Biology by the Math Mom: February 2018

Saturday, February 24, 2018

Creative Series and Parallel Circuits

Last year, knowing that I would be teaching Physical Science this year, I started collecting ideas on Pinterest for labs. One of the pins was for making circuits with aluminum foil and Christmas lights from Nitty Gritty Science. I loved the idea and had a couple of strings of old lights that weren't working reliably. I actually started to cut the lights up at the end of last year to be prepared.

I made a basic model of a series and parallel circuit to show my students and then told them to be creative. The kids certainly didn't disappoint! Most loved the process and asked if they could bring the supplies to finish up at home. They worked in class for 80 minutes, and several students had only finished the series circuit, but were still in process for the parallel circuit by the time class was over.

We began by drawing a schematic of their design. Once the design was approved, they got their supplies of a manila folder, 2 brads, a sheet of foil, scissors, several Christmas lights, a 9 volt battery, and tape. They needed reminders that tape is an insulator and to make sure the foil is always touching foil for the entire circuit.

Several parents actually commented about the popularity of this lab to me when they saw me later.

I put together directions for each table of students and also a lab sheet for them to glue into their notebooks.

Thursday, February 15, 2018

Egg Drop Challenge

As we were wrapping up our unit on forces and interactions in Physical Science, I wanted the kids to have the opportunity to apply their knowledge and also have some practice with the engineering process. For our last class before the unit test, we had an egg drop challenge.

I did some research on line, but many of the challenges out there are for students to build an apparatus at home and bring it in for the competition. Since I only see my students for one 90 minute session a week, they are busy during the week with reading the chapter and doing other assignments. I wanted students to have the opportunity to test designs and make improvements as well as practice working as a team. So, I pilfered ideas mainly from this document and put together what would be my student's in class building challenge.

Students had about 70 minutes to design and build their egg holder. Some were a little slow to start, but by the end they were all fully engaged. If I were to do this again, I'd try to figure out some way to limit the amount of glue from the glue gun used per team. I had about 7 sticks (for a full sized glue gun) and it was all used before some teams had a chance to use it even once. It was primarily one team that went hog wild with it.

In the end, of the seven teams, three of them successfully dropped their egg and had no damage to the egg. The other four were valiant attempts, all of which were exciting to watch.

Here are the directions that I gave students. It also includes the list of materials that I provided each team. All of it fit in a gallon ziplock bag. Three of the teams asked if they could use the gallon bag, and I did allow them too--even though it wasn't on their list. For students' notebooks, I gave them this reflection sheet. I also made these score sheets. These scores did not effect their lab grade, but was used to decide some fun prizes. In the end, we did not measure the distance from the target since we had to drop them on the stairs and the egg holders were flying everywhere off the steps.

Saturday, February 3, 2018

Guided Reading Questions and Videos for AP Biology

I've been meaning to put this together all year, but life has just been too busy to get it all together. Even though it's my third year teaching the new AP Biology curriculum, I've come to realize that I will never finish tweaking this course, and so will never just breeze through a year of teaching it. On the bright side, I do feel like each year I teach it a little better! Here are my links to guided reading questions and corresponding videos to supplement the reading in AP Biology. All of these links are in old blog posts, but I thought I might be easier to have all of the links in one post. Here is a link to a document that has all of these units in table form, which I like better. It just doesn't copy and paste well into blogger. Right now the chapter numbers correspond to the Campbell Biology 8th Ed., but next year we are switching to the 2nd Edition of Biology in Focus, so next year, I'll be changing the chapter numbers. I may change the questions some, but they should already match fairly well with Biology in Focus since I had chosen them based on what I saw in the Holtzclaw Test Prep review book for Campbell Biology and Biology in Focus. I love that Test Prep review book by the way!