements to accommodate this service outage for minimal impact to your classroom instruction and other learning activities. Thank you for your patience and understanding during the outage.
6th Grade Science Notice:
Science important scheduling advisory:
New process for Science 6 in Mr. W's classroom. Each chapter now comes with an assignment log that you and your parent/guardian must verify. It is linked here (and copies are provided in class on Wednesday). Each day of class in the chapter is listed, with the currently scheduled assignments that are due. For the Chapter 11 and 12 logs, a reminder about the weather journal is also provided. This log and all Cornell Notes for the chapter (textbook, videos, web reading) must be presented at the test. Failure to have any one of the parts--each section's Notes, video notes, web notes, assignment log--results in a 25% penalty on the test.
1) Sometimes you may see a server error (500 code) when you go to a page that should be active. If you see this, please email me at both work and home. Also, another quick fix to attempt, to a forced reload/refresh by holding the "Shift" key while clicking on the "Refresh" button on your browser.
2) (and this is IMPORTANT) Students, please do not forget that your Cornell notes must be turned in when you turn in your test, and that they count for 25% of your test grade.
3) All homework is listed through the quarter on the 2nd Quarter page. Links will be activated the evening of the class prior to the link. For example, on the evening of the 21st, content for the 25th will be activated.
Each student must take a copy of the course syllabus home and have the classroom/safety contract signed by your parents/sponsors. I will also sign them, as will you. These classroom/safety contracts are designed to concretely remind you that YOU are responsible for your own actions, that safety begins with YOU, and to reinforce classroom rules. Turning in the syllabus within the due date will earn a 10-point quiz grade.
During the first week of school, each student must complete and take a quiz that covers the "How to Succeed In Mr. Walrath's Class" lesson and the "Classroom Safety" lesson
Please note that practical jokes and horseplay in the classroom, especially during periods when the class is engaged in, preparing for, or cleaning after a lab can lead to serious injury or worse. Because of this, any perceived practical jokes or horseplay students engage in will result in 1) disiplinary referral, 2) parental notification, and 3) detention referral. Since we are talking about physical safety for everyone in the classroom, lab safety is critical.
During the course of the year, each student will be expected to maintain an electronic journal and lab record. The specifics of how these will be used and how students will complete their lab records will be covered in the first week of class.
On the navigation bar to the right, you can see several "common" links including hobbies and meta indici for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics.
Students in my classes are expected to visit this site and browse to their course material on a daily basis!