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

Amusement park physics is a no-risk teaching and learning endeavor. Students engage in real-world physics applications requiring no extrinsic motivation other than the opportunity to go to an amusement park. Let’s begin with some not-so-great amusement park rides and the physics that explains them. After that, you will find several online resources you can use before, during or after a visit to the park to reinforce and assess conceptual understanding.

On July 3, 2009, Popularmechanics.com published an article about five theme park rides described as “pushing the limits of common sense.” Each presentation gives a brief description of the ride as well as a photo, and most have an accompanying video clip. The five rides include a waterslide with a perfectly circular loop, a medieval-style human catapult, a zero gravity roller coaster, the world’s first Ferris wheel, and an Alpine slide.

The problem with a perfectly circular loop is that the high g-forces “exerted when entering and exiting the inversion of a perfect circular loop are enough to break a person’s neck.” The human catapult was all good fun, until someone got hurt. In one case, the net meant to catch the projectile-person tore, and in another, a person missed the net altogether, resulting in death. The roller coaster has no reported life-threatening qualities so long as the rider is properly harnessed, just the bonus of temporary zero gravity.

The world’s first Ferris wheel is included for its context. Built in 1893 it was “284 feet tall, with 36 cars capable of holding 60 people a piece (for a total load of 2400 riders). A single revolution took 10 minutes.” One can imagine how people at the time may have reacted to such a novelty. The Alpine slide is a concrete and fiberglass slide people go down while perched on a “sled” with virtually no brakes and no control. If one is ejected, one will endure dangerous and painful skin removal at the least, and broken bones and death at the most.

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

To introduce the idea of amusement park physics, consider showing your students one of the video clips from the Popularmechanics.com page. You could first ask: Why do we find amusement park rides attractive? What do they elicit in us? How much is real and how much is perception? What is a catapult? How could the concept be converted to an amusement park attraction? Then show the video.

Have students use appropriate terms and labeled illustrations to articulate ways to design a safer version of the human catapult or other rides. Since the idea is to present the illusion of danger, not actual danger, students will have to stay within the limits of physical laws. For elaboration, they can make scale models and/or provide written explanation of the physics concepts involved.

See the Middle School Portal’s exemplary resources blog for a post titled Physics Fun at the Fair.

Here are additional resources from the National Science Digital Library Middle School Portal: Amusement Park Physics: What are the Forces Behind the Fun?; Playground Physics; Amusement Park Freefall; and Data Collection at the Amusement Park

 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

Social networks such as Facebook allow people to stay connected or get connected with physically distant persons in ways not otherwise possible. Recent news from Iran exemplifies this concept in ways most of us probably had not imagined. Navid Mansourian works for Facebook and is an Iranian immigrant. He recently wrote a column posted on Facebook regarding the role of Facebook in Iranian protest organization. In it he reports how in 1999 a protest, similar to the most recent one, was successfully suppressed by the government. Mansourian attributes the Iranian people’s lack of access to major media outlets for the government’s successful suppression then. However, he notes that barrier to major media access is now removed. “As soon as my Iranian friends share an update about what’s happening in their country, their friends are amplifying their voice by sharing it outside of the country to their friends, who then can spread it even further.” Thus, persons are empowered to act and affect change in seemingly impossible circumstances.

Since the publication of A Nation at Risk in 1983, education policy leaders have worked tirelessly toward an education revolution. Nonetheless, education reform has been disappointingly slow for a bevy of reasons. However, with the example of Iran, perhaps effective educational reform is more imminent. The May issue of Educational Researcher  may be evidence supporting that notion. It is dedicated to the role of Web 2.0 technologies–those that invite and facilitate user participation and interaction–in education and research. The articles and comments explore how these technologies enable knowledge generation, literacy and identity.

For example, educators can easily form, join, and participate in on-line professional learning communities. Teachers can develop lessons inviting student interaction and collaboration in social contexts which contribute to deeper conceptual understandings of content and retention. Parents can monitor and provide feedback regarding student learning activities. But social networking also has its dark side.

News reports of inappropriate content posted to their Facebook page by teachers are not uncommon. For example, see Area teachers post questionable content on Facebook which highlights the findings of a search done on some Florida school districts which turned up some untoward pages of some teachers. When some of those teachers were contacted by the reporter, they reported they thought they had secured their page so that students particularly would not see it.

Cyber socializing differs from real socializing in that on the web we cannot control who is accessing what portion of our personal profile when, as we can in person. In person, we align our social interaction with others depending on our relationship with them, whether they are friends, relatives, colleagues or prospective clients. Unless you consciously adjust your settings, you are not making these distinctions on-line. A NYTimes.com article, On Networking Sites, Learning How Not to Share provides some guidance on how you can adjust your privacy settings for Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn–a professional networking social site.

Middle School Portal 2 (MSP2) http://www.msteacher2.org/Math & Science Portal project has started our own social network - please visit the site and consider joining one of the groups and participating in a discussion.

How Does an iPod Affect a Polar Bear?

Photo courtesy of Amanda Graham (Yukon White Light) via Flickr.

When we talk about the problems of global climate change, we tend to focus on cars and coal-burning power plants as major contributors. Yet there are other significant players, including consumer electronics. The number of cell phones, MP3 players, laptops, and flat-screen TVs is increasing rapidly, and not just in wealthier nations. It is estimated that one in nine people in Africa has a cell phone - and those numbers are expected to continue growing.

A recent report from the International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates that new devices such as MP3 players, cell phones, and flat-screen TVs will triple energy consumption. Two hundred new nuclear power plants would be needed just to power all the TVs, iPods, PCs, and other devices expected to be used by 2030.

For example, consider televisions. The IEA estimates that 2 billion TVs will soon be in use across the world (an average of 1.3 TVs for every household with electricity). TVs are also getting bigger and being left on for longer periods of time. IEA predicts a 5 percent annual increase in energy consumption between 1990 and 2030 from televisions alone.

While consumer electronics is the fastest growing area, it is also the area with the least amount of policies to control energy efficiency. Total greenhouse gas emissions for electronic gadgets is currently at about 500 million tons of carbon dioxide per year. If nothing is done, the IEA estimates that the figure will double to about 1 billion tons of carbon dioxide per year by 2030. However, the agency says that existing technologies could reduce this figure by 30-50 percent at little cost. Allowing consumers to regulate energy consumption based on the features they actually use, minimum-performance standards, and easy-to-read energy labels can help consumers make smarter energy choices about their personal electronics.

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

This story connects to two National Science Education Standards domains: Science and Technology and Science in Personal and Social Perspectives. The Science and Technology content standard states:

Technological solutions have intended benefits and unintended consequences. Some consequences can be predicted, others cannot.

The Science in Personal and Social Perspectives content standard includes resource use and depletion, human-induced and naturally occurring hazards, and science and technology in society.

Ask students to consider electronic gadgets – cell phones, digital cameras and video cameras, MP3 players, flat-screen TVs, laptops, and so forth. Have students brainstorm the benefits of these devices. Easier communication, access to data, entertainment, and mobility will probably come up. Then ask students to brainstorm “costs” or negative characteristics. Expense will certainly be mentioned, but will the energy cost?

If you have access to an electric power monitor such as a Kill-a-Watt, you can have students plug in different gadgets and compare power consumption. This simple activity can give rise to a number of inquiry-based investigations, such as: What’s the most energy-efficient MP3 player?; Do laptops and desktops consume the same amount of power?; Does screen size (on an MP3, cell phone, laptop, or TV) affect power consumption?; and so on.

Share some of the figures from the IEA report with students. Discuss the idea that making technology (cell phones, laptops and Internet access) available to more people is a good thing, but there are intended and unintended consequences. Greater access to technology enables widespread communication and promotes education, but also requires more energy – most of which comes from fossil fuels. Burning those fossil fuels releases more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, accelerating climate change and causing Arctic sea ice decline. So all those iPods do impact polar bears after all.

Rather than leave students discouraged, present them with a challenge. Remind them of the many benefits of technology and acknowledge that electronic gadget use will continue to grow rapidly. How can science and technology address the unintended environmental consequences of these tools? Assign small groups of students a particular piece of technology and have them brainstorm ideas that would promote energy efficiency – either on the part of the consumer or the manufacturer, or both. Have groups present their solutions to the class and discuss them. What common solutions were raised? What can students and their families do now to use their electronic devices in a responsible manner?

Here are some related resources from the National Science Digital Library Middle School Portal: Energy Sources, The Power of Electricity, Polar Bears and Climate Change. The October 2008 issue of the free online magazine Beyond Penguins and Polar Bears included articles about natural resources, the NEED project, and energy efficiency activities for home and school. The U.S. Department of Energy’s web site includes links to energy efficiency and conservation lesson plans at a variety of grade levels.

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.

How many species were described for the first time in the literature in 2007? Five hundred? 1,000? 10,000? Would you believe 18, 516? That’s right, in a single calendar year! “The majority of the 18,516 species described (named) in 2007 were invertebrate animals (75.6 percent), vascular plants (11.1 percent) and vertebrates (6.7 percent),” reports ScienceDaily.com in the story Pea-sized Seahorse, Bacteria That Live in Hairspray, Caffeine-free Coffee Among Top 10 New Species of 2008.

The International Institute for Species Exploration at Arizona State University is the organization that keeps track of this information. In addition, an international group of taxonomists named a top 10 list as part of their State of Observed Species (SOS) report. The report is part of a public awareness campaign and the top 10 are chosen for their interest level. The ScienceDaily story lists and describes the top 10 for 2008. See http://species.asu.edu/SOS for access to both 2008 and 2009 SOS reports in pdf. See http://species.asu.edu/Top10 for this year’s top 10 list, with photos and links to more information regarding each species. Also shown on that page is a world map, indicating where in the world the top 10 species were found.

In the ScienceDaily story, Carolus Linnaeus, founder of our modern classification system, is also referenced: “The 300th anniversary of his birth on May 23 was celebrated worldwide in 2007. Last year marked the 250th anniversary of the beginning of animal naming.” The publication of the top 10 list is meant to coincide with his birthday.

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

Here we connect to two National Science Education Standards domains: Life Science and Science as Inquiry. The species described cut across all domains of the taxonomic system. The science of taxonomy uses a variety of particular methods to arrive at the final verdict in classifying an organism, though not always with unanimous agreement. Thus, scientific evidence and argumentation are necessary.

You can begin class discussion with the same question that opened this blog entry: How many species were described for the first time in the literature in 2007? If that number has been fairly steady for past 10 years, what can you infer regarding the number of species on the planet?

You have probably already had some lessons in classification. You can connect to those lessons with these questions: What is taxonomy? Why does it matter? Who was Carolus Linnaeus?

Before sharing the top 10 list with students, ask a few of these questions: How small is the smallest sea horse? Snake? Are there bacteria in hairspray? How long is the longest bug? Can fossils be classified just as living things are? Can you grow caffeine-free coffee beans?

Have students reflect. Does the number of species described in 2007 surprise you? Why do you think you never thought it could be so high? Which of the top 10 species are you most impressed by? Explain why. Have students write out their reaction to the statement below in complete sentences, providing evidence and support for their reaction:

Thousands of species may be going extinct each year, before they ever are discovered and described.

The following are some related resources from the National Science Digital Library Middle School Portal: Carnivorous Plants; Taxonomy: Classification of Life; and Have You Seen an Arthropod Lately?

 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

It’s that bittersweet time of the school year. The good news is the end is near, and the sad news is the end is near! You and your students have worked hard both academically and socially and some strong bonds have developed. Take full advantage of the understanding, trust and respect you now have with your students. You are all perfectly positioned for activities that will help students review the year’s major concepts and forge new understandings between and among the concepts–often perceived as discrete and unrelated–through positive social interaction.

Here are some activities that will allow students the movement and social interaction they crave this time of year, while enabling them to further clarify and solidify their knowledge of science concepts.

Science A to Z

http://sciencespot.net/Media/ScienceAtoZChall2.pdf

Use the pdf as is, or create your own using terms from your science course. Students can work in teams to promote social construction of knowledge.

Dichotomous Key

http://www.eduref.org/cgi-bin/printlessons.cgi/Virtual/Lessons/Science/Process_Skills/SPS0002.html

Was the concept of dichotomous key in your curriculum this year? Multitask by having students review the concept at the same time they become familiar with a new group of living things. What group of living things did you not get to introduce to your students for lack of time? Provide students with images of organisms in that group and have the students create a key for them.

Film Canister Fun: Science Skills

http://sciencespot.net/Pages/classgen.html#Anchor-sillysci

Want to review the skills of observation, inference, hypothesizing, induction and deduction? Scroll down the Science Spot page to find teacher Judy Flaherty’s simple but effective activity.

Super Scientists Challenge

http://sciencespot.net/Pages/classgen.html#Anchor-sillysci

This activity is also found by scrolling down the Science Spot page. Here you can review the major historical scientists students have been introduced to this year or in past years. Several handouts, keys, and suggestions for variations are provided.

Measuring a Solid

http://expertvoices.nsdl.org/middle-school-math-science/2009/04/15/measuring-a-solid/

This post from the blog Exemplary Resources for Middle School Math and Science lists several possible activities. However, the first one, Keeping Cool: When Should You Buy Block Ice or Crushed Ice?, will allow students to review scientific thinking and science skills in general, as well as the concepts of surface area and volume and their relationships.

Energy Kids Page

http://www.eia.doe.gov/kids/energyfacts/sources/whatsenergy.html

Did your curriculum include a unit on energy? This home page contains a summary of forms of energy and energy sources. Click on the Fun and Games page for engaging, quick review activities.

Rader’s Chem4Kids Chemistry Quiz

http://www.chem4kids.com/extras/quiz_chemistry/index.html

Here are some fundamental, multiple-choice questions. Have students work in groups to not only collaboratively decide the correct answer but to also provide justification as to why it’s correct and the others are not. Rader’s has similar quizzes for every major science discipline: Astronomy Quiz; Biology Quiz; Earth Science Quiz; Physics Quiz

Concept Maps

http://www.conceptmapping.com/Examples/Inspiration#Science

Creating an accurate and thorough concept map requires students to think deeply and enables them to demonstrate conceptual understanding. This page from Inspiration Software contains examples. You can provide students with a list of terms/dates/names, or they can brainstorm their own list related to a particular unit. Then they work in teams to collaboratively construct their map, either on the computer or in hard copy, making sure each item has a minimum of two connections to other items and, most importantly, the relationship between the connected terms is explained in writing along the arrows that connect terms. You could give each team a different unit to map, then have the teams connect their maps into one large one, illustrating the relatedness of all science concepts! Bonus points or extrinsic rewards can be given for artistry to encourage those with art skills to participate fully.

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