Summer School – Day 4 – Anatomy and Physiology

We started out the day with our first exam. Well, really, we started out with a game of Pictionary before the exam, as a way of reviewing the material. Here are the Pictionary terms we used:

ATP and ADPBacterial
Cell
Carbohydrates
Correlation vs
causation
Experimental
control
Golgi
Apparatus
Independent
variable
Inputs of Cellular
Respiration
Inputs of
Photosynthesis
Mitochondria
Osmosis
Phospholipid
bilayer

Plant Cell
Polarity
Potential vs
kinetic energy
Ribosomes

Unfortunately, I didn’t remember to take pictures of their drawings, but I’ve reconstructed a few of them below. Can you figure out which of the terms up above are represented here? (Answers at the bottom of the post)

They took the exam online, using an online service called EasyTestMaker – I’ve been using it since I first started teaching, and I absolutely love it. I pay for a pro account, but it’s been well worth it. It allows me to create tests online, which can then be exported to Word or PDF format for printing. But it also allows me to publish them online. I provide students with a link to the exam, and the password, and they complete it right there online. I use mostly multiple choice and matching questions, but there are lots of other options, and it’s also possible to set up free response short answer or essay questions. Images can be inserted, and you can set the points for each question manually. Best of all, it grades everything but the free responses automatically (no running scantrons WHOO HOO)!!

This is what I see when creating the exam:

And this is what they see when taking the exam:

After the exam, we moved on to some new material: organ systems.

I tend not to cover loads of anatomy and physiology in my intro classes – I’d rather have more time to spend on diversity of living things, and ecology, toward the end of the semester. But I do like to cover a few things that I think they really need to know about how their bodies work. Things like how pain medications work in the body (“how does the aspirin know where to go????”), and how drugs (including caffeine!!!) affect the nervous system.

When we returned from lunch, it seemed appropriate to do our next activity: exploring Nutrition Facts (the labels that are found on all food products). To prepare for this, I’d asked everyone to track all the food and beverages they consume for at least three days. I suggested that they use the SuperTracker website (https://supertracker.usda.gov/foodtracker.aspx). Then they worked through a series of questions designed to help them understand the labels on food, as well as their own patterns of consumption, in terms of nutrients.

Our next subject is one I like to spend a generous amount of time on: reproduction. A) students find it interesting and B) it’s pretty important in the grand scheme of things. 😀 In addition to discussing where babies come from (*SPOILER ALERT* It’s not a stork or the cabbage patch). I also do a run-through of birth control methods (and their failure rates) – this particular unit usually generates a lot of discussion and questions.

  • “I can’t get pregnant during my period, can I?” (Yes, you can! It’s not as likely, but definitely possible).
  • “Does the pill really increase the risk of cancer?” (Sometimes maybe/yes . . . sometimes no. It depends on the type of cancer, and the length of time the pill was used, and the length of time since stopping use)
  • “Is it harmful, long term, to go without periods while taking the pill?” (No, it’s pretty normal, due to the way the hormones affect the menstrual cycle. There’s often no period because there’s no build-up of uterine lining that would need to be shed, as happens during the normal cycle. So, in general, no, not harmful, while on certain types of hormonal birth control).

The take-home messages? Doubling up on protection (e.g. condoms + oral contraceptives, or a diaphragm + spermicide) is GOOD. Know which forms of birth control help protect against STDs, and which don’t. And of course, the only 100% guaranteed method of avoiding pregnancy? Abstinence (which may or may not be the right choice – every individual needs to make these decisions based on their own values and lifestyle).

We ended up the day by watching a film – Nova’s “The Miracle of Life.” It’s a good film, that culminates in video of a woman giving birth. Funnily enough, my students liked the film, but thought the couple who are featured throughout (the parents of the baby we see being born) were kind of douchey, LOL. (I’d never really thought about it before, but I can’t say they’re wrong). Also, John Lithgow narrates the film, and while he does a good job, I can’t really hear his voice anymore without having “Dexter” flashbacks. 😉

ʎʇıɹɐןod ˙ɔ ןoɹʇuoɔ ןɐʇuǝɯıɹǝdxǝ ˙q ɹǝʎɐןıq pıdıןoɥdsoɥd ˙ɐ :sɹǝʍsuɐ ʎɹɐuoıʇɔıd

Selected Materials

Nutrition Facts Worksheet

Summer School – Day 3 – Energy for Life

Today: Energy for Life (aka Photosynthesis and Cellular Respiration).

Overall, my Summer school strategy is to break up the days as much as possible, alternating lectures with hands-on activities. The schedule is a bit brutal – 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., Monday through Thursday, with an hour break for lunch. I try to never lecture for more than an hour and 15 minutes at a time, and usually a bit less. (Not that my lectures aren’t RIVETING hahahaha, but still . . . ). 😉 It helps keep everyone awake and engaged if I can mix things up a bit.

In between lectures, we did three activities today. The first: a virtual experiment where we investigated which colors of the light spectrum are most important for plant growth. In other words, how do plants respond to different colors of light? We used an online lab that can be found here, and it went really well. They “grew” plants under several different colors of light, and analyzed the results. I had them enter data into an Excel spreadsheet (the online version made all calculations automatically, but some of them opted to write their data on paper, as shown below). Then, they used the graphing feature in the online lab to visualize the data. As expected, green light was the least efficient (since the two main photosynthetic pigments reflect back green light, we wouldn’t expect it to be important for growth), but I think most of them were surprised that plants grew as well as they did under the blue light.

We also did two activities related to cellular respiration. The first was a case study prepared by the National Center for Case Study Teaching in Science: “The Mystery of the Seven Deaths: A Case Study in Cellular Respiration.” It’s an “interrupted” case study, meaning that the pieces of the puzzle are given to the students incrementally, so they have time to investigate each piece before the next is added. This particular mystery describes the 1982 Tylenol Murders in Chicago, and in order to fully solve how the victims were killed, students need to be able to follow along with the steps of the electron transport chain, during cellular respiration. This went over REALLY well. I split the class into two groups, and both groups had a good discussion where they brainstormed some ideas. I also showed a short video about cellular respiration, to help them figure out exactly where the cyanide disrupted respiration.

The final activity for the day was probably the most fun . . . I had them perform the Bromothymol blue experiment. Bromothymol blue is a pH indicator that will change color depending on the acidity of the solution. When dissolved in water, carbon dioxide will lower the pH, creating carbonic acid. (This is the same compound that inhibits shell growth of marine creatures, and is bleaching coral reefs, due to increased CO2 in the atmosphere). Putting Bromothymol blue and carbon dioxide together? Fun experiment!

During the course of the experiment, first, they sit calmly for a few minutes, then blow into a test tube with Bromothymol blue and water, and see how long it takes to change color (due to increased acidity) from blue/green to yellow. The next step is to work out vigorously for two minutes, and then blow into a new test tube.

 

 

 

 

 

In theory, the color will change more quickly after exercise, since more carbon dioxide is being exhaled (due to increased action of mitochondria in response to the heavier demand of activity, which in turn produces more CO2). And, this is exactly what they discovered! Plus, it’s awesome to watch them do ridiculous things to raise their heart rates for two minutes hahahahahaha.

 

Selected Lab Materials

Plant growth simulation:
110 Plant Growth and Colors of the Visible Light Spectrum Virtual Lab worksheet
110 Plant Growth and Color lab

Bromothymol blue experiment:

 

Summer School – Day 2 – Chemistry

The theme for today? CHEMISTRY! The morning’s lecture covered the chemistry of water, as well as organic molecules, followed by the WEIRD WATER lab, which was super duper fun! In the afternoon, we had a detergent boat regatta, and then went on a whirlwind “Tour of the Cell,” before which I activate a shrink ray in the classroom. (I have to shrink the entire class at the start of the tour, so we’re small enough to take a submarine ride through a plant cell).

I couldn’t remember quite what we did during last year’s Weird Water lab (Derek and I co-taught the course last summer, and he came up with that activity), so I put together a bunch of new stuff. It was a rotation lab with six stations:

  1. The Structure of Water, where they built water molecules out of gum drops and toothpicks. I especially loved listening to them work out how the molecules should fit together. I had each group make two or three water molecules, and then link them up with those made by the previous groups.

2. Solutions and Suspensions, where they mixed different substances with water to see what would happen. I had a selection of common food items: salt, sugar, oil, bouillon, flour, and cinnamon. (I know some of the containers say “sauerkraut,” but I had just used the empty containers). Some of these will dissolve, and go into solution; others remained suspended. The one that surprised me was the bouillon – I thought it would dissolve, but it didn’t – I think if we’d added some heat, though, it would have.

3. Adhesion and Cohesion, where they counted drops of oil, detergent, and alcohol that would fit on the surface of a penny. I think the penny was able to hold the tallest bit “drop,” but the penny held the highest number of individual drops of alcohol.

 

4. Capillary Action, where they timed how fast liquid would travel up a piece of paper (this one was kind of a dud, and didn’t work out very well; I’ll change it up next time).

5. Fun with Ice, with two activities: First they explored how ice floats in freshwater vs saltwater (I forgot to take pictures, but I’d filled water balloons with water the night before, so they could float them in buckets of water). Then they explored how dye behaves when dropped onto freshwater vs saltwater ice. We’d started this experiment at the end of class the previous day . . . each group filled one dixie cup with freshwater, and one with saltwater, and we left them in the freezer overnight. This part of the experiment was SO COOL – you can really see how the dye behaved differently. It slid right off the top of the solid block of freshwater ice, but little pockets of brine in the salt water ice allowed the dye to seep in:

 

6. Surface Tension, where they made boats that were powered by detergent. (More on this in a bit)

Overall, the lab was fantastic! It took about 2 hours, 15 minutes for them to get through all the stations, and they didn’t seem to run out of steam before the end. It also really reinforced for me the importance of having these hands-on experiences. As I wandered around the room, listening in on their conversations, it was cool to listen to them talking/working through concepts in a way they never have to do with a lecture-only class. I love teaching the lecture-only class, because I do think it’s a great way to reach a lot of students in a relatively short period of time, and I do my best to give them some cool experiences outside of class, but WOW – the students do get a lot from doing labs like this.

After lunch, we had the most fun of all: the Detergent Regatta! I challenged everyone to come up with the absolute best design for a detergent racing boat. At stake was a top-notch prize: their choice of rubber duck from my amazing array of colorful little rubber ducks.

Here are the boats:

Get ready, get set, RACE . . .

After several races, the overall winner (Ryan M) chose this adorable ducky:

We ended the day by taking a submarine tour through the cell (which I then reinforced with a lecture on the most important points). Here’s the video I use (although in class I show a version that I edited to take out some of the cell function stuff that we haven’t covered yet).

Before showing the video, like I said up above, I put the entire class through a shrink ray (which consists of me flashing the classroom lights on and off real fast by making a shrink ray noise – think a sort of electrical humming). I always tell them to REMIND me to unshrink them at the end of the lecture – it could be tragic if any of them ventured out of the classroom before being returned to their normal size ahhhhhhahahahahahaha. 😀

Summer School – Day 1 – The Process of Science

The first day of a new semester can be a bit nerve-wracking . . . wondering what the students will be like, how the group dynamic will develop. Wondering if they’ll laugh at my stupid jokes. After my introductory lecture, though, I had a really good feeling about this group. Just ten students, and all of them jumped in right from the start.

I started out the same way I always start out my introductory bio classes – a lecture on “What is Life?,” and then we walk through the process of science, using calico cats as the context for exploring the scientific method: “Why haven’t I ever seen a male calico cat? I hypothesize that there aren’t any.” (SPOILER: there are male calicos; just not very many of them. We’ll answer that mystery when we get to inheritance). We also do a root word exercise where students use a glossary of root words, prefixes, and suffixes to decipher biology words, and the scientific names of a couple of animals: Haliaeetus leucocephalus, and Phascolarctos cinereus .Can you figure out who they are? (The root word glossary I hand out to my students can be found here).This reinforces the importance and usefulness of learning root words, particularly when dealing with big “scary” science words. Plus, it’s fun.

That took us through until lunch, after which I gave my Good Science/Bad Science lecture, which focuses on recognizing the characteristics of legitimate scientific studies, and the red flags that suggest that a “scientific” claim might not be based in actual scientific evidence. The lecture was followed up by a trip to the library, where they did a quick research project investigation some advertising claim they’ve seen that struck them as being dodgy. (Almost always, they’re able to discover for themselves that there’s not any science backing up most of the crap we see advertised on TV).

This year, I decided that I wanted to include more naturalist skills in the curriculum, so to round up our day, I took them on a naturalist walk. I didn’t give them a lot of guidance this time around . . . I just took them walking through campus, with the instruction to make a list of any living organisms that they recognized, and could put a name to (we’ll revisit this on the last day of class). Then, over near the campus lakes, I asked them to sit quietly for 5 minutes, and just look and listen, and write down their observations. Usually, when I’ve asked an entire class of students to do something like this, at least a few of them blow it off, obviously not interested. But this time around, every single one of my students took it seriously. They also seemed to really enjoy it, and were interested about learning more.

It didn’t hurt that we saw some really cool things. Probably the most spectacular was this fungus that we saw in several places on campus – I’d never noticed it before, and it’s CRAZY WEIRD and cool! (I think it’s the latticed stinkhorn, Clathrus ruber).

 

Their lists were mostly what I expected – they know things like flowers and trees and grass, but not a lot of specifics. (I’ve included some of them below).

My mission for the next four weeks: to help them understand a lot more about the natural world around them than they know right now. I think we’re off to a really good start!

Selected Materials

List of Root Words
Rough Guide to Spotting Bad Science
Good Science/Bad Science Worksheet