Features

2. Chapter Challenge
The Chapter Challenge is the heart and soul of Active Biology. It provides a purpose for all of the work that will follow. The challenges provide the rationale for learning. One of the common complaints teachers hear from students is, “Why am I learning this?” In Active Biology, students do not raise this question. Similarly, teachers do not have to answer, “Because someday it will be useful to you.” The complaint is avoided because on Day One of the chapter students are presented with a challenge that, in essence, becomes their job for the next few weeks.

In Chapter 9, A Vote for Ecology, students are expected to create a booklet that addresses a current environmental issue.

The booklets have been “commissioned” by The League of Concerned Voters and are intended to be used by voters to make informed decisions. To help them succeed with this challenge students engage in nine activities in which they learn about biodiversity, food webs, the flow of energy in an ecosystem, the factors affecting the size of a population, competition among organisms, succession, and the cycling of matter. They will be expected to incorporate these concepts into the development of their booklets.

Chapter 10, A Highway through the Past, places students in the middle of a heated town-hall meeting. The issue is the construction of a highway to connect two busy existing highways. Many interest groups can be represented at this meeting. However, paleontologists have a definite stake in the matter since they are permitted by state law to study the area before any construction begins. To argue for or against the time required by the paleontologists to examine the site students will need to understand the formation and importance of fossils. Furthermore, the “residents,” will also have to develop an appreciation for the process of natural selection and how a highway might impact this process.

The beauty of the challenges lies in the variety of tasks and opportunities for students of different talents and skills to excel. Students who express themselves artistically will have an opportunity to shine in some challenges, while the student who can design and build may be the group leader in another challenge. Some challenges have a major component devoted to writing while others require oral or visual presentations. All challenges require the demonstration of
a solid understanding of biology.

The challenges are not contrived situations. For example, booklets outlining and explaining environmental issues are in print. They have been commission by government agencies, corporations, and even concerned-citizens groups. The relevance of the challenge in Chapter 10 is apparent to anyone who has disagreed with a decision made by any level of government and has decided to speak up.


3. Criteria
In creating Active Biology, we originally thought that the generation of the challenge was good enough. Upon reflection, we soon realized that criteria for success must also be included. When students agree to the matrix by which they will be measured, the research has shown that the students will perform better and achieve more. It makes sense. In the simplest situation of cleaning a lab room, the teacher may simply state, “Please clean up the lab.” The results are often a minimal cleanup. If the teacher begins by asking, “What does a clean lab room look like?” and students and teacher jointly list the attributes of a clean lab room (i.e., no paper on the floor, microscopes carefully returned to storage, all materials on the back of the lab tables, all power supplies unplugged and all water removed), the students respond differently and the cleanup is better. When students are asked to include biological principles in an explanation, the students should know whether the expectation is for three biological principles or five.

The discussion of grading criteria and the creation of a grading rubric is a crucial ingredient for student success. Active Biology requires a class discussion, after the introduction of the challenge, about the grading criteria. How much is required? What does an “A” presentation look like? Should creativity be weighed more than delivery? The criteria can be visited again at the end of the chapter, but at this point it provides a clarity to the challenge and the expectation level that the students should set for themselves.

4. What Do You Think?
During the past few years much has been written about a constructivist approach to learning. Videos of Harvard graduates, in caps and gowns, show that the students are not able to explain correctly why it is colder in the winter than it is in the summer. These students have previously answered these questions correctly in fourth grade, in middle school, and then again in high school. How else would they have gotten into Harvard? We believe that they never internalized the logic and understanding of the seasons. One reason for this problem is that they were never confronted by what they did believe, and were never adequately shown why they should give up that belief system. Certainly, it is worth writing down a “book’s perfect answer” on a test to secure a good grade, but to actually believe requires a more thorough examination of competing explanations.

The best way to ascertain a student’s prior understanding is through extensive interviewing. Much of the research literature in this area includes the results of these interviews. In a classroom this one-on-one dialogue is rarely possible. The What Do You Think? question introduces each activity in a way in which to elicit prior understandings. It gives students an opportunity to verbalize what they think about biodiversity, adaptations, or heredity before they embark on an activity. The brief discussion of the range of answers brings the students a little closer in touch with that part of his/her brain which understands these concepts. The What Do You Think? question is not intended to produce a correct answer or a discussion of the features of the questions. It is not intended to bring closure. The activity which follows will provide that discussion as experimental results are analyzed. The What Do You Think? question should take no more than a few minutes of class time. It is the lead into the biology investigation.

Students should be strongly encouraged to write their responses to the questions in their logs, to ensure that they have in fact addressed their prior conceptions. After students have discussed their responses in their small groups, activate a class discussion. Ask students to volunteer other students’ answers which they found interesting. This may encourage students to exchange ideas without the fear of personally giving a “wrong” answer.

5. For You To Do
Active Biology is a hands-on, minds-on curriculum. Students do biology; they do not read about doing biology. Each activity has instructions for each part of the investigation. Students are reminded that data, hypotheses, and conclusions should be recorded in their log or laboratory manual.

Activities are the opportunity for students to garner the knowledge that they will need to complete the Chapter Challenge. Students will understand the biological principles involved because they have investigated it. In Active Biology, if a student is asked, “How do you know?” the response is, “Because I did an experiment!”

Recognizing that many students know how to read, but do not like reading, background information is provided within the context of the activity. Students have demonstrated that they will read when the information is required for them to continue with their exploration.

Occasionally, the activity will require the entire class to participate in a large, single demonstration simultaneously. The teacher, on other occasions, may decide that a specific activity is best done as a demonstration.
This would be appropriate if there is limited equipment for that one activity, or the facilities are not available. Viewing demonstrations on an ongoing basis, however, is not what Active Biology is about.

Icons throughout the activities alert students to safety issues that should be given attention. Students are reminded of all safety rules throughout the program. Most of the For You To Do activities require between one and two class periods. Considering current trends in class scheduling, there are so many time structures that it is difficult to predict how Active Biology will best fit your schedule. The other impact on time is the achievement and preparation level of the students. For example, in a given activity students may be required to complete a graph of their data. This is considered one small part of the activity. If the students have never been exposed to graphing, this could require a two-period lesson to teach the basics of graphing with suitable practice in interpretation. Active Biology is accessible to all students. The teacher is in the best position to make accommodations in time reflecting the needs of the students.

6. BioTalk
Sometimes it is difficult for students to make the conceptual leap from doing an activity to connecting the ideas into a biological principle. Indeed, if you consider the theory of multiple intelligences, some students grasp concepts more easily by reading. BioTalk summarizes biology principles and it presents students with text, illustrations, and photographs that provide greater insight into the biology concepts presented. If sample problems or important laws are integral to the lesson they can be found in BioTalk.

7. Bio Words
Science has a language of its own. In order to fully participate in science students need to have an understanding of this language. When there is vocabulary that is critical to the understanding of an activity or reading it is highlighted in the text. These words are also pulled outside the text area and redefined. Such support helps students understand the process of learning as they note important ideas within the text.

8. Reflecting on the Activity and the Challenge
At the close of each activity, the student is often so involved with the completion of the single experiment that the larger context of the investigation is lost. Reflecting on the Activity and the Challenge is the opportunity for students to place the new insights and information into the context of the chapter and the Chapter Challenge. If the Chapter Challenge is considered a completed picture, each activity is a jigsaw piece.
By completing enough of the activities, the students will be able to fit the jigsaw pieces together and complete the challenge. This summary section ensures that the students do not forget about the larger context and continue their personal momentum toward completion of the challenge.

9. Biology to Go
This section provides additional questions and problems that can be completed outside of class. Some of the problems are applications of the principles involved in the preceding activity. Others are replication of the work in the activity. Still others provide an opportunity to transfer the results of the investigation to the context of the Chapter Challenge. Biology to Go provides a means by which students can be working on the larger Chapter Challenge in smaller chunks during the chapter.

10. Inquiring Further
The outcome of good science instruction should be the ability of students to transfer that knowledge to a different problem or task. Inquiring Further exercises gives students the opportunity to stretch their thinking beyond the textbook and classroom setting. This can be accomplished with a provocative question or problem to solve. Students can put into practice the technique, approaches, and knowledge they have acquired by completing the activity and expand upon it to gain new information. The Inquiring Further exercises can be assigned as independent study or as a class extension to the investigation.

15. Biology At Work
This sections highlight an individual whose work or hobby is illustrative of the Chapter Challenge. Biology At Work speaks to the authenticity of the challenge. This profile illustrates how knowledge of biology is important and valuable in different walks of life.