“It’s Your Experiment!” High School Science Teacher Conference 2008 (Oct 24th & 25th)

BC Biodiversity and Beyond

Natural Resources Canada

David Suzuki website

for teachers: realclimate.org

Sustainability resource
“We the undersigned, senior members of the world’s scientific community, hereby warn all humanity… A great change in our stewardship of the earth and the life on it is required if vast human misery is to be avoided and our global home on this planet is not to be irretrievably mutilated.”
(UCS, World Scientists’ Warning to Humanity 1992)

“At the heart of this assessment is a stark warning. Human activity is putting such a strain on the natural functions of the Earth that the ability of the planet’s ecosystems to sustain future generations can no longer be taken for granted.”
(MEA, Living Beyond Our Means 2005)

Your Industry:

General Info about your industry/issue

Pro/Con of your industry (from an environmental perspective)

Proposal for Change (POSITION PAPER)
-    What is it? How would you implement? Who would be affected? How long would the changes take to make a difference?
-    Include how much changes would cost, both for implementation and effect on industry (approximate)
-    Optional:  How will you explain this proposal to your community?

How will you present it to the class?

Note: the proposal will be evaluated to the class and then you can use the feedback to reshape your proposal

Final Proposal for your industry
Note: activity could end here.  Students hand in their individual final proposal.

Priority of each project
As a class or individually, students figure out what projects to implement with the financial constraints (e.g. $1 million).
Students must explain why they made their choices.

Option 1 (proposal only) Marking:
Students show an understanding of the issue, showing more than one side. Can they see counterpoints?
Are the changes plausible?
Is the proposal well-written? (sentence, form, grammar, etc.)
Are the reasons based on researched science? Are the social and economic factors considered?

Option 2 with Marking
Present the proposal to fight for chunk of money – each group provides a written summary of their proposal.
Students individually act as a panel of judges for all industries and allocate funds to projects.
Students must explain their decisions and support their position with valid evidence.

quotes

The province can’t continue to use resources at the current rates. If we don’t change practices, the following industries will no longer exist in the province:

• forestry
• fisheries
• mining
• fossil fuels
• water management (energy and drinking)
• tourism
• agriculture (both plants and animals)

Note: the areas with two subsets could be split depending on size and interest of class.

There should be 3 to 4 students per group.

Students will have to research the following for their industry: (note: they could be encouraged to talk to someone working in their assigned industry)

• general info = what is X, why is it important
• pros/cons = benefits to province (including $) and negative impacts of the current practices
• Students will write a ‘Proposal for Change’.  This could include researching environment-friendly practices.
• This proposal will be presented to the class
• Class will critique each proposal.  This critique should be constructive and offer ways to improve the proposal for change.
• Students can redesign their proposal based on feedback and submit to the teacher for grading.

Note:  All of the industries have pros and cons so the students should find sources that represent both sides.

An additional step would be to have the students rank what steps in what industry are most important and need to be done vs. those steps that could wait.

Things still needed:

• website sources with credible information for teachers
• criteria for assessment
• graphic organizers

“We the undersigned, senior members of the world’s scientific community, hereby warn all humanity… A great change in our stewardship of the earth and the life on it is required if vast human misery is to be avoided and our global home on this planet is not to be irretrievably mutilated.” (UCS, World Scientists’ Warning to Humanity 1992)
“At the heart of this assessment is a stark warning. Human activity is putting such a strain on the natural functions of the Earth that the ability of the planet’s ecosystems to sustain future generations can no longer be taken for granted.” (MEA, Living Beyond Our Means 2005)

We can use the Bill Rees powerpoint/talk

And the start of our graphical interface:

Graphic Interface for the Sustainability resource

Your Industry:

Problem facing your group:

General Info about your industry/issue

Pro/Con of your industry (from an environmental perspective)

Proposal for Change

How will you present it to the class?

Note: the proposal will be evaluated to the class and then you can use the feedback to reshape your proposal

Final Proposal

How will you explain this proposal to your community?

What do we need to give the kids so that they can do the project?

We need graphic organizers…

• Problem
• General Research
• Pro/Con
• Analysis
• Proposal for change – be able to answer questions about short term and long term effects
• Present proposal

Can we marry cool activities with the above format? Do we want activities or just have it be about discussion/debate?

Class can evaluate each proposal.  Maybe go back to the drawing board after critique.

Do examples for each industry – plus add someone worried about healthy water (hits bioaccumulation area).

Looking at a simulation.

Could put students answers on website.

This is chunk of unit so could start under the umbrella or biodiversity.

How much can we push to change and how much can people handle?

We hope to focus on sustainability from the first talk…

Use case studies, have the students research certain topics (probably from first talk).

Sustainability of Ecosystems from grade 10

Textbook goes over sustainability and biodiversity but skims – would be nice to have kids research

Bring in things like biodiversity, oh deer activity, case studies, create a model system

The B3 under Sustainability of Ecosystems looks best = explain various ways in which natural populations are altered or kept in equilibrium

Format: non-competitive math fairs = students get a problem, parameters to help solve and then communicate results so that others can solve it

groups of 3 who become experts then explain it to others = carousel and jigsaw

two approaches (related): groups of students become ‘experts’ and then do one of two things:

1. give two questions to teacher; teacher makes worksheet with all questions; students have to answer all the questions
2. students come up with activity to teach classmates

OR we could create a resource-based town (like PG) where every student is given a different role – forestry manager, forester, fisheries, mining, fuels, tourism, etc. – they need to research their roles and then come up  with a consensus document on a sustainable plan for their town OR how would an environmental plan affect their position OR become an example of poor practices – what can they do

What about starting with clip from Rees to say that the resources will only last X number of years – what will the town do?

We need to match the activity to PLOs to make them most useful to teachers. Connie (from Science World) has brought in the PLOs for high school at the back of the room.

There are many different ways to include information for a lesson plan. Connie has some suggestions:

• Title
• Authors
• Grade Level
• Prescribed Learning Outcomes
• Materials
• Strategy
• Next steps – things that don’t quite fit

Our topic hits many sections including science 8, science 10, biology 11…

Maybe do an activity to correct using the new classifications of Kingdom, Phyla, etc. Let’s tie it into the bigger picture – include the visual picture at the beginning of Keeling’s talk.

Our group:

• Brian Pataky (teacher from Prince George)
• Rishma Swali (teacher from Richmond)
• Pauline Finn (Science World)
• Catherine Anderson (Genome BC)

We are going to build an activity based on two of the talks (Biodiversity and Sustainability) seen yesterday at the Michael Smith Labs conference.

Authors: Jim Simonetta, Pat Gordon, Joanne Fox, Elizabeth Lang

Prescribed learning outcomes:

Science 8,9,10: A2: perform experiments using the scientific method, A4 demonstrate scientific literacy, A5: demonstrate cooperative behavior, A6: describe the relationship between scientific principles and technology. A7: demonstrate competence in the use of the technologies specific to investigative procedures and research.

Earth Science 10: D4 analyze the process and features associated with plate tectonics.

Earth Science 11: D1 assess the significance of age dating, the fossil record, and the Geological Time Scale, E3 outline the development of plate tectonic theory.

Geology 12: Demonstrate knowledge of the Earth’s layers. E3 relate rock formations and structures to the forces that create them. E4 analyze structures, processes, and evidence that support plate tectonic theory.

Physics 8: C7 determine the density of various substances. C8: explain the relationship between pressure, temperature, area, and force in fluids

Plate tectonics. A Theory that draws on many disciplines and illustrates the scientific method.

1. Hook: Use a funny/interesting little movie clip to get the students engaged. Here are two of our favorite clips:

2. Introduction: Display the outline of the scientific method to refer back to. Discuss each part of the method.

3. Watch video: presentation of the plate tectonic theory. Ask students to think about the scientific method while watching the video.

4. Matching exercise: Hand out a piece of evidence on a q-card to each student (photo of a fossil, map of earth, mountain range, rocks, graph correlation). Have the students move around and try to find other pieces of evidence that come from the same discipline (physics, math, geology, biology, chemistry.)

5.Hypothesis: With students broken up into their disciplines have them use their evidence to hypothesize how it could support the Theory of Plate Tectonics.

6. Collaborate: pair up each discipline with another one (math with biology, geology with physics.) Have each group present their hypothesis to it’s partner group. And the listening group write up: If they believe the other groups hypothesis and why or why not. And one way to test that hypothesis.

Lesson Two:

6. Present the evidence:Give a power point lecture that outlines the evidence from each discipline and how it was used to support the theory.

Physics: convection currents, magnetic bands on sea floor, density slab pull

Biology: fossil record correlations

Geology: rock types, minerals types and rock ages correlating between plates, glacial striations,

Art/geography: seeing the “fit” between plates

Chemistry: ions in the rock layers, iridium spikes, chemical composition of rocks

Math: separation rates, correlations

7. Activities/demonstrations

1) Model plate boundaries -Use huge soft cookies (or play dough) to demonstrate convergent, divergent and transverse plate boundaries.

2) Model convection currents and plates floating on the asthenosphere -boiling water in a beaker with candle wax on the surface

3) Lab to demonstrate the fossil correlation.

4) continental plate puzzle to reconstruct.

5) paper demo to show the way the magnetic bands on the ocean floor

8. Assessment:

1) demonstrate an understanding of the theory -Create a comic strip that gives a tour or the earth showing the different plate motions and evidence that supports this theory.

2) ask the students to write down 5 things they learned today and have them hand them in as they leave

3) Write a short quiz or fill in the blanks to see what they learned today

4) Have students describe a phenomena (ex. why leaves turn brown, earth quakes), propose a hypothesis and devise a method to test it.

9. Want to know more?

-Field trips: to science world, geological museum

-Guest speakers: experts in the field of geology

-Interesting links: discovery channel, evidence, physics animations, geolocial survey of Canada

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