The goal of this activity is to introduce students to the variation that exists in a population of organisms. Students plant different seeds in a field with a gradient of sunlight. Their seeds survive the winter and grow into plants the following spring to reinforce the point that the evolutionary changes the students observe take […]
The goal of this activity is to introduce students to how variation in organisms can enable them to live in different environments. For example, plants with different sizes of leaves are adapted to grow under different amounts of light. Students plant three different types of seeds in five different flower boxes and are challenged to […]
This activity helps students understand translations of functions, where a translation is a movement of the function left, right, up or down. The function retains its basic shape; however, by simply adding to or subtracting from the function, or the x variable within the function, the graph will shift in one of four directions. By […]
Run a simulation of a spring-mass system and choose the variables to explore in this third activity in the InquirySpace sequence. Modeling this system expands the possibilities of experimentation to a wide range of factors. Will the model confirm the findings of the physical system investigated earlier? How will period be affected by gravity, spring […]
Explore the movement of gases, liquids and solids at a molecular level, and investigate how temperature and intermolecular attractions affect phase changes.
Students explore two real-life scenarios that involve solving systems of equations. The first situation involves mixing chemicals to create a new solution while the second situation involves cost and revenue for a bake sale. Exploring these situations allows students to see a real-world connection with mathematics. By the end of this lesson, students will have […]
Students explore two new scenarios that involve solving systems of equations. The first situation involves the travel time for a round trip on an airplane, while the second situation involves calculating the numbers of students and adults attending a high school musical. By the end of this lesson, students will improve their understanding of how […]
This activity challenges the user to create a circuit that implements the function of a full adder. The circuit takes three bits as inputs and outputs their sum as two bits. The circuit must occupy two breadboards connected by a common bus, each with its own set of logic gate chips as well as a […]
This activity challenges the user to wire up a circuit consisting of three PIC chips, a keypad, and a seven-segment display, in such a way that clicking on any digit of the keypad will cause the appropriate segments of the display to light up. Each of the PICs is pre-loaded with a working program that […]
This transfer activity tests student understanding of variation and inheritance. It starts with five flower boxes, as in “The Virtual Greenhouse,” and three types of seeds with variations in their roots. The flower boxes differ in the amount of water they receive, and students discover which seeds thrive in which environment. Students are then challenged […]