student exploration frog dissection answer key

If students are collecting heart rate by checking for a pulse, it’s best to take a reading before and after the lab rather than attempting to monitor heart rate throughout the experiment.Įach student will need a new plastic garbage bag, since the condensation from the students’ breath makes it awkward to share. If your school has access to heart rate monitors, the easiest to use are those that are placed on the finger rather than across the chest. There are multiple data-collection options, especially for heart rate. If on a block schedule, Days 1 and 2 can be combined into a 90-minute period. Ingrid Waldron, Lori Spindler, and Jennifer Dohertyĭepartment of Biology, University of Pennsylvania

While this lab focuses on the interactions between the circulatory and respiratory systems, students do not need much background knowledge about each system in order to understand how they relate to homeostasis and feedback loops.ĭrs. Students observe examples of negative feedback when oxygen levels decrease in their bodies. What is considered true in science is the claim backed up by the best and strongest evidence. Students may need some modeling from the teacher before beginning the task.īecause I use this at the beginning of the school year, I often pair this activity with a gallery walk so that students can look at each other’s work and practice giving effective and appropriate feedback.Īgain, this activity can demonstrate that there are still disagreements among scientists, and that there is no right or wrong answer. The chart used in the NSTA publication is not available online, and the charts that are available don’t offer the same rich evidence and argument support. Here are some video clips that could be used as part of this activity: Scientific Argumentation in Biology: 30 Classroom Activities (NSTA) Using a comparison chart and claim-evidence-reasoning (CER) writing and argumentation, students work in groups to consider the characteristics of life and decide whether viruses are living or not. It’s important to explain at this point that it is OK to disagree even scientists still disagree on what is considered living and nonliving. If we were to pick our top five from all these ideas and come up with a class list, which would you recommend? Why? “One group thinks that all living things… while another group thinks…” “I see that many groups think that all living things…” Here are some possible discussion questions, with sentence starters:Ĭompare and contrast each group’s list of the characteristics of life. The Characteristics of Life lists created by the student groups are a good place to start a class discussion the next day and practice consensus-building. I give detailed feedback based on their choices. To assess their work, I often have student groups circle what they think is their strongest observation-inference link (you could also have them jot down why they chose it). Otherwise, I would end up with a bunch of traced images of the diagrams that look nothing like the frog that they are actually dissecting. There are diagrams provided in the links above, but I try not to distribute them until after they have attempted their own drawings. What other senses can you use to describe your frog? What can you infer about your frog based on observations using these senses? What can you measure about your frog? What can you infer about your frog based on those measurements? Pre-lab discussion questions (Think-Pair-Share) They can return to work with their groups to create the list of characteristics of life. If that doesn’t work for them, they can go to another room with computer access to do a virtual frog dissection instead. If students are uncomfortable with dissections, I first ask whether they are OK with being in the room and recording observations while their group members touch the frogs and do the cutting. quantitative observations before you begin the lab.īecause this is one of our first labs of the year, I spend a lot of time discussing safety and expectations and group roles before we start, as well as respect for the materials being used, including the frog. Start the school year with a bang: this dissection helps students practice their lab and safety skills, make detailed observations (qualitative and quantitative), practice group work, and begin to think about the characteristics of life.

Student exploration frog dissection answer key