Objectives: Life 1List and explain the characteristics of life., Life 2Use these characteristics of life to distinguish between living and nonliving things., Life 3Define homeostasis, and describe its importance to maintaining life.; Inquiry 5Design experiments to test biological hypotheses: A) Identify the dependent and independent variables, and control and experimental treatments in any experiment. B) Identify situations in which no “control treatment” is appropriate, and design an experiment where subjects are tested more than once or the experimental treatment levels take a wide range of..., Inquiry 6Create graphs from a data set. A) Decide what type of graph is the most appropriate type to display a data set. B) Decide to which axis each variable should be assigned in order to represent a specific hypothesis properly. See materials aligned with Inquiry 6, Inquiry 7Use experimental results to support or refute a hypothesis: A) Interpret graphs and/or raw data with respect to a hypothesis B) Distinguish correlation from causation, and correctly attribute phenomena to biological mechanisms. C) Demonstrate how to distinguish observations/data resulting from a specific cause from those caused by random chance. D) Explain why experimental evidence...
- Students work in teams to generate a list of traits shared by living things. Using an image of a mystery object in a box is a helpful prompt. The instructor then validates and formalizes the list to summarize the characteristics of life. (Life 1List and explain the characteristics of life., Life 2Use these characteristics of life to distinguish between living and nonliving things., Life 3Define homeostasis, and describe its importance to maintaining life.)
- Apply the list that was generated to evaluate if certain things (fire, seeds, food, amoeba, etc.) are living or not. Focus on carbon dioxide production (respiration) as a characteristic of a living thing (Life 2Use these characteristics of life to distinguish between living and nonliving things.). Students design an experiment to determine if an item (e.g., popcorn kernels) is alive. A setup with a Vernier CO2 probe could be used in the classroom and data collected for 24 hours (minimum), or the data can be provided (Inquiry 5Design experiments to test biological hypotheses: A) Identify the dependent and independent variables, and control and experimental treatments in any experiment. B) Identify situations in which no “control treatment” is appropriate, and design an experiment where subjects are tested more than once or the experimental treatment levels take a wide range of...). Graphs can be drawn as an in class or homework assignment, or provided for interpretation (Inquiry 6Create graphs from a data set. A) Decide what type of graph is the most appropriate type to display a data set. B) Decide to which axis each variable should be assigned in order to represent a specific hypothesis properly. See materials aligned with Inquiry 6, Inquiry 7Use experimental results to support or refute a hypothesis: A) Interpret graphs and/or raw data with respect to a hypothesis B) Distinguish correlation from causation, and correctly attribute phenomena to biological mechanisms. C) Demonstrate how to distinguish observations/data resulting from a specific cause from those caused by random chance. D) Explain why experimental evidence...). An alternate hypothesis could also be explored (that something microscopic on the item in question is alive and produces carbon dioxide), and additional experiment(s) designed to test the alternate hypothesis (Inquiry 5Design experiments to test biological hypotheses: A) Identify the dependent and independent variables, and control and experimental treatments in any experiment. B) Identify situations in which no “control treatment” is appropriate, and design an experiment where subjects are tested more than once or the experimental treatment levels take a wide range of...).