Next Generation Science Standards - Activity LIsting

This analysis and discussion activity helps students to understand the relationships between food, physical activity, cellular respiration, and changes in body weight.

Analysis of a representative scenario helps students to understand how challenging it is to prevent weight gain by exercising to offset what seems to be a relatively modest lunch.

The Student Handout is available in the first two attached files. The Teacher Notes, available in the last two attached files, provide instructional suggestions and background information and explain how this activity is aligned with the Next Generation Science Standards.

This analysis and discussion activity begins with an introduction to vitamin A deficiency and a review of transcription, translation, and the universal genetic code.

Several questions challenge students to design a basic plan that could produce a genetically engineered rice plant that makes rice grains that contain pro-vitamin A. Subsequent information and questions guide students as they learn how scientists use bacteria to insert desired genes, together with an appropriate promoter, in the DNA of plant cells.

In a final optional section, students evaluate the pro and con arguments in the controversy concerning Golden Rice.

In this minds-on analysis and discussion activity, students analyze the inheritance of sex chromosomes. Students use a Punnett square to predict the sex ratio of births and compare their prediction to data for individual families and for the entire US.

As students analyze the reasons why many real families deviate from Punnett square predictions, they learn about the probabilistic nature of inheritance and the limitations of Punnett square predictions.

In this activity, students analyze examples of adaptations, including camouflage, mimicry of an inedible object, and phenotypic plasticity. Phenotypic plasticity means that a single genotype can develop different phenotypes in different environments.

Phenotypic plasticity allows an individual organism to adapt to different environments during its lifetime. Natural selection for an adaptation allows a population of organisms to adapt to different environments over time.

The Student Handout is available in the first two attached files and as a Google doc designed for use in online instruction and distance learning. The Teacher Notes, available in the last attached file, provide instructional suggestions and background information and explain how this activity is aligned with the Next Generation Science Standards. The last attached file is a Powerpoint of the figures so you can show your students the color camouflage.

In this analysis and discussion activity, students learn how muscle cells produce ATP by aerobic cellular respiration, anaerobic fermentation, and hydrolysis of creatine phosphate. Students use their understanding of these three processes to analyze their relative importance when racing different distances.

Students learn how multiple body systems work together to supply the oxygen and glucose needed for aerobic cellular respiration.

Finally, students use what they have learned to analyze how regular aerobic exercise can improve athletic performance.

The Student Handout is available in the first two attached files and as a Google doc designed for use in distance learning and online instruction. The Teacher Notes, available in the last two attached files, provide instructional suggestions and background information and explain how this activity is aligned with the Next Generation Science Standards.

In this minds-on, hands-on activity, students learn how flavor perception depends on sensory input from taste and smell receptors.

Students develop their science practice skills by planning and carrying out an investigation and interpreting the results.

Students also learn that sensory input is processed by the brain to stimulate perception and behavior.

Download Student Handout: PDF format or Word format

Download Teacher Preparation Notes: PDF format or Word format

The Teacher Preparation Notes recommend supplies, provide instructional suggestions and background information, and explain how this activity is aligned with the Next Generation Science Standards.

We invite your comments and questions. If you would prefer to send your comments or questions in a private message, please write Ingrid Waldron at iwaldron@upenn.edu. 

This analysis and discussion activity focuses on two questions. How could something as complex as the human eye or the octopus eye have evolved by natural selection? How can scientists learn about the evolution of eyes, given that there is very little fossil evidence?

To answer these questions, students analyze evidence from comparative anatomy, mathematical modeling, and molecular biology. Students interpret this evidence to understand a likely sequence of intermediate steps in the evolution of complex eye and how each intermediate step contributed to increased survival and reproduction.

The Teacher Notes suggest additions to the Student Handout that can be used to introduce concepts such as the role of gene duplication in evolution and/or homology and analogy. 

The Student Handout is available in the first two attached files. The Teacher Notes, available in the last two attached files, provide instructional suggestions and background information and explain how this activity is aligned with the Next Generation Science Standards and the Common Core State Standards.

In the first section of this analysis and discussion activity, students learn that different versions of a gene give the instructions for making different versions of a clotting protein, which result in normal blood clotting or hemophilia.

Next, students learn how genes provide the instructions for making a protein via the processes of transcription and translation. They develop an understanding of the roles of RNA polymerase, the base-pairing rules, mRNA, tRNA and ribosomes.

Finally, students use their learning about transcription and translation to understand how a change in a single nucleotide in the hemoglobin gene can result in sickle cell anemia.

Throughout this activity, students use the information in brief explanations, figures and videos to answer analysis and discussion questions.

This activity can be used to introduce students to transcription and translation or to reinforce and enhance student understanding. 

If you prefer a hands-on activity that uses simple paper models to simulate the molecular processes of transcription and translation, see “How Genes Can Cause Disease – Introduction to Transcription and Translation” (http://serendipstudio.org/sci_edu/waldron/#trans).

In this analysis and discussion activity, students learn how meiosis produces genetically diverse gametes, by analyzing the results of crossing over and independent assortment.

Students figure out why no two siblings (except identical twins) have exactly the same alleles.

A final section contrasts sexual reproduction with asexual reproduction.