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.

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

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. 

Is DNA in our Food?

This slide show takes you through a 3D lesson where students plan an investigation to determine if food is a living thing.

3-D Experimental Design Templates MS & HS Levels

The following templates have been created to help guide your students as they delve into the world of 3-D investigations. Page 1 of each template is the exploration space. It is designed to be a brainstorming area as they work individually to record ideas about how they might proceed with their investigation. Page 2 is the actual experimental design page that their group agrees upon. Page 3 is intentionally left blank to allow students to build their own data tables and charts. Page 4 is a "report out" page in Claim, Evidence, Reasoning format. The last slides show a rubric I created using the performance expectations for the SEP: Planning and Carrying Out Investigations.

Reflection: My students are finding this template very easy to work with and appreciate the ability to have all their work in one place. 
- Cookie Barker

Chemistry Students Use Solubility Guidelines to Determine Unknown Solutions (3-D Style)

3-D Lesson - Living Environment - Osmosis

3-D Biology Lesson: Road Salt and Osmosis

HS-LS1-2; HS-LS1-3; HS-LS2-1

 

This lesson is an example of curriculum adaptation.