Using Snails to help students navigate the Experimental Design Template (HS-LS2-6)

Our classroom has a ten gallon aquarium (complete with snails, elodea, and lots of microscopic organisms) that has served as a useful system for introducing my Living Environment students to the Experimental Design Template. I introduced a question to them about how it might have been possible for the snails to survive the summer in the tank with no outside food sources. They immediately thought the snails ate the elodea... so it was the perfect opportunity to test their hypothesis. This template is available on our resources page. HS-LS2-6 Evaluate the claims, evidence, and reasoning that the complex interactions in ecosystems maintain relatively consistent numbers and types of organisms in stable conditions, but changing conditions may result in a new ecosystem.

Seed Dispersal

We explored mechanisms of seed dispersal with the 7th grade science students.

Fall Phenomena

How CO2 Impacts Temperature Change

This is very much a work in progress!  If you try it out, let me know how it goes! I'm always looking to make improvements!

Super-Charged Hummingbirds

3D High School Living Environment Lesson

HS-LS1-7. Use a model to illustrate that aerobic cellular respiration is a chemical process whereby the bonds of food molecules and oxygen molecules are broken and the bonds in new compounds are formed resulting in a net transfer of energy. [Clarification Statement: Emphasis is on the conceptual understanding of the inputs and outputs of the process of aerobic cellular respiration.] [Assessment Boundary: Assessment should not include identification of the steps or specific processes involved in aerobic cellular respiration.]

Super Charged Hummingbirds is a 3-D Lesson for Living Environment or other high school biology classes focusing on Energy Transfer and Transformation using Hummingbirds as a Model.

Phenomenon: 
Hummingbird in slow motion - How does it get the energy to move that fast?

Cellular Energetics in 3-D