Review for Unit Assessment: U.S. Federal Budget, State Budgets, and Local Municipal (County) Budget process. Discussion of how municipal budgets are established by City/County commissioners in conjunction a mayor. Requests for additional Municipal funding often occurs through a Voter Referendum . Review of numerous key terms and specific budget processes.

Exponential Functions and Equations: Modeling constant growth rates and/or decay rates. Various worksheet practice problems with constant percent increase or decrease: Determining growth factors and decay factors. Begin review for Unit Test.

Ben actively engaged with me regarding an article we read exploring how wolves were gradually domesticated into modern dogs. We reviewed his answers to comprehension questions, on which he answered all the questions correctly. Our subsequent discussion covered the genetic and evolutionary mechanisms behind domestication, including how humans and early wolf populations may have developed a mutually beneficial relationship over thousands of years. A highlight of the session was Ben's strong critical thinking skills around selective breeding. His contributions and higher-order thinking showed solid application of core STEM concepts including natural vs. artificial selection, genomic variation, and heritability. Ben demonstrated highly effective comprehension of how genomic data can be used to reconstruct evolutionary history, and he made several meaningful connections between genetics and real-world biology throughout our exchange. Ben was amenable to a follow-up last article to review in tomorrow's (last) in-person session together.

At recess, Cam participated in the Eggsellent Egg Crate Challenge. His egg, named Eggie Van Halen, survived a 50 feet throw. Cam's design was successful and protected Eggie the egg. Then during art class, he created his roller coaster track and did five marble runs. The longest distance his marble traveled was 34 feet.

Aiden finished his first vanitas drawing with a skull and two candles burning. He started another skull drawing.

Review and practice for Unit Test: Point-Slope Formula , Graphing Linear Equations from Standard Form, Percent of Change, Word Problems involving mark-up or discount percents and with sales tax.

Discuss graph results and analysis of digestion of egg white v temperature. Introduce expansion of kingdoms from just plant and animal to plant, animal, protist, bacteria, and fungi. Discuss and define characteristics of animals which involve movement and reproduction. Discuss internal and external fertilization, hermaphrodites, zygote formation, cons to external fertilization. View diagrams of different methods of asexual reproduction and discuss budding, fragmentation, regeneration, parthenogenesis, and binary fission.

Define carbohydrates chemically. Show how they are hydrated carbon atoms from the formula. Discuss the monomer saccharides and the polymer starch. From the molecular formula draw the structural formula for glucose and discuss its ring structure. Discuss how hydrolysis breaks starch into di and polymers.

Review the definition and general formula for an alkane. Write the molecular and structural formula of the first three alkanes in the series. Define a saturated hydrocarbon in terms of hydrogens/carbon atom. From the structural formulas drawn indicate that each substance in the series differs by only a single CH2 and classify the series as a homologous series. Define and discuss an alkyl addition group, using the root of the alkane name.

Review definition and chemistry of alkanes. Review the names and formulas of the first 5 alkanes in the series. Discuss the group formed when one hydrogen is removed from an alkane molecule. Determine that the formula for this addition group is CxH2x+1. Discuss the nomenclature of these addition groups, using the root name of the alkane and substituting yl for one at the end. Work a few nomenclature problems involving the addition of a methyl group to an alkane. Discuss the best methods for naming correctly.