Ali Craig science methods

Week 10                To begin class this week we reviewed what we learned last week which included: the five big ideas about natural selection, how natural selection works, the causes for natural selection, and four drivers for evolution. Following this, we reviewed our reading reflections on the 3D model and NGSS with our table groups and the class.                We then discussed technology for science teaching and learning. We shared what technology we currently use as students to help our learning, and then brainstormed some technology we think would enhance our teaching. We also talked about what technology would be most beneficial for our students. Most specifically we talked about the pros and cons of simulations and the variety of simulations available. Before having this discussion I did not know that most simulations were free. Many simulations show processes we cannot observe in the c...

Week 9 During lab this week, we talked about our upcoming exam, reviewed our previous lesson, and then we learned about natural selection and evolution. Natural selection is one of the mechanisms for evolution, where inherited traits become more or less common in a population. Evolution is descent with modification, from small-scale to large-scale evolution. Small-scale evolution includes a change that affects one or a few genes in a short period of time, typically.  Large-scale evolution includes changes that happen over an extended period of time that make significant changes and can even create new species.  To explore these ideas we participated in a simulation activity with beans. The beans acted as prey and the utensils acted as predators. We formed a hypothesis before the lab as to which predator would affect the most beans and then completed the simulation. This was a simple way to depict this otherwise complex concept and is something I would love to incorporate in my...

Week 8 Today we checked our fast plants for the last time since planting them. Ours was not alive anymore which is sad, but this was such a fun, interactive mini-project! I think this would be fun to do in an elementary classroom because students would be so excited to check on their plants each morning and will easily learn the stages of a plant's life cycle. After checking on our plants we reviewed our main takeaways in reading reflections from last week with our table groups and then shared them with the class. Then we reviewed what we learned in last week's lab. We discussed the difference in genotype and phenotype and then answered a few questions about inherited versus acquired traits.  We also did a simulation activity on how mutations impact proteins. I really enjoyed getting to explore these simulations individually to observe how mutations work. We learned that there are three types of mutations: point, insertion, and deletion. Point mutation changes a single DNA lett...

 Week 7 At the beginning of class, we looked at our fast plants, again. This time, most of them were dying! Last week the flowers were bright, colorful, and tall. This week they are droopy, dried out, and brown. I'm assuming our plants began to die because we haven't watered them. This has been fun to witness a whole life cycle of a plant!    Last week we looked at natural and human factors that affected animals and their habitats, most specifically turtles in lab. In lecture last week we began learning about genetics and DNA, we also reviewed this at the beginning of class before we continued this lesson in lab. We learned in a video we watched that there are 20 different kinds of amino acids. We also reviewed central dogma, which is the process of converting DNA into protein. The three stages of central dogma are (1) DNA replication to recreate the original copy.  Then is (2) transcription mRNA needs to deliver info to amino acids and finally (3) translation, where...