Animal Behaviors that Increase Reproductive Success

Why do plants grow toward the sun?

Middle School Life Science Lesson:
Energy Transfer and Transformation in Photosynthesis

MS:LS 1-6: Construct a scientific explanation based on evidence for the role of photosynthesis in the cycling of matter and flow of energy into and out of organisms.

Ultimately, we want students to have a deep understanding of how photosynthesis provides the connection between energy and matter in an ecosystem. Looking at this "Matter & Energy" graphic organizer, it's not going to be easy for students to truly explain this process (though I bet they all think they could!). 

From the set of Crosscutting Concepts Graphic Organizers in 11x17

Breaking the concept apart, however, allows student to focus on the individual components before putting it all together. I built this lesson so that students discover exactly what's going on inside the leaf when it absorbs sunlight. 

(A funny side-story that will serve as caution to you... I find a lot of great digital resources that we use in class. But sometimes this leads me down a path where I forget to do some traditional activities where students really can learn a lot by observing in class. In this case, I was looking for a way for students to see chloroplasts... and spent a half hour looking for the perfect pictures before I had the "Aha!" that we should just find them ourselves in spinach leaves by doing a microscope station! DON'T make the mistake of ignoring those tried and true experiences when you're writing 3D lessons!)

Link to full lesson slideshow with teacher notes

After completion of this lesson (it takes 2-3 class periods), students can begin to fill in the graphic organizer. They will have the inputs on the left and the beginning part of the process. To follow this lesson, students will next learn about glucose and how it's made, and about how carbon dioxide travels into the leaf to become a huge part of the "matter" involved in the process.

How do leaves change color in the fall?

Middle School Life Science

MS:LS 1-6: Construct a scientific explanation based on evidence for the role of photosynthesis in the cycling of matter and flow of energy into and out of organisms.

I've been looking for a good lesson to try out the Experimental Design & Report Sheet that Cookie Barker designed last year, and found it when thinking about the phenomenon of fall leaves. The series of lessons and investigations were really successful, and we stayed organized as a class for a whole week (due to an unfortunate series of fire drills interrupting class) thanks to Cookie's template.

Click here for a copy of the full lesson. 

Making a scientific claim... it's more than just an opinion!

Middle School Life Science

Introduction to Life Processes: Identifying Patterns

In middle school life science, we started the year off by identifying patterns to show that all living things share similar characteristics. This year, we followed a 5E model to kick-start this concept that we will revisit all year long.

Engage
Students brought in objects that were either nonliving, living, or once-living / came from a living thing. We spent a lot of time examining the cool nature that ended up in the classroom... a salamander, a cactus, a caterpillar, some great rocks, lots of fall leaves, etc. This prompted some great conversations: "Do we need to add anything to the salamander's tank so it will survive the day?"... "Are the leaves that are off the tree still considered 'alive' if they are still green?" ... "What happened to the caterpillar? (Two days later when we spied a cocoon in the container.)"

Explore
Individually, students brainstormed what it meant to be "alive," recording their ideas on tiny post-it notes. Small groups then did a sort-and-classify activity: looking for patterns, grouping similar ideas together, and naming the categories they came up with. When we shared out as a class, we came up with seven distinct life processes. Students didn't necessarily come up with same science terms that we will use all year, but they did have categories such as "live in a certain environment," or "need to get/make food and use energy." All the groups quickly identified that living organisms contain genetic material that, when they reproduce, passes on to offspring.

Explain
At this point, we took a more formal step to identifying life processes, giving each one an official name. Here's the student worksheet (and teacher version) that we used. Since we tied these ideas back to the original objects that students brought in during the Engage phase, we defined biotic / abiotic at this point as well. Students had to explain the difference between "biotic" and "alive." We also posted the life processes in extra-large text in a prominent place in the classroom; we will come back to these every time we study a new topic this year.

Extend
In this activity, students had to research which of the life processes viruses exhibit. We started by simply searching for images of viruses so that students could see how diverse and interesting they are! Next, students read several articles and found that even scientists have a hard time determining if viruses should be considered "alive." We shared facts from our research as a whole class and listed these facts as "evidence" on a Claim/Evidence/Reasoning graphic organizer.

• Websites to use:
• https://www.khanacademy.org/test-prep/mcat/cells/viruses/a/are-viruses-dead-or-alive
• https://www.livescience.com/58018-are-viruses-alive.html
• https://askabiologist.asu.edu/questions/are-viruses-alive
• https://www.popsci.com/new-evidence-that-viruses-are-alive
• http://theconversation.com/are-viruses-alive-giant-discovery-suggests-theyre-more-like-zombies-75661
• Research Worksheet
• Claim/Evidence/Reasoning graphic organizer

Evaluate
Students now had to decide whether or not viruses should be considered a living thing. We used the C/E/R graphic organizer to choose a claim AFTER listing all the evidence. Then, students took some time to write down the reasoning behind their choice. They had to use the concepts of the seven life processes in their reasoning. Over the next two days, students worked to write a paragraph addressing the question, "Are viruses alive?" Some of them were able to use the graphic organizer to jump in and justify their claim. Others found that it was best to work from an outline that helped them organize their writing.

This whole unit, and especially the task of having students justify their claim with evidence, helped introduce multiple scientific concepts. It was also a good start to get students thinking about how a scientific claim is not simply someone's opinion. A claim is a statement backed up by evidence... students don't need to write, "I think that..." or "I believe that..." when making a claim. Having multiple pieces of evidence allows us to know that our claim can be supported. One student asked, "What happens when scientists find evidence that doesn't support their claim?" and this led to a short discussion of how scientific knowledge evolves over time.

Final Assessment
Students will have to apply their knowledge to classify a mystery organism as living or nonliving. We will also do this in Claim/Evidence/Reasoning format.

Glow Little Glow Stick...

Here's a lesson I just completed with my Regents Chemistry Class. It's early in the year and this is our intro to the structure of an atom and chemical reactions. It was a shining success! Check out the student work that is posted at the end of the slideshow. Several of these students were exposed to a few 3-dimensional lessons in my biology class last year.

Middle school science = practicing the art of collaboration

Middle School Life Science 5E ENGAGE Lesson

What adaptations do organisms have that help them survive in their environment?

Recently in my middle school classroom, our collaboration abilities have felt a little off-track... way too many direct reminders from me about what the expectations were for students working in groups, and too little self-regulation on the part of my students. This is not going to work for student scientists who need to work together, especially when the Science and Engineering Practices require student interaction.

We're beginning a new 5E learning cycle, so I started off the day with a "Looks Like / Sounds Like" discussion for two behavioral targets. Collaborative work isn't silent, which means that we needed to have a very specific understanding of what Volume Control means in the science classroom. The students contributed their ideas and then we made those our targets for group work for the day.

 On each of the group's placemats (an activity printed on 11x17 paper) I put a little box for teacher feedback and walked around giving them pink stars with my "magical highlighter" for achieving the targeted behavior as a group. Look at all those stars! 

Link to the original Google Doc file for this ENGAGE (5E) activity

All class I heard students asking, "How can we earn another star?" and telling their groups, "If we keep working well together maybe she will give us another one!" I've used this type of reward system before, and it never fails, no matter the age of the students. They crave the immediate feedback and look forward to the validation that they are on the right track when given targets to meet. As we continue working on these behavior targets, we'll experience that much more success as scientists.