Group items tagged

Taylor must write a report about a natural toxin while she is home from college on break. After a family dinner conversation about the latest attempt to poison a politician via a letter, Taylor decides to explore how ricin acts as a poison. Students work in small groups to help Taylor by working through figures from primary literature papers and exploring the use of an in vitro translation system, sucrose gradient fractionation and the effect of inhibiting various steps of translation.  A shorter, second day activity involves students looking further at the effect of ricin upon ribosome function and at the ricin protein itself.  Students individually complete a cumulative assignment of writing a letter back to Mom and Dad about how ricin has its effects. This case was designed for use in a second semester biochemistry course or a molecular biology course that incorporates the mechanism of transcription. Prerequisite knowledge includes a general understanding of the steps of translation and the ability to interpret data from agarose gels.

This interrupted case study introduces basic modeling to investigate a decline in an American marten population on an island in Southeast Alaska. Two summer field technicians working on a long-term field ecology project for one of their professors notice that there are fewer marten captures this year. Through discussions with their professor, conversations with a local fur trapper, and based on their own observations, they develop a plan to model the population and the potential causes of the decline to solve the mystery. Students use Excel or other database software along with life tables and introductory population ecology to investigate three potential causes of the marten population decline. This case was developed for use in an environmental science or wildlife management course but could also be used in an advanced science high school course or general ecology course. It would be beneficial for students to have some background in statistics including how to interpret R-squared values, p-values, and 95% confidence intervals.

iKeepSafe is dedicated to the education of families on how to stay safe online. That's why we've teamed up with Google to develop curriculum that educators can use in the classroom to teach what it means to be a responsible digital citizen. The curriculum is designed to be interactive, discussion filled and allow students to learn through hands-on and scenario activities. Each workshop contains a resource booklet for both educators and students that can be downloaded in PDF form, presentations to accompany the lesson and animated videos to help frame the conversation.

With increasing U.S. government support for biofuel production in the late 2000s came increased pressure to convert more land to cornfields for ethanol. To make way for more corn, millions of acres of prairie grassland were plowed under, destroying an extremely diverse wildlife habitat that also served as a large carbon reservoir. This case study focuses on the reasons for and consequences of large carbon losses when prairie grasslands are converted to agricultural lands. Many students are challenged when faced with linking together energy flows, decomposition, and nutrient cycles.  This case gives students the opportunity to consider different pools in the carbon cycle and the fluxes between them in order to model (on paper) an integrated picture of why carbon is lost when prairie grasslands are plowed and planted to cornfields.  Students also consider ways that carbon loss from land conversion due to ethanol production might be avoided via government incentive programs or mitigated via changes to farming practices. This case study was developed for an introductory ecology, environmental science, soil science, or agriculture course.

This "clicker case" tells the story of "Hannah," a baby girl adopted by two loving parents who grows up with an uncontrolled appetite and develops severe early-onset obesity. Students follow Hannah's story as she develops excessive eating early in life, which her health care team is unable to explain. A visit to obesity specialists finally reveals the underlying cause of Hannah's obsession with food: extremely low levels of circulating leptin, a hormone that regulates appetite and body weight. It is further discovered that Hannah's leptin deficiency is due to a mutation in the LEP gene. As the story unfolds, students first work on unit conversions and BMI calculations to practice quantitative skills as well as graph and data interpretation skills. Students then apply their knowledge of DNA transcription, translation, and protein structure to answer questions based on figures from a 2019 study on LEP mutations. The case is best suited for high school and lower-level undergraduate biology courses.

5:11 video Chat with a friend about an established scientific theory, and she might reply, "Well, that's just a theory." But a conversation about an established scientific law rarely ends with "Well, that's just a law." Why is that? What is the difference between a theory and a law... and is one "better"? Matt Anticole shows why science needs both laws and theories to understand the whole picture.

 Collection of phenomena for lessons. Because the NGSS reflect how TJ thinks about science, he hopes that through curating a cache of phenomena this will open conversations and  with educators across the nation who are hoping to create the next generation of student engagement in science.  

When I speak with educators about the power of hashtags in social media, I get four questions.   1. How do I figure out which hashtag to use and set it up? 2. How do I know what people are saying? 3. How do I know what hashtag people are using if I want to find conversations about an area of interest? 4. How do I know who is using the hashtag? There's a few great sites to help you answer these questions. They are Tagboard, Hashtagify.me, TOPSY, and Twitter.  Let's take a look and how to use these platforms to most effectively answer these questions. How to figure out and set up a hashtag

The NISE Network offers a variety of programs and activities designed for small and large groups in different settings. Educational programs are a great way to introduce audiences to nanoscale science, engineering, and technology. Presenters can choose a format and topic that is appropriate for their audience. Facilitated experiences foster visitor conversation and interaction, and allow educators to adjust the science content, pace, and delivery style to suit their audience.

Teachers wanting to expand the conversation to genetic work with other "races" -- scroll down to view "Multimedia and Links," "Questions for Classroom Discussion," and other features.

Science denial has real, societal consequences. Denial of the link between HIV and AIDS led to more than 330,000 premature deaths in South Africa. Denial of the link between smoking and cancer has caused millions of premature deaths. Thanks to vaccination denial, preventable diseases are making a comeback.

In the broadest review on this topic that has been carried out to date, we found that, so far, 386 marine fish species are known to have ingested plastic debris, including 210 species that are commercially important. But findings of fish consuming plastic are on the rise. We speculate that this could be happening both because detection methods for microplastics are improving and because ocean plastic pollution continues to increase.

Since this time, research has focused on biological factors that may lead to autistic behaviours. This has found very clearly there is no one cause of autism. A variety of genetic factors are likely to be the ultimate cause of most cases of autism. These may work by themselves, or in combination with environmental factors, to lead a child's brain to develop differently and result in autistic behaviours.