Biology: Introduction to Cells

 My Co-op Biology class is starting Cells.  I have loads and loads of resources because this is a foundational topic for Biology.  Guess what?  My undergrad, elective classes were all about cells; Cytology, Microbiology, Histology, etc. I think the topic of Cells is essential to Biology.  Start here for an exceptional overview to Cells and Cell Transport from Simmons Science.  I’m using this slide deck, this coloring page, and this POGIL activity, Prokaryotic and Eukaryotic cells.  My kids are making cell models, experimenting with membranes, and learning about a host of cell processes.  Below is an image for the next lab, Cell Membrane Bubble Lab we’ll do next week.  Let’s get started!

Cheap and Easy Study Aid: Concept Maps

 Are you familiar with concept maps?  It’s a way to organize ideas.  I used this list of ecological terms and wrote them on to index cards.  The kids organize the cards into a map.  I ask kids to explain their maps.  With index cards, teens can make adjustments.  Basically, I want the kids to understand how things fit together or whether they understand the terms or relationships.  Below are a few examples.  Concept maps are a tool I use for assessment.

Hands-on Ecology

The Bio Co-op class is doing several follow-up activities today.  First they are graphing Lynx and Hare historical data, as a quiz following the Lynx and Hare lab.  I want to be sure they can graph in a spreadsheet.  

Next the kids are creating a food web for lynx and hare.  Here is the snow hare diet.  This is another assessment to be sure the kids can create a food web.

After the food web, I'm introducing concept maps.   I made vocabulary cards for the kid to use to create concept maps, which are another means of reviewing Ecology terms we discussed in this Ecology Slide presentation.  

Organize your class!

 This year, I’m teaching three classes for the Co-op.  I seem to be constantly addressing chaos: family emergencies, illness, and other conflicts.  I have a solid plan for Bio—my undergrad major.  What I lack is the means to punt when a kid needs to meet remotely at the last minute.  What is the solution?  Post everything in advance online as a question.  I can set up an online Google Meet at the last minute and have all of the links at my fingertips.  (The print versions are literally at my fingertips, too, because there are kids meeting in person.)  During class I toggle between a laptop and iPad.  We can focus the camera on the iPad directly on to class activities or labs.  Kids do the labs from home at the same time as the kids in class.  The kids talk to each other through Google Meet on an iPad.  Is this ideal?  Hardly.  However, chaos seems to be this year’s theme and I’m trying to adjust.

This is a screenshot from the Biology class in Google Classroom.  Below the numbered list are the links.

Most of these resources are already organized into folders in Google Classroom.

Cheap and Easy Bio Lab: Muscle Fatigue Lab

Matthew Simmons  just posted a Muscle Fatigue lab.  He is a member of the National Biology Teachers group on Facebook.  His posts are a compelling reason to join.  You need to see the graphics he draws and shares.  His lab worksheet is available to the group.  Here and here are similar labs.  You need a clothespin or test tube holder and a stopwatch for this lab.  Don’t buy a stopwatch; use the one on your cell phone.  Here is a slide deck about cellular respiration and the clothespin lab.  N.B. Cellular respiration is tricky.  The muscle fatigue lab is not.

Chemistry: Mole Day

 It’s October.  October 23rd in Mole Day!  That means if you teach Chemistry you should celebrate Mole Day!  Yes, National Mole Day is widely celebrated in Chemistry classrooms.  This year’s theme is Sherlock Molmes.  I can’t make these things up.  ACS, American Chemical Society, had Mole Day fun.  My Co-op sews moles with this pattern.  The winner gets a pack of tootsie-mole pops.  Here is a mole lab.  Here are mole day puns.  Lastly, here is a mole conversion worksheet.  Save work for another day.  Have fun!

Cheap and Easy Ecology Lab: The Lynx Eats the Hare

 Here is the sample data graph we use to teach the class how to graph data in a spreadsheet.  Here is one of the kid’s spreadsheet and graph.  Here is the historic data activity the kids are going to graph in a spreadsheet tomorrow as an assessment.  Lastly, the kids are making food webs for lynx and hare.  Here is a link with the snow hare’s diet to use with the food web.

The Bio Co-op class did the Mark-Recapture lab just as described in the blog post.  The point is to learn that more trials yield better data.  We worked on The Lynx Eats the Hare lab with this data table.  Print several copies of the Lynx and hare if you have a large Co-op.  Every time I do this simulation, I need to read each step aloud.  The data table helps enormously.  The key is to remember each lynx needs three hares, in total to survive.  To determine how many lynx survive each round or generation, count the total number of lynx.  The lynx will share hare kills with offspring.  We used a ruler to drop the lynx and hare from the same point each time.  My kids are going to graph their data in a spreadsheet.  Here is a set of sample data.  Hear the slideshow I use to discuss lynx and hare.  I’ll post graphs when they finish.

Hydroponics

 Years ago, I bought a hydroponics tower for my husband, Rob, and Paul.  I thought Rob would love it.  Ha!  He loathed the hydroponic tower intensely. We donated the system to a teacher, who was thrilled. I had kept a similar system in my classroom when I taught in public school. (Yes, I did a huge number of projects with my teens.)  I bought the tower as part of a grant program and raised lettuce for the school’s salad bar.  The teens did all of the work to set up the tower, plant lettuce, watch the nutrient levels, test the nutrient solution, and harvest the lettuce.  We kept the system on a timer.

I’m working with a Montessori school writing grants.  The school wants projects their students can research and maintain themselves, like an indoor hydroponic tower.   Hydroponics can be a family or Co-op project.  I recommend a tower kit with soil and commercial nutrients.  However, there are many DIY hydroponics systems which are cheaper.  

When I started the hydroponics program originally, we tried a table-top system.  It leaked and I gave the system to a student, who was doing most of the work maintaining our school hydroponic system and wanted to try it at home.  I do not see starting another hydroponic system with my Co-op class.  However, I don’t mind helping the Montessori school set one up.  Below are the towers I bought for my home and the one at my school.

Projects Aquatic, Wet, Wild, and Learning Tree

 In another life I did a great deal of programming.  For example, each summer I led a science campfire a week VBS at our church.  As an educator, I wanted to learn about different resources.  I took part in a number of trainings: Project Wet, Project Wild, and  Project Learning Tree.  Aquatic Wild is a subset of Project Wild. Usually, the local educator at your local Soil and Water Conservation District will know how you can get training.  These programs are usually free.  The group supplies the manuals at the training session—typically one day, often on the weekend.  Let me share some sample activities to see if they might work for your family or your Co-op.  Here is The Incredible Journey, the water cycle, including the ‘dice’ for the activity.  The kids roll the dice to move to different stations, such as glaciers or clouds.  I’ve used this at science camp.  Here is Thicket Game from Project Wild.  Make Your Own Paper is from Project Learning Tree.  (I did made paper once.  That experiment failed.  You may have better luck.). Look at PLT’s Home Tweet Home and try Edible Birds’ Nests.  Some guides such as Biodiversity, are available without any training or risk of copyright infringement.  I might use the Biodiversity guide as a platform to discuss alien species.  (Not all alien species are invasive.  However, species such as Tree of Heaven or Ailanthus, and Kudzu are both alien and invasive. Garden vegetables are nonnative and noninvasive.  Here is a good explanation from the Parks Service.)  Long, long experience with these agencies has taught me to use any resources judiciously and to edit out any aspect I find to be political.  For example, if I use The Incredible Journey, it’s just for the water cycle.  We laugh if a group gets stuck in a glacier.  Look at every activity based on  its merit.  Ask yourself how you could use it with your lessons.

Cheap and Easy Berlese Funnel

Make a Berlese Funnel .  You take leaf litter and capture insects to sort.  Here is a version using 2-liter bottles and a gooseneck lamp.  The lamp draws out bugs which drop into the alcohol in the base.  Here  and here are bug guide to help identify the insects and soil macroinvertebrates.   I haven’t made a Berlese funnel since I was an undergrad.  However, two of my Bio kids are naturalists.  I think they’ll like this lab.  Whenever we study insects, I’ll post pix.

SOLE: Inquiry Technique

I ran across an unfamiliar term for inquiry-based instruction: SOLE or Self-Organized Learning Environments.   Here is an article from Edutopia about SOLE.  Here  is a fact sheet from the Naval Postgraduate School.  

There are three parts: question, investigation, and review.  It is simpler than Project-Based Learning, which is usually a big theme with a series of activities, labs, and field trips.  How does SOLE work?  Take owl pellets.  What do owls eat?  Next do an owl pellet dissection.  What type of rodents and birds are in the pellets?  Do a review.  Summarize the lab.  Create a food web based on the types of rodents and birds owls eat.  

I like to use an activity to teach. For example, Tuesday, the kids are learning about Mark-Recapture.  I’ll start with a bit of Ecology and ask the kids if we have a deer problem.  Next, I’ll ask how DNR counts deer or deer herds.  We’ll go into the two lab activities.  After the labs, we can talk about the results.  My teens will put the results in a spreadsheet, to become more familiar with managing spreadsheets for data.  We could create a food web about deer, read an article, or explore deer management locally, based on student interest.  I’m betting you already use this process and didn’t know there was a term for it.