One phenomenon... two ways

Choosing a good phenomenon to have students explain is a critical step in designing 3D lessons. Fortunately, the best phenomena can be used to address multiple Performance Expectations; it just depends on how you want to use them. Great phenomena can anchor lessons for multiple grade levels and subject areas.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2267504/The-sealed-bottle-garden-thriving-40-years-fresh-air-water.html

I was inspired to think about a lesson that would use this phenomenon when Saranac Middle School's Rebecca Shuman posted on Instagram about her students making these really cool biosphere ecosystems. (Secretly I just wanted to fill my classroom with cool stuff like this.) What I didn't realize at the time was that Becky had developed an awesome lesson sequence (called "There is no Planet B") with the biospheres as the culminating experience. Becky's biosphere lesson incorporates MS:LS2-1 and 2-3 and serves to compare the model biospheres to the closed system of the Earth as a whole.

In my classroom, we used our miniature biospheres as a model for the larger human-designed ecosystems such as Biosphere 2 and the eventual (?) biospheres used to colonize Mars or other distant places. (MS:LS2-5) We plan to observe the biospheres throughout the course of the school year to monitor changes and to model the matter and energy flow in the system.

Link to the Ecosystems in Space lesson