Noor's Science Methods Blogs

Week 10: Review and NGSS  What questions were we investigating? What makes something living? How do plants get their food? Where does living stuff come from? Where does it go? What makes a good lesson plan according to the NGSS? What did we do in lab in order to investigate these questions? In this lab we did a station activity with a cube to help us investigate big ideas from biology as scientists would. We then made a brochure of the big ideas from the NGSS standards. On the brochure each side had one of the standards that we have learned so far in biology and we wrote all the big ideas then shared them as a class. This was made to help us review for the upcoming exam but also something that you would think to give to a parent or student.  The purpose of this lab was to ensure that we had no lasting questions!! :)

Week 1 Living Vs. Nonliving What question are we investigating? The question that we were investigating in this lab was "What characteristics makes something living?" What did we do in lab to investigate this question? We did several different activities to investigate this lab was organizing an array of images into categories of living vs. nonliving. These images consisted of objects like bacteria, the sun, a butterfly, a tree stump, fire, and a leaf. Although this activity seems like it would be easy, our group was finding difficulties in wrapping our heads around the details of if a virus was living or non living. As a class we discussed different aspects and criteria we thought made something living. To deeper understand what make something living vs. nonliving, we each dissected a flower to look at its functions. We specifically analyzed the flowers reproductive system, looking at how it reproduces as it's own entity and what functions it has in order to do so. We th...

Week 2 Life Cycles What question are we investigating? The questions that we investigated this week were, What do all life cycles have in common? What kinds of structures and functions support a life cycle? What did we do in lab to investigate this question? We did several different activities to investigate these questions in lab beginning with analyzing meal worms. Each group received a petri dish full of mealworms and as a group, we had to try and analyze what part of the life cycle they were at. After doing so, each group was asked to make a life cycle. Our group came up with the cycle beginning with eggs, to larva, to pupa, then to bug or beetle. We observed how the mealworms structure changes and shifts completely throughout its life cycle. We then observed and analyzed Wisconsin fast plants that were in petri dishes at each of the different stages of growth in their cycle. We added that to our life cycle as well along with the mealworms.  What did we figure out? After observ...

 Week 9: Natural Selection What questions were we investigating? Why do organisms have so many similarities yet so many differences?  What did we do to investigate this? This week in lab we looked at natural selection and how it works through modeling different populations and characteristics of animals within populations. Each group got to pick their materials to come up with a situation in which natural selection was occurring over time. Each group had to ensure that four conditions were present in their model: traits, heredity, differential reproduction, and time. Our group presented the traits through using pasta noodles as our animals. There were two different types of noodles, one was a tube shape that had a hollow center while the other was twisted with no hollow center. The predators were birds with two different types of beaks, the first beak was represented with a spoon, the second was represented with a fork. Heredity was shown in the ability of the tube pasta or tw...

  Week 7 Energy Transfer What question were we investigating? This week in lab we investigated the questions, Where does living stuff come from? Where does it go? What did we do to investigate the question? This week in lab we focused on how energy and matter gets transferred throughout food chains. We did this by completing a simulation on the transfer of energy and matter. To begin each of us got assigned a role as a  producers, primary consumers, or secondary consumers. Each person received a ziploc bag filled with "energy". At each station we were required to give up a certain amount of energy for basic tasks such as respiration, reproduction, making or searching for food, and more. Each task took up energy, whatever was left in the bag was given to the primary consumers. This then repeated for the primary consumers and whatever was left was given to the secondary consumers.  What did we figure out? We found out that as energy moves the food chain majority of it ...

   Week 8: Trait Tracing  What questions were we investigating? Why do organisms have so many similarities, yet so many differences? How do organisms get their traits? What did we do to investigate these questions? This week in lab we investigated the rock pocket mouse's fur color trait. To begin as a class we discussed and went through vocabulary that we will be using in this lesson as well as the ones to come such as adaptation, natural selection, mutation, and evolution. In our groups we looked at two different graphs showing rock pocket mice population in certain areas. The two pictures showed a different amount of black furred mice, as a group we had to make a claim as to why we believed there were more or less black furred mice in one area over time. Later we would find evidence to back our claim.  We then dug deeper into our observations after we were given pictures of the environments and population of mice in those environments at the time. We were told to p...

  Week 6 Blog Post  What questions are we investigating? The question we investigated this week was How are things in our world interrelated? This weeks lab was super hands on as we investigated several things deer population and how environmental factors impact it, blood functions, owl pellets, and food chains.  What did we do in lab to investigate these questions? We conducted several simulations or activities to learn about each of these concept that related back to how things in our world are interrelated. The first activity we did was to see how our body reacts to getting injured and fighting off bacteria. We each had a title as a red or white blood cell, bacteria, or platelet. We walked around in a circle and the door being opened signified a cut with the dirt and bacteria entering. It was the white blood cells jobs to attack the bacteria, and the platelets job to block the red blood cells from bleeding out the door. The next activity we did was focusing o...