Every day somewhere on our planet, there is an earthquake, but only the destructive ones in populated areas grab our attention. On January 12, 2010, a 7.0 magnitude earthquake hit Haiti. The next day the headline from the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) was Haiti Devastated by Massive Earthquake. The article tells how the earthquake, with its epicenter just outside of the country’s capital of Port-au-Prince, affected an estimated three million people.

Even more recently, an earthquake with a magnitude of 6.9 occurred in China’s Qinghai Province on April 13, 2010. An early report from the New York Times was headlined Earthquake Kills Dozens in Northwest China. Later reports would reveal that this earthquake left many buildings destroyed, over 2,000 individuals dead, and even more seriously injured.

Seeing and reading about the aftermath of earthquakes can lead students to believe that nothing can be done to prevent or lessen the destruction and injury. To help students gain an appreciation of the technology currently available, it is important to make students aware of the “before earthquake scene.”

Civil engineers study the effects of earthquakes on foundations and soils. Their research often provides evidence that helps them design earthquake resistant structures. The structures are often able to resist loads that are superimposed on them through earthquake shaking. This is because the structures bend and sway with the motion of an earthquake, or are isolated from the movement by sliders. Watch the Science 360 video “Dissecting an Earthquake“  to learn more about the engineers’ work.

Activity

A great way to introduce students to earthquake-resistant buildings is to have them build their own structures. The following lesson takes approximately two to three days for students to complete in the classroom. The lesson brings in many concepts of the History and Nature of Science standard of the National Science Education Standards. 

Note: Prior to this activity, students should have learned about plate tectonics, earthquakes, the Mercalli Scale and the Richter Scale.

In this lesson, students are the civil engineers. By building their own structure with toothpicks and marshmallows, students will learn how engineers construct buildings to withstand damage from earthquakes. Students will test their buildings on an earthquake simulation (a pan of gelatin). They will then re-engineer the structure based on its performance.

To introduce the concept of earthquake-resistant buildings, watch this clip of researchers testing a three-story structure. 

After watching the video, you should explain to students that they will make models of buildings and conduct an experiment to test how well their structures stand up under the stress of an earthquake.

The materials needed for this lesson are items that you can find in any grocery or convenience store. You will need toothpicks, marshmallows (miniature), gelatin, and paper to sketch drawings on.

Safety Note: Tell students they should never put anything in their mouths in a science lab. The marshmallows and gelatin are not for eating.

Distribute 30 toothpicks and 30 marshmallows to each student. Explain that engineers have limited resources when building structures. Each structure should be at least two toothpick levels high, buildings must contain at least one triangle, and buildings must contain at least one square. 

Do not give as many constraints to IEP or ELL students. You may also want to illustrate how to make cubes and triangles using toothpicks and marshmallows. Show them how to break a toothpick approximately in half. Explain to the students that cubes and triangles may be stacked to make towers. The towers can have small or large “footprints” or bases.

When students have built their structures, place the structures on the pans of gelatin and shake the gelatin to simulate an earthquake. Students should take notes about how their building “responses” during an earthquake. While shaking the gelatin, you may want to ask students these questions: What type of waves are being simulated? How do you know this?

After students have tested their structures, in the next class period they should redesign and rebuild them and test them again. Students should focus on the following questions when redesigning their building: What can they do to make it stronger? Did it topple? Should they make the base bigger? Make the structure taller or shorter?

Students can design and rebuild as many times as the class period allows.

Additional Resources and Ideas

Have students pretend that they are engineers for a civil engineering company. Instruct them to create a flyer or write a letter to convince their company to let them design a better building or structure. (Students should also describe the risks of the area and give background information.) For gifted students, have them do this for a building in the area. This will engage the students and make them think critically about something within their community.

Have your students monitor quake activity weekly by checking the list maintained on the U.S. Geological Survey site. This web site lists the latest earthquakes magnitude 5.0 and greater in the world. The web site also provides a link to a map for each quake location.

The Middle School Portal 2 (MSP2) project has a digital library of resources focused on middle school math and science. You can search the MSP2 collection to find many excellent resources. Here are three to get you started:

Plate Tectonics

This publication offers a sampling of activities and animations to support students as they piece together the plate tectonics puzzle. In some activities, students examine different sources of evidence to try to figure out where and how Earth has changed. They will experience those cherished “aha!” moments when natural phenomena start to make sense. Also included in this publication are excellent reading resources to fill the gaps in students’ and teachers’ understanding of plate tectonics.

Observe Video Taken During an Earthquake

These videos were created for middle and high school students and were taken by security cameras during an earthquake near Seattle, Washington. Each clip shows a view of a different location either within or outside a building. Because the quake originated 30-35 miles beneath the earth’s surface, it caused minimal damage despite having a magnitude of 6.8. Time stamps in the lower left corner of each video clip allow students to determine when shaking started and ended at each location. Students are able to use control buttons to play, pause, and move forward and backward through the clips.

Seismic Waves

An instructional tutorial introduces students to seismic waves caused by earthquakes. Students answer questions as they move through the tutorial and investigate how P and S waves travel through layers of the earth. In one activity, students can produce and view wave motion in a chain of particles. A second activity introduces Love and Rayleigh waves. In a third activity, students study P and S waves by activating four seismographs, watching the resulting P and S waves, and answering interactive questions. Five web sites about waves, seismic action, and earthquakes are included.

It’s warm outside. The sun is shining bright and white cumulus clouds drift in the blue skies. You notice your students’ eyes wandering outside as you are trying to find ways to keep their’ minds engaged in their science class. You are desperately wishing that you could take your students out of doors while also teaching content related to the National Science Education Standards.

Good news! Outdoor projects such as planting and maintaining a garden satisfy all aspects of scientific inquiry by inviting interactive and hands-on exploration. By creating a garden, students will be able to look at how energy moves throughout an ecosystem. Furthermore, such an activity fosters students’ ability to conduct original research by coming up with their own ways to collect data on a wide range of questions. Outdoor projects also allow students to make observations that are both qualitative and quantitative.

In 2009, Michelle Obama and Washington-area school kids planted the White House vegetable garden. Watch a video of First Lady Obama touring the organic vegetable garden and discussing her goal of educating children about healthy eating. Then read the accompanying article by Dan Shapley with your students. Seeing our government take action will help students to see the importance of their own school garden project. You can see more coverage of the White House garden on a Washington City Paper blog, which was recorded on April 8, 2010.

Connecting to Standards

Outdoor projects, such as planting and maintaining an organic garden, align with the following content standards for grades 5-8 from the National Science Education Standards.

Content Standard C: Life Science

Regulation and Behavior

-All organisms must be able to obtain and use resources, grow, reproduce, and maintain stable internal conditions while living in a constantly changing external environment.

Populations and Ecosystems

-For ecosystems, the major source of energy is sunlight. Energy entering ecosystems as sunlight is transferred by producers into chemical energy through photosynthesis. That energy then passes from organism to organism in food webs.

Background Information

What is organic gardening?

Organic gardening does not use synthetic fertilizers or pesticides. Organic gardeners choose plants that are suitable to their specific climate and environmental conditions. It is also important to consider the soil, water supply, wildlife, insects, and even people. Organic gardeners try to minimize any resources the garden consumes, replenishing resources with organic matter.

Why should we garden organically?

When you grow vegetables organically, you are not only eating healthier but also creating a sustainable and more balanced ecosystem. Furthermore, obtaining produce from your own garden is often cheaper than buying it from a grocery store.

Organicgardening.com is an online resource that will answer many questions about organic gardening.

Learning Objectives

Creating an organic classroom garden can be a year-long endeavor, which encourages you to go outdoors with your students. By the end of the gardening project, your students will have:

-An understanding of how organisms may interact with one another.

-An understanding of how changes in an organism’s ecosystem/habitat affect its survival.

-An understanding of how an organism can only survive if its needs are met (e.g., food, water, shelter, air).

-An understanding of how all organisms cause changes in their ecosystem and how these changes can be beneficial, neutral, or detrimental.

-An understanding of food chains and food webs (e.g., producers, herbivores, carnivores, omnivores and decomposers).

-An understanding of how natural occurrences and human activity affect the transfer of energy in an ecosystem.

-An understanding of how the number of organisms an ecosystem can support depends on adequate biotic resources and abiotic resources.

-An understanding of how organisms or populations may interact with one another through symbiotic relationships and how some species have become so adapted to each other that neither could survive without the other.

Activity

To get your students thinking about organic gardening and the components that it entails, have students come up with a design for a garden. This can be done online, bringing technology into the classroom. KiddoNet offers an online planner that allows students to design a flower garden. If computers are not available, the activity can be done using an 8.5″ by 11″ sheet of copy paper and crayons.

When students have completed their garden design, ask them to explain it in a think-aloud fashion. Use the following questions as a guide. (If students need help researching, you may want to give students the questions before they come up with their designs.)

- How big will your garden be? Why?

- Will it be located in a sunny or shady environment?

- Is the area warm or cool?

- How much rainfall does the area get?

- Is the area close to water sources? If not, what arrangements will be needed to ensure that the garden survives?

- What is the soil like?

- Is the location hilly or flat?

- How many plants do you plan to have in your garden?

- How many types of plants do you plan on having?

- What should you consider when choosing your plants?

- Are animals allowed to enter the garden?

- If so, what types? Are they important in the survival of the garden?

- Is there any symbiosis or mutualism occurring in the garden?

- What energy cycles do you expect to occur?

- What biotic resources are important to your garden?

- What are the relationships between the abiotic and biotic parts of your garden?

- How could you maximize diversity?

- How would increased diversity lead to an increased energy transfer throughout the garden?

- How would the presence of humans and pets affect the energy within the garden?

The type of garden or outdoor project that you actually engage your students in depends on the age of the students, financial means, and time constraints. You may want to consider applying for grants to finance an organic garden project. You can find a list of grant opportunities at the Middle School Portal/Getting Grants page.

Additional Information

Middle School Portal 2 has many resources about gardening. Try Thinking Green? Grow Your Own! Linking Agriculture, Gardening and Technology. This resource guide provides ideas and resources for integrating science and technology into studies of agriculture and gardening. It provides answers to these questions: What, and how, can students learn from gardening? How can gardening be accomplished in urban or suburban sites? What technologies enable agriculture and home gardening? What are the underlying science principles of these technologies? What is the economic impact of agriculture and home gardening? Some related careers are also highlighted.

Most students have heard the term “going green.” This is because there is a worldwide movement that encourages people to live a more sustainable lifestyle. Many of us now hand over reusable shopping bags when cashiers ask us “paper or plastic?” In some cities, there are carpooling traffic lanes. We have environmentally friendly clothing. We even have cars that are considered environmentally conscious.

How does “going green” relate to the classroom? The National Science Education Standards state that students should have an understanding of human impact on the environment.

However, how often do students think about their impact in their own daily surroundings? Have students ever analyzed the impact of their television watching? What about the impact their refrigerator has on the environment? Or the washer that cleans their clothes?

Often teachers introduce “going green” by having students analyze their carbon footprint on Internet sites. Calculate Your Footprint  and Zerofootprint are two sites often used by teachers in middle school classrooms.

Where do you go once kids have calculated their carbon footprint? Connecting these activities with current science news is a great teaching opportunity. As a class, read “Is Green Insurance Worth the Price?“  from the Bucks Blog in the New York Times, March 11, 2010.

Part of this article discusses rebuilding an energy-efficient home. Discuss with students the various ways to make their own homes energy efficient. List student ideas on the board. When students are done offering suggestions, revisit the idea of energy-efficient household appliances (if students didn’t suggest this idea, ask them what they think about it). Then engage students in learning about appliances with this lesson.

Objective:

The purpose of this lesson is to introduce the students to the idea of decreasing one’s energy consumption by changing to more energy-efficient appliances. However, with every decision there are consequences. Though there will be less energy cost each year, the cost of buying the new appliance may not be balanced out for a number of years. The students must weigh the costs and benefits of choosing to be more energy efficient through the use of systems of equations.

The students will use the provided data to create cost over time equations. They will compare three different graphs representing the three possible models for each appliance. 

The students are also invited to come up with their own ideas on how to become more energy efficient and cut costs.

Introduction:

Explain to students that you are trying to save money and be more environmentally friendly at the same time. Tell them that you need their help to decide what you should do to become energy efficient.

Activity:

Give students a copy of this worksheet to work on as a group. Make collaborative learning groups before class. Be sure to mix groups with various mathematical abilities. Each group should have a “stronger” math student. The data they will need is located on this worksheet. The worksheet has students analyze the energy consumption of four appliances that they use on a daily basis. Students will figure out how many kilowatts/year each appliance uses and then use this information to estimate the annual cost/year for each appliance. The worksheet also provides information on two additional appliances that are more energy efficient. Students will use this information to come up with cost equations that the class will analyze graphically. This analysis should help students to determine which option is the most “green” and cost friendly.

After completion of this worksheet students will be able to:

-analyze their energy usage at home

-analyze data in order to select energy efficient appliances

- work with multiple equations to determine the financial benefits for changing to more energy efficient appliances.

Closure:

After groups have finished coming up with their cost equations, graph the equations on the board/overhead. Then, as a class, discuss the graphs and what they mean. Some questions to ask include:

1) What are some possible choices for decreasing my bills in the long run?

2) How many years into the future does it make sense for me to replace all of my appliances? How do you know?

3) What are other examples of ways to decrease one’s energy bill? Are these better ideas than replacing your appliances? Why?

4) Why do we care about our use of resources, especially energy?

5) Should individuals with energy-efficient homes have reduced insurance costs?

Extension:

Students can think about their own home. Have students come up with five ways they could decrease their home energy bill each year. Have students draw up a proposal and present it to their parents. 

Students can look at a globe or map and readily see that water dominates our planet. However, do students know that over 70 percent of the earth’s surface is covered by water? Do they realize the importance of the oceans?

Currently, 80 percent of all people live within 60 miles of a seacoast. Yet many adolescents still do not think that the ocean waters impact their lives and vice versa. There are many reasons for this naive thinking. A common one is “I don’t eat seafood so I don’t use ocean resources.” Other reasons can be attributed to lack of a personal connection with the oceans. Some students have never visited oceans and swam in their warm waters.

As educators, one of our goals is to help students understand the importance of their everyday actions.  The National Science Education Standards state that students should have an understanding of human impact on the environment.

To help students identify how humans impact the marine environment, make a personal connection with the oceans, and raise awareness of marine environmental issues, teachers can use this week-long lesson.  This activity will help students think critically within the context of important marine issues.

National Science Education Standards

This lesson closely aligns with three of the Science Content Standards of the National Science Education Standards: Science as Inquiry, Life Science, and Science in Personal and Social Perspectives.

Science as Inquiry: Abilities Necessary to do Scientific Inquiry (Grades 5-8)

-Use appropriate tools and techniques to gather, analyze, and interpret data.

-Develop descriptions, explanations, predictions, and models using evidence.

-Think critically and logically to make the relationships between evidence and explanations.

-Recognize and analyze alternative explanations and predictions.

-Communicate scientific procedures and explanations.

Life Science: Populations and Ecosystems (Grades 5-8)

-Lack of resources and other factors, such as predation and climate, limit the growth of populations in specific niches in the ecosystem.

Science in Personal and Social Perspectives: Natural Hazards (Grades 5-8)

-Human activities also can induce hazards…. Such activities can accelerate many natural changes.

Engage

Engage students in learning about their personal connection with the ocean. Have students act as marine scientists for a week. On day 1, students should read an article/blog post or watch a video clip that discusses current news about the oceans. Students should read different articles and watch different videos. Students should then write a brief “news report” of their own. This report should summarize the article or video that they read or watched.

In their news report, students should alert their audience to daily activities, such as littering or not recycling, that may impact and contribute to changing marine environments.

Here are some ideas for articles and videos:

Lassoing Hawaii’s Marine Trash

Loss of Sea Ice Stirs Up Arctic Waters

Ocean Becoming More Acidic, Potentially Threatening Marine Life

Aquatic Food Sources May Be Threatened By Rising Carbon Dioxide

Marine Protected Areas: A Solution For Saving The Penguin

Coral Can Recover From Climate Change Damage, New Research Suggests

Protecting Our Planet

Clam Cleanup: Biologists Clam Up Waterways To Determine Sources Of Pollution

Saving Seahorses: Marine Biologists Work To Protect Seahorses By Developing A Breeding Program

Explore

On day 2 as marine scientists, the students will explore their marine articles and videos in an “environmental summit. ” In small groups, they will share their news reports and discuss the daily activities that they came up with.

Students should then group the activities into categories (i.e., littering and driving separately/not carpooling could be in a category titled “increased pollution”).  Students should determine the relative significance of each activity. Students may wish to use a rating scale to explain the impact (i.e., a rating of 5 would mean the daily activity directly damages the ocean in a negative way and a rating of 1 would mean the activity could potentially harm marine environments). Students will then share their categories and rating scales with the class.  List the categories and activities on the board.

Note — you should see similarities within the groups.  Raise students’ awareness of this and facilitate a class discussion centered around humans impacting marine environments.

Explain

On days 3 and 4, students will work in small groups of two to three to create an action plan.  The goal of this action plan will be to raise awareness of marine environmental issues and to identify how humans impact the marine environment.

In this action plan, students should:

-State and describe why an action plan is needed.

-Support their claims with real data.

-Identify five human actions that impact the marine environment.

-Propose a possible solution and identify steps humans can take to reduce their negative impact on the marine environment.

Evaluate (Assess)

On day 5, students will submit their action plans to the summit leader (the teacher). Students will explain their findings to the class and share their proposed solutions. Students will compare and contrast the various solutions through class discussion. Then students will journal or reflect on their own personal impact and what they can do to lessen this impact.

Expand

Middle School Portal 2  (MSP2) provides many great resources focused on the oceans.  For background information, try Earth’s Oceans.  This guide discusses the oceans as a part of the earth system — the link between oceans and climate; tsunamis; life science concepts such as ocean ecosystems, food webs, and biodiversity; real data - both sources of and projects that use real data; and related careers. There is  a section on common misconceptions about the oceans and a section about the science standards that the guide connects to.

Even though you might not teach a unit called oceans, the oceans can be used as a context within other units, such as ecosystems, energy transfer, systems thinking, or methods in science.

Another useful resource developed by MSP2  is Ocean Systems.  This guide focuses on earth and physical science, including volcanic island formation and tsunamis; life science concepts, including ocean ecosystems, food webs, and biodiversity; science in personal and social perspectives, including pollution, endangered species and conservation; and related careers.

Students may wish to use visuals to raise awareness. Ecoartspace is an organization that focuses on addressing environmental issues through the visual arts. In addition to their action plans, students can create visual works of art that can be displayed throughout the school to raise awareness.  (You may want to work in collaboration with your school’s art program).

This lesson lends itself to discussing climate change.  These resources will help you have that discussion:

An Investigation of Student Engagement in a Global Warming Debate

Climate Change and Extinction

Melting Polar Icecap

Melting Polar: Antarctica

Global Climate Change Research Explorer: Biosphere

Join your colleagues in discussing this and other middle school issues at the Middle School Portal 2 (MSP2) social network. Hope to “see” you there!

Looking for a way to incorporate real data into your science class? Or maybe you want to work on evidence-based claims and reasoning. Perhaps you need an engaging way to tackle the subject of climate change. This lesson uses polar bears and sea ice data to promote critical thinking within the context of an important current event.

Lesson Objectives

Students will be able to visually represent data by creating meaningful graphs.

Students will make claims based on graphical evidence and support those claims with evidence-based reasoning.

National Science Education Standards

This lesson closely aligns with three of the Science Content Standards of the National Science Education Standards (NSES): Science as Inquiry, Life Science, and Science in Personal and Social Perspectives.

Science as Inquiry: Abilities Necessary to do Scientific Inquiry (Grades 5-8)

Use appropriate tools and techniques to gather, analyze, and interpret data.

Develop descriptions, explanations, predictions, and models using evidence.

Think critically and logically to make the relationships between evidence and explanations.

Recognize and analyze alternative explanations and predictions.

Communicate scientific procedures and explanations.

Life Science: Populations and Ecosystems (Grades 5-8)

Lack of resources and other factors, such as predation and climate, limit the growth of populations in specific niches in the ecosystem.

Science in Personal and Social Perspectives: Natural Hazards (Grades 5-8)

Human activities also can induce hazards…Such activities can accelerate many natural changes.

Engage

Begin the lesson by showing footage of polar bears in Hudson Bay with wildlifeHD’s Polar Bear Cam. Conduct a brief class discussion to elicit prior knowledge about the bears. Next, share some facts about polar bears with students, such as:

So far this fall, tour operators and scientists have reported at least four and perhaps up to eight cases of mature males eating cubs and other bears in the population around Churchill, Manitoba. (From Hungry polar bears resorting to cannibalism, December 3, 2009)

There are increased bear-human interactions, increased numbers of bears on shore, and bears staying on shore for longer periods of time in the Canadian Arctic. (From Can You Bear It? Churchill a Polar Pioneer, November 18, 2009)

The IUCN Polar Bear Specialist Group has listed eight of 19 polar bear subpopulations as currently decreasing, three as stable, and one as increasing. For seven, data were insufficient to assign a trend. (From Polar Bear Status Report, July 6, 2009)

You may wish to share the facts orally, list them on the board or on a PowerPoint slide, or create mock headlines for students to read. Ask students to discuss the facts in small groups, and come up with explanations for the facts (or headlines). Conduct a class discussion to share students’ explanations, and record and post them in a central location.

Explore

Next, group students into teams of 4 or 5 for an Idea Circle about polar bears. In an idea circle, each student reads a nonfiction (informational) text of their own choosing on a particular subject (in this case, polar bears). As each student selects his own text, a variety of reading levels and formats are represented within each small group and within the class. Ideally, no two students read the same text. Idea circles are an excellent strategy for differentiated instruction and a wonderful opportunity to incorporate children’s literature into a middle school classroom.

For an idea circle on polar bears, we’ve suggested titles from the Beyond Penguins and Polar Bears virtual bookshelves, including:

Ice Bear: In the Steps of the Polar Bear. Nicola Davies. 2005.

Life Cycle of a Polar Bear. Rebecca Sjonger and Bobbie Kalman. 2006.

Baby Polar Bear. Aubrey Lang. 2008.

Why Don’t Polar Bears Have Stripes? Katherine Smith. 2004.

A Polar Bear Journey. Debbie S. Miller. 2005.

Polar Bears: Arctic Hunters. Norman Pearl. 2009.

Ice Bears. Brenda Z. Guiberson. 2008.

Polar Bear Alert! Debora Pearson. 2007.

Polar Bears. Amazing Animals Series. Gail Gibbons. 2009.

101 Facts About Polar Bears. Julia Barnes. 2004.

Your librarian or media specialist will be able to recommend other nonfiction titles as well.

After students read their individual texts, they share what they’ve learned with their small group, completing a graphic organizer in the process. Next, conduct another whole-class discussion and record information on a large chart displayed in a central location. Ask students to revisit their explanations from the “Engage” phase, clarifying and revising as needed.

Explain

In this phase of the lesson, students will work with real data to better understand the role of sea ice loss in changing polar bear populations. The Windows to the Universe lesson Graphing Sea Ice Extent in the Arctic and Antarctic provides up-to-date sea ice data and clear procedures for the lesson. You may wish to deal only with the Arctic data if your focus is on polar bear populations.

Graphing Sea Ice Extent in the Arctic and Antarctic

Students graph sea ice extent (area) in both polar regions (Arctic and Antarctica) over a three-year period to learn about seasonal variations and over a 25-year period to learn about longer-term trends.

Once students have completed their graphs, they will analyze the data and make evidence-based claims that explain why polar bear populations are changing. You may wish to use a graphic organizer to scaffold students’ work with claims, evidence, and reasoning. You may also wish to model this process if students are unfamiliar or unpracticed with these concepts.

At this time, you may choose to conduct another whole-class discussion to share claims, evidence, and reasoning. Student graphs and claims/evidence/reasoning graphic organizers serve as assessment for this lesson (see “Assess,” below).

Assess (Evaluate)

Class discussion during the “Engage” phase of the lesson can serve as a source of formative assessment. Additionally, observation of student behavior during the lessons’ activities can be used as an assessment tool.

Formal (summative) assessment for this lesson includes evaluating student graphs and claims, evidence, and reasoning using rubrics. In addition, you may also choose to assess student understanding of polar bear characteristics and populations.

Expand

Extend this lesson by introducing global climate change and albedo. The following resources may be helpful as you plan extension activities.

Graphing Thermal Expansion of Water and Greenhouse Gases

http://passporttoknowledge.com/polar-palooza/pp0902.php

Two activities have students create graphs of concentrations of greenhouse gases and observe the thermal expansion of water. You may choose to have students also plot global temperatures as well as greenhouse gas concentrations to help them see the correlation between the two.

The Shiniest Moon

http://beyondpenguins.nsdl.org/issue/column.php?date=October2008&departmentid=literacy&columnid=literacy!feature

This nonfiction article is written for use with students in grades 4 and up. Students learn about two of Saturn’s moons, albedo, the relationship between heat absorption and temperature, and how decreasing sea ice in the Arctic actually contributes to further melting. The article is offered in various formats and reading levels, and related activities are suggested.

Other Related Resources

Create a Graph

Students will learn how to create area, bar, pie, and line graphs. They are provided with information about what each type of graph shows and what it can be used for. Students are given an example of each type of graph, but they can create graphs using their own data in the interactive tool.

WWF-Canon Polar Bear Tracker

For the last 5 years or so, the WWF-Canon Polar Bear Tracker has followed polar bears in the Arctic. Their positions are beamed from collars on the bears’ necks, via satellite to scientists, and then to this website. It allows us to get regular updates about how the polar bears behave in their arctic environment and how they may be affected by climate change. The site also includes multimedia and a kid’s zone.

Dot Earth

http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/

Follow climate-related news (including the latest from the climate talks in Copenhagen) with this New York Times blog.

We Need Your Help

We want and need your ideas, suggestions, and observations. What would you like to know more about? What questions have your students asked? Do you have a favorite activity that you would like to share? We invite you to share with us and other readers by posting your comments here or sharing with the Middle School Portal 2: Math and Science Pathways Professional Learning Network.

Our August 28 blog entry focused on developing concepts related to the methods in and nature of science. In that post, titled “Put On a Happy Face!,” the inspiration came from scientific investigation of the relationship between suggestive language and involuntary contractions of facial muscles. The goals of that post were to help teachers assist students in (a) distinguishing between questions that lend themselves to scientific investigations and those that do not; (b) identifying methods one could use to investigate a good question scientifically; and (c) using evidence to support one’s logical argument.

Those goals closely align with Content Standard A of the National Science Education Standards (NSES), Science as Inquiry. That standard is divided into two themes: abilities to do scientific inquiry and understandings about scientific inquiry (p. 143). In the real-world, we cannot separate these two themes cleanly. That is, one can only conduct scientific inquiry if one has some understanding about it.

So how do middle grades teachers help students meet this necessarily complex set of ideas without oversimplifying it? Perhaps the best approach is to be transparent and explicit with students: explain your goal of helping students acquire proficiency in both themes through a series of activities across the academic year, each highlighting a portion of the themes, while remaining strongly connected to all the other portions of both themes.

The first theme, abilities to do scientific inquiry, has eight subthemes (listed below from pages 145 and 148 of NSES). The second theme, understandings about scientific inquiry, has seven subthemes relating to the nature of science as manifested in the subthemes of abilities to do scientific inquiry:

Identify questions that can be answered through scientific investigations. (See blog post Put On a Happy Face!)

Design and conduct a scientific investigation.

Use appropriate tools and techniques to gather, analyze, and interpret data.

Develop descriptions, explanations, predictions, and models using evidence.

Think critically and logically to make the relationships between evidence and explanations.

Recognize and analyze alternative explanations and predictions.

Communicate scientific procedures and explanations.

Use mathematics in all aspects of inquiry.

Pages 146-147 of NSES provide an excellent case study, using an investigation of pendulums, which addresses these subthemes. Physical science seems to lend itself well to these themes. But, teachers need to facilitate student proficiency with these subthemes in the disciplines of earth and life sciences too. ScienceDaily published a news story on August 21, 2009, titled Evolution Of The Human Appendix: A Biological ‘Remnant’ No More,  which can be integrated into a unit on body systems while providing opportunity to develop the content standards listed above in a life science context.

How to Turn This News Event into an Inquiry-Based, Standards-Related Science Lesson

Ask students if any of them have had appendicitis. What is it? Where is the human appendix? (You can show students the graphic that accompanies the news story.) What does it do? Allow every volunteering and some nonvolunteering students to contribute, while refraining from providing corrective feedback.

What kind of questions can students generate related to the human appendix? Which questions lend themselves to scientific investigation?

After students choose a good question, ask them how it can be tested. Students need to think big here, with the understanding we may not have the capacity to carry out their experiment, but if we had the resources, as research institutions do, the experiment could be conducted. Students can conduct some research to learn what is known. They could dissect a rat to observe an appendix, and a frog to observe lack of an appendix.

Given their proposed experimental design and the idea of dissection, students should explain how, and using what tools, particular kinds of data would be collected, and how it would be organized. For example, students may propose that several individuals of several species be dissected and observed for an appendix. What kinds of tools do they need? Make sure you have some tools on hand so students can touch them, if not use them. Can they design a data table for recording the observations? Does it accommodate the number of species as well as the individuals of each species?

Based on research or initial observation of the single frog and rat, students should describe the appearance, size, texture, mass, volume, lengths and/or context of the appendix. They can speculate (explain) on what might be adaptive about those observations. Based on their research on the function of the appendix, students can predict what kinds of species might lack an appendix because the species’ lifestyle suggests they might not need one. Or how might the size of the appendix vary with the different classes of animals? Students can draw and label illustrations (model) of the observed appendix in the dissected rat or lack of appendix in the frog.

Students use knowledge gained in research and observation here. What makes their predictions from the step above reasonable?

Read the news story to students or have them read it. Can they articulate the alternative explanations regarding the evolution of the appendix? What is the value in scientists proposing alternative explanations? What is the danger in scientists doing this?

Students should recognize the ways they have already done or seen this: in their experimental design, in their model drawing, in the story they’ve read.

How have students used, or could they use, math in their experimental design, observations or data analysis? Why would using math in these ways improve the quality of their science?

Here’s a short, current background information article from Scientific American, What is the function of the human appendix? Did it once have a purpose that has since been lost?

Here are additional resources from the National Science Digital Library Middle School Portal: Organ Systems: Functions, Diversity and Uniformity; Nature of Science - Scientific Method; and Methods of Science.

We Need Your Help

We want and need your ideas, suggestions, and observations. What would you like to know more about? What questions have your students asked? Do you have a favorite activity that you would like to share? We invite you to share with us and other readers by posting your comments. Please check back each week for our newest post or download the RSS feed for this blog. You can also request email notification when new content is posted (see right navigation bar).

Let us know what you think and tell us how we can serve you better. We want your feedback on all of the NSDL Middle School Portal science publications. Email us at msp@msteacher.org

Very soon we will meet our new students and their parents. Everyone is excited but a bit nervous and perhaps anxious. Intuitively, we know smiling will help put others at ease. Everyone has heard the old wives’ tale that it takes more muscles to frown than to smile; thus, smile more and decrease the energy needed!

But is there more to the relationship between extrinsic triggers, emotion, and physical manifestation in facial expression? Is this a question that lends itself to scientific investigation, or is it somewhat mystical, outside the bounds of empirical evidence? How could one test the relationship?

Results of a new study indicate that when people read words associated with laughing and smiling or frowning, they have involuntary muscular contractions associated with smiling or frowning. In addition, one’s perception of how funny a cartoon is can be influenced by subliminal messages containing laugh/smile/frown verbs.

How to Turn This News Event into an Inquiry-Based, Standards-Related Science Lesson

What a great way to help put students at ease while introducing them to the nature of science! Empathize with your students by telling them you are always excited, but a little nervous and anxious too, at the beginning of the school year. Let them know you consciously try to smile. Ask them why they think you do this.

Ask students what they think they know about the effect of smiling on others. How do they know that? Upon what evidence are they basing their claims? Do they respond that people often smile back when one smiles at them? Are there other ways of getting people to smile, perhaps on a less conscious level? That is, one might smile as a response to some other, less-obvious cue than another’s smile, without being conscious of it.

Ask students if they’ve heard that old wives’ tale in the first paragraph above and ask what it implies. Ask students if there is a relationship between emotion and facial expression. What causes facial expression? Muscle contractions, of course. Be explicit in identifying that physical aspect and how it differs from emotion. The physical aspect has a definite biological foundation. The emotional aspect is not so definite in its biological foundation, even though we can observe the biological results of emotions, such as increased heart rate.

Finally, ask if the question of obvious or subliminal emotional triggers and subsequent physical manifestation of emotion through facial expression can be tested scientifically. You’ll need to be very clear here. Consider breaking this down into a couple of simpler questions, putting them in print or projecting them clearly. Make sure each student commits to an answer of yes or no without being judgmental.

For those students who answer yes, they should elaborate; how would they test the question scientifically? They can work in pairs or threes and brainstorm a while, writing out a sequence of steps they would use in their test. For those who say no, they should describe why this question cannot be tested. That is, why is the question one that falls outside the realm of science? Refrain from interfering too much here. If students ask you a question, try to respond with another question, rather than “giving” them an answer. The goals are to allow students to collaborate, to think scientifically, and to evaluate the potential of their proposed tests, not to actually devise a perfect test.

After the groups are satisfied with their responses, let the naysayers present their arguments, a la communication in science. Then allow the other camp to respond. Have any students changed their mind or do they still believe they can conduct an empirical test? After the test descriptions have been heard, ask students to re-evaluate their initial yes/no answer. You could ask for a show of hands; how many students changed their answers? It is not necessary for anyone to say which way they changed, or why, at this point. But this underscores that scientific explanations do change as new evidence emerges.

Then share the article Smile As You Read This: Language That Puts You In Touch With Your Bodily Feelings (ScienceDaily, August 15) with the students, making sure they understand the two tests and why the results appear to be valid. For assessment, ask them to defend the theory (a tested hypothesis with supporting evidence) that unconscious physical manifestation of emotions can be triggered subliminally. Don’t be afraid to use these “big” words with students; just be prepared to explain their meaning.

Here are additional resources from the National Science Digital Library Middle School Portal: Evolution and the Nature of Science Institutes; Nature of Science - Scientific Method; and Methods of Science.

We Need Your Help

We want and need your ideas, suggestions, and observations. What would you like to know more about? What questions have your students asked? Do you have a favorite activity that you would like to share? We invite you to share with us and other readers by posting your comments. Please check back each week for our newest post or download the RSS feed for this blog. You can also request email notification when new content is posted (see right navigation bar).

Let us know what you think and tell us how we can serve you better. We want your feedback on all of the NSDL Middle School Portal science publications. Email us at msp@msteacher.org

Bats, caves, danger and exotic locales. That should catch your students’ attention! The big story here is the co-evolution of viruses and their nonhuman animal hosts, who seem to have a harmless, symbiotic relationship with viruses that cause deadly outbreaks in humans. Though this story is about Marburg virus and a fruit bat, the concepts apply to many virus/host/human infections systems, including H1N1.

On August 2, 2009, ScienceDaily published a story called ‘Ebola Cousin’ Marburg Virus Isolated From African Fruit Bats.

While previous investigations have found antibodies to Marburg virus and virus genetic fragments in bats, the recent study goes significantly further by isolating actual infectious virus directly from bat tissues in otherwise healthy-appearing bats. The new study shows unambiguously that this bat species can carry live Marburg virus. . . . By identifying the natural source of this virus, appropriate public health resources can be directed to prevent future outbreaks. (Emphasis added.)

The blog MicrobiologyBytes also has a post about this finding. The writer notes that ecologists have been looking for this “natural reservoir” for forty years! Now that researchers have found the reservoir, it appears the potential for human disease outbreaks is greater than previously thought.

The original source for ScienceDaily’s  story is found at http://www.plosone.org/article/fetchArticle.action?articleURI=info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0000764.

How to Turn This News Event into an Inquiry-Based, Standards-Related Science Lesson

There have been reports of H1N1 flu outbreaks at summer camp. Ask your students who has actually had swine flu recently. How do they know? What do they know about the H1N1 virus and viruses in general? Where do viruses come from? What are they made of? What other viruses have students heard of that can have an even more severe impact on humans than H1N1?

Ask if any students have seen the movie Outbreak? What was the ultimate host for that virus? How is it that animals can host these viruses with no negative impact to their health, yet humans cannot?

Students do not necessarily need to articulate the structure of the virus on a molecular level, but they should understand that the virus is not cellular, has very few parts, and cannot survive except inside the cell of another, benefiting from the host cell’s structures and activities that the virus lacks. Thus, when the virus inhabits some animal bodies, it does no harm, but when the same virus inhabits human cells it causes harm. Can your students construct a reasonable hypothesis to explain this observation?

Show students this eight-slide, narrated animation of how a virus infects a cell: https://www.health.harvard.edu/flu-resource-center/virus/how-a-virus-infects-a-cell_3.htm

This image, which lacks a caption, is for your information. It shows a micrograph of the virus, a labeled schematic, and the corresponding genome, consisting of seven genes.

After students generate some hypotheses about the relationships between viruses and their hosts, have them scrutinize their hypotheses by engaging in scientific argumentation. What is the rationale for the hypothesis? What evidence is there to support the rationale? Can some hypotheses be eliminated? How should others be modified?

Ask students what natural selection means. How might the concept be related to the observation of the apparent symbiotic relationship of viruses and an animal host? Over a very long time, natural selection selected against host animals who lacked the ability to generate antibodies against the virus, leaving survivors who do produce the necessary antibodies. One assumption is that humans, who have inhabited the planet for a very short period of time relatively speaking, have not had enough time for natural selection to eliminate those humans who cannot produce the appropriate antibodies. And at the same time, the necessary random mutations in the human genome that would enable antibody production have not appeared.

The Marburg virus manifests a number of variations in gene base sequence (the order of cytosine guanine, adenine and thymine in the virus’s DNA), suggesting the virus has been around a very long time. Mutations are relatively rare; thus, it takes a very long time to accumulate many. This variation in the virus confers a high degree of fitness on it and increases the probability that at least one or more of the variations will find hospitable environments in which to thrive and reproduce.

H1N1 is subject to the same assumptions. Influenza is naturally hosted by birds. Somewhere in evolutionary history, the bird flu virus acquired a mutation that enabled it to colonize swine, without killing them. In more recent history, the two flu strains were probably inhabiting the same hosts simultaneously, enabling gene mixing of the two viruses and producing H1N1, among other viruses. For the same reasons given earlier, humans do not produce antibodies for the flu virus.

For assessment, have students respond to these inquiries:

1. Why do Egyptian fruit bats hosting Marburg virus

2. Why do you think ecologists were unable to locate the Marburg virus’s natural reservoir for over forty years? (Researchers may not have realized another mammal could host the virus without getting sick. Also, newer technologies are able to differentiate the slightest variations in gene sequences that, although containing some variation, are still the same virus. They may have believed most of these variations, though observed, were not Marburg.)

3. Finally, as a bridge to technology and the application of science findings: What do you think can be done with the fact that the Egyptian fruit bat is a known host to the deadly Marburg virus?

Here are additional resources from the National Science Digital Library Middle School Portal:

Influenza: History, Science, Strains, Detection and Protection; What’s Making You Sick?;

We Need Your Help

We want and need your ideas, suggestions, and observations. What would you like to know more about? What questions have your students asked? Do you have a favorite activity that you would like to share? We invite you to share with us and other readers by posting your comments. Please check back each week for our newest post or download the RSS feed for this blog. You can also request email notification when new content is posted (see right navigation bar).

Let us know what you think and tell us how we can serve you better. We want your feedback on all of the NSDL Middle School Portal science publications. Email us at msp@msteacher.org

Ask your students how much milk they’ve had in the past 24 hours. I predict the amounts will be dismally low.

The Office of Dietary Supplements, National Institutes of Health, reports in its Dietary Supplement Fact Sheet: Calcium:

The National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 1999-2000 found that average calcium intakes were 1,081 and 793 mg/day for boys and girls ages 12-19 years, respectively; 1,025 and 797 mg/day for men and women 20-39 years; and 797 and 660 mg/day for men and women ≥60 years. Overall, females are less likely than males to get recommended intakes of calcium from food.

It’s apparently not hip to drink milk. Though most students would agree milk is a healthy choice, they may believe it also holds risks because of additives or processing. They may believe they can get their calcium just as easily from other sources. However, some studies suggest that calcium supplements don’t confer the same benefits as calcium delivered via low-fat dairy products. Among examples cited in a Wall Street Journal online article is a low-fat diet containing three servings of diary, such as milk or yogurt, that contributed to greater fat loss around the waist than diets of equal caloric intake per day lacking the dairy regiment. Causes for the observation are not known but are suspected to lie in the combination of enzymes present.

Ask your students if they know why at least three servings of low-fat milk are recommended daily. What does the body use it for? Most students will be able to mention bone and teeth composition. Probably few realize milk is required for muscle contraction, both voluntary and involuntary, for hormone and enzyme secretion, and for neurotransmitter success. Emerging research suggests other benefits as well.

ScienceDaily  recently published a story called Longer Life For Milk Drinkers, Study Suggests. A study out of Great Britain “aimed to establish whether the health benefits of drinking milk outweigh any dangers that lie in its consumption. . . . The review brought together published evidence from 324 studies of milk consumption as predictors of coronary heart disease (CHD), stroke, and diabetes.” The researchers offered this conclusion:

Our findings clearly show that when the numbers of deaths from CHD, stroke and colorectal cancer were taken into account, there is strong evidence of an overall reduction in the risk of dying from these chronic diseases due to milk consumption. We certainly found no evidence that drinking milk might increase the risk of developing any condition, with the exception of prostate cancer. (Emphasis added)

How to Turn This News Event into an Inquiry-Based, Standards-Related Science Lesson

The following lesson could be integrated into a skeletal system unit, a nutrition unit, or a science literacy unit. After orally surveying students for how much milk they recently consumed and what they believe are the pros and cons to drinking milk, have them write down a prediction regarding how much calcium is recommended daily for a person their age. Have them express that quantity in metric units of mass. This may require some support from you, such as reminding them what the base unit of mass measure is (gram) and the various prefixes. Allow the students to decide which prefix is most appropriate. Then have them write down a list of the benefits and the negatives of consuming milk. This initial list will be revisited and appropriately revised later.

Show students the document from the National Institutes of Health quoted above, Dietary Supplement Fact Sheet: Calcium, or have them peruse it in pairs while in a computer lab.

Each student should answer these questions:

1. How much calcium is recommended per day for a person your age? (1,300 mg)

2. List the sources of calcium that you would/could/do use.

3. What does DV stand for? Why is the given DV not directly useful to you? (Daily Value. It’s based on a 1,000 mg Recommended Dietary Allowance, or RDA)

4. Should you adjust the given DV up or down? (Down)

5. List two forms of calcium in supplements. Which do you think is the better choice for you and why?

After this point, you could assign pairs of students to sections of the document and ask them to develop one or two essential questions for each section. After the students finish reading their assigned section and constructing answers to their essential questions, they should be encouraged to find one reputable resource that either confirms or discounts the fact sheet’s statements.

Finally, the student pairs should share their findings with the rest of the class. They could create posters for a “gallery-hop” where students walk around the room, from poster to poster, as the poster creators briefly describe what they learned, using their poster as a visual aid. In this way they reinforce concepts of collaboration and communication in science.

As a means of accountability, each pair of students might be required to construct two questions, either multiple choice or fill-in, that all students will be able to respond to correctly after hearing the pair’s presentation. You can use one of the two questions from each group for a class quiz. Part of that quiz should include a student reflection in which students describe how accurate their initial predictions were and the ways they have modified their conceptions of calcium and human nutrition. They should also reflect on how they may modify their lifestyle as a result of this lesson, and why.

Here are additional resources from the National Science Digital Library Middle School Portal: Eastsmart.org; Smart-Mouth.org; and Health Rules: Fitness and Nutrition for Kids. One other lesson idea is found at  Eating a Nutritious Lunch.

We Need Your Help

We want and need your ideas, suggestions, and observations. What would you like to know more about? What questions have your students asked? Do you have a favorite activity that you would like to share? We invite you to share with us and other readers by posting your comments. Please check back each week for our newest post or download the RSS feed for this blog. You can also request email notification when new content is posted (see right navigation bar).

Let us know what you think and tell us how we can serve you better. We want your feedback on all of the NSDL Middle School Portal science publications. Email us at msp@msteacher.org

Are you old enough to remember hearing those words spoken by President John F. Kennedy? I’m not, but I have a distinct memory of the night of July 20, 1969, when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the moon—the first humans to set foot on a celestial body other than planet Earth.

I was seven years old. It was a summer night in Ohio and our house was not air conditioned. I had likely spent the day at swim team practice, followed by swim lessons, followed by five more hours of swimming at the pool until dinner time. Come 10 p.m., typically, I’d have been fast asleep in my own bed. On this night, however, I remember falling asleep on the family room floor in front of our black-and-white TV, and my mother shaking me awake, ordering, “Wake up! You have to see this! This is incredible, men on the moon! Who could have imagined it?!”  This from a woman who never graduated from college or showed particular interest in things scientific.

This goes to show the impact the event had not only in the scientific community but also in society and the world at large. After all, the initial goal was to win the race to the moon, over the Soviets, and demonstrate U.S. muscle, more than to achieve specific scientific goals. July 20, 2009, marked the 40th anniversary of this historic event. This milestone reminds us of several topics for research and discussion, including the history of the space exploration program with all its triumphs and tragedies; the social debate regarding the wisdom of the NASA budget; the happy, unintended consequences of the space program, such as microwave ovens; and the relatively novel concept of space tourism. It also reminds us of the need for risk-taking and exploration of the unknown even if we cannot specifically articulate the probable outcomes. In science, it’s called basic research. Finding funding for basic research is challenging since it comes with no guarantee of results.

How to Turn This News Event into an Inquiry-Based, Standards-Related Science Lesson

Research into and discussion of the NASA space program aligns well with several content standards of the National Science Education Standards: Science in Personal and Social Perspectives; Science and Technology; Physical Science; and Earth and Space Science. Assuming you are still on your summer break, I’ll focus on some resources that can improve background knowledge and others to bookmark for use when school starts.

The obvious place to start is NASA, http://www.nasa.gov/. From the home page, click on Missions and then Apollo 11 to be taken to http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/apollo/ for the complete history of the Apollo program, with links to 40th anniversary events, lots of visuals, and JFK’s space-related speeches, among others.

From the JFK presidential library, the web site wechoosethemoon.org is an interactive, real-time simulation of the entire Apollo 11 mission. See the July 13, 2009, Huffington blog post for a description of the new site.

Sobel Media, http://www.sobelmedia.com/tag/apollo-11/, also posted at least four short articles about the anniversary as part of a series about Apollo 11.

A YouTube search using “Apollo 11″ produced pages of videos (http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Apollo+11&search_type=&aq=f).

Benefits of Space Exploration is a page from the Ask Kids web site. The sidebar menu includes sections titled:

• Why Do We Need Space Exploration
• Why Is Space Exploration Important
• Cons and Pros of Space Exploration
• Reason for Continued Space Exploration
• Risk of Space Exploration

The page itself contains numerous links such as NASA Spinoffs: Bringing Space Down to Earth, which delineates specific outcomes of the space exploration program in seven categories:

1. Computer Technology, 2. Consumer/Home/Recreation, 3. Environmental and Resource Management, 4. Health and Medicine, 5. Industrial Productivity/Manufacturing Technology, 6. Public Safety, and 7. Transportation

Did you know the space shuttle launches will terminate in 2010? Or that the International Space Station is scheduled to be deconstructed in 2016? See the July 15 post on CNN.com’s SciTech Blog, NASA to junk space station in 2016, for more.

Want to know more about space tourism? You are in luck! Just visit the Space Tourism Society web page. Founded in 1996, the society has as its goals building public desire and acquiring the financial and political power to make space tourism available as soon as possible.

Additional resources from the National Science Digital Library Middle School Portal: Superspace; What’s Happening with Hubble?; Phoenix Mission to Mars: Final Seven Minutes of Terror; and Amazing Space.

We Need Your Help

We want and need your ideas, suggestions, and observations. What would you like to know more about? What questions have your students asked? Do you have a favorite activity that you would like to share? We invite you to share with us and other readers by posting your comments. Please check back each week for our newest post or download the RSS feed for this blog. You can also request email notification when new content is posted (see right navigation bar).

Let us know what you think and tell us how we can serve you better. We want your feedback on all of the NSDL Middle School Portal science publications. Email us at msp@msteacher.org