Each week is a new investigation. For each investigation there will be background information and a question posed. They will design and conduct an experiment that addresses the question.
Prior to lab, students will read the investigation and prepare for lab by completing that week’s planning form and pre-lab activities.
Encourage equal participation. Lack of participation from a student can significantly reduce their grade!
Introduce the Lab Manual
Each student needs to have his or her own manual. They need to bring it to lab every week. Point out the three different sections:
Guide to Success: Includes general information about the course, how to conduct a lab, write a report, etc.
Reference: Includes instructions on how to use equipment and software for lab experiments.
Investigations: background information, terms, pre-labs, planning forms, etc. for each lab.
Planning Forms
Instead of telling students about planning forms, it is most beneficial to discuss them as students do them.
Have students turn to the first investigation. Point out the question under investigation, background information, pre-labs, terms/concepts of interest, special equipment sections.
Go through the first page of the planning form. Allow students to work in groups to formulate responses, then discuss what would be appropriate. This weeks’ hypothesis is provided (“Larger moths are eaten more often than smaller ones because they are easier to see.”) but you will want to encourage discussion about developing a hypothesis now because students will do it on their own in the future.
Discuss experimental design with a control and experimental groups. Ensure that the students have a good understanding of independent and dependent variables so that they may construct graphs properly.
Students are expected to complete the Preparation Checklist (on the backside of the planning form), but only A-C are required. Students can keep D blank.
Emphasize that planning forms are expected to be completed individually, but this week, they’ll be completed as a group. This would be a good time to contrast collaboration and plagiarism.
Investigation
Aside from the basics of designing and conducting an experiment, and writing a lab report, you will want to encourage students in the following areas:
Developing a testable repeatable experiment. Remember that the moth is in its “natural” habitat. Removing the pieces from the box to make them easier to see may not provide information that will help the scientist in the background who is working in the field with “live” colonies and predators. Students don’t often realize that to make something harder to see, they can just close their eyes!
Appropriate controls. How large is large? How small is small? Can you assume that all Catocala colonies contain the same number and sizes of individuals? Is experimenter bias something to be concerned about? What about hand size of the predators? Will the moth be replaced after each sample, or at the end of a trial? Do students think the predator selects prey one at a time, or by the handful? These are all things for students to think about, but having to consider all of these questions at once can overwhelm students and make them feel like the investigation is impossible.
