Chapter 1 concluded with a multiple choice quiz. Students then had the remainder of the class period to complete any unfinished work. The last five minutes featured Kevin Delaney performing density-related science experiments on the Jimmy Fallon Show:
Tag Archives: quiz
Cells & Homeostasis: Cell Organelles Quiz
We wrapped up our week of studying cells and their organelles with a quiz. After the quiz, students received their egg for the egg lab. The wrote their name, class period, and starting mass (in grams) of their egg on a plastic cup, filled the cup with enough vinegar to cover the egg, and then wrapped plastic wrap over the cup to help seal in the vinegar. The egg shells quickly began to bubble as the vinegar began dissolving the shells. We will observe the eggs Monday and continue the egg lab then. Time permitting, students were treated to another Jimmy Fallon video featuring Kevin Delaney:
Evolution: Quiz
We took a quiz designed to reinforce student learning about the processes involved in evolution. After, students had the opportunity to complete any late work or watch the video below:
Reproduction, Inheritance, and Meiosis: Quiz
The quiz today covered one and two-trait Punnett Squares, challenged students to compare mitosis and meiosis using ten key unit vocabulary terms, and included a questioned designed to provoke student thinking around a topic incorporating genetics, evolution, and student opinion.
For students interested in learning more about how genetics affect appearance, the links below are excellent resources:
The genetics of eye color: What Color Eyes will your Children Have?
The genetics of height: Number of genes linked to height revealed by study
The genetics of skin color: Unpacking Human Evolution to Find the Genetic Determinants of Human Skin Pigmentation
Central Dogma: Quiz
Today’s quiz consisted of 8 multiple choice questions and 4 short answer questions. Students were tested on knowledge of DNA structure, Central Dogma vocabulary, and knowledge of how DNA codes for proteins (with an emphasis on understanding the major types of DNA mutations and associated consequences to amino acid sequences). Students were also challenged to explain how they might apply the power of genetics to solve a problem of interest to them. After the quiz, students were assigned chromosomes in advance of tomorrow’s work on the Chromosome Project. Tomorrow we will meet in computer lab 245.
Cells and Homeostasis: Quiz and Vocabulary
Students took a pop quiz today. After several lessons spent studying the interaction of cells and the environment, it was time to apply student learning to the environment of blood cells in plasma. Although the scenario was unfamiliar to most students, the principles they have learned thus far can be readily applied. In addition, the quiz served as a grade check, as students who had taken quality notes and spent time studying those notes outside of class were able to work quickly through the quiz. After the quiz, students were introduced to 5 new vocabulary words, each directly relevant to the quiz content and which served to reinforce learning that took place in lessons prior to the quiz. Students will have the opportunity to revisit quiz content very soon in order to demonstrate understanding of the content.
Update: On Friday, students worked with their table groups to revise their quizzes, integrating their learning of the vocabulary concepts from Thursday.
Systems Biology – Lesson 4
On the first day of class this week, students took a quiz to demonstrate mastery of the Systems and Networks section of the unit. Afterward, students worked individually to construct one or more networks from a list of seemingly random biotic and abiotic factors. The list was actually populated by the names of the various cryptocurrencies students will receive at the end of the unit.
The next day, students shared the strategies they used to construct their networks. Specifically, we discussed what their edges represented – what was moving through their system. Many students modeled energy cycling by creating a food web. Others sought to include the abiotic factors and modeled things like the Earth-Moon-Sun system or the Water Cycle, integrating the biotic factors into that schema. During work time, students worked in groups of up to 4 students to integrate their individual systems into a larger representation of an ecosystem. This activity created the foundation for the computer modeling activity in the next lesson.
With a guest speaker scheduled for Friday, we once again are limited to only three days of class this week. For the third and final lesson of the week, students learned to use formulas to dynamically link individual cells in a Microsoft Excel 2013 spreadsheet. Students began by making a list of the organisms in their group models. Next, they assigned quantity values to each organism to represent the amount of each type of organism that must be consumed by a predator of that organism to sustain the predator. Students shared possible strategies that could be used to estimate those values. Students then created formulas to relate the organisms. The relationship formulas enable future modeling predictions based on scenarios that might occur. For example, we could model what might happen if an invasive species enters an ecosystem and reduces the quantity of one of the organisms in the network.
The sequencing of the Systems Biology unit has been adjusted from the original plan to account for scheduling realities. As a student teacher at Highline high School, our principal would frequently say, “Monitor and adjust.” Such insight! Our updated unit flow will now look something like:
1. Introduction to Systems
2. Ecosystems and Modeling
3. Integration of Economics into Ecosystems
4. Human Body Systems
Science with Swart 