Next Generation Science Standards - Activity LIsting

In this hands-on, minds-on activity, students use model chromosomes and answer analysis and discussion questions to learn about the processes of meiosis and fertilization.

Students first analyze how the processes of meiosis and fertilization result in the alternation between diploid and haploid cells in the human lifecycle. To learn how meiosis produces genetically diverse gametes, students analyze the results of crossing over and independent assortment.

As they model meiosis and fertilization, students follow the alleles of a human gene from the parents' body cells through gametes to zygotes.They learn how the outcomes of meiosis and fertilization can be represented in a Punnett square.

A final brief section contrasts sexual reproduction with asexual reproduction.

This activity can be used to introduce meiosis and fertilization or to review these processes. 
(NGSS)

Download Student Handout: PDF format or Word format

Download Teacher Preparation Notes: PDF format or Word format

In this hands-on, minds-on activity, students use model chromosomes and answer analysis and discussion questions to learn how the cell cycle produces genetically identical daughter cells.

Students learn how DNA replication and mitosis ensure that each new cell gets a complete set of chromosomes with a complete set of genes.Students learn why each cell needs a complete set of genes and how genes influence phenotypic characteristics.

To understand how a single cell (the fertilized egg) develops into the trillions of cells in a human body, students analyze an exponential growth model of increase in number of cells. The final section provides a very brief introduction to cellular differentiation. 

This activity can be used as an introduction to mitosis or to reinforce understanding of mitosis. 

In our follow-up meiosis and fertilization activity (/sci_edu/waldron/#meiosis) students learn how the movement of gene-carrying chromosomes during meiosis and fertilization results in the inheritance of genes.

Newer Version Available

The activity below has a new and improved version available as two separate handouts; this older version is available as an archive to teachers still using it. Please find the new version at: Mitosis - How Each New Cell Gets a Complete Set of Genes and Meiosis and Fertilization – Understanding How Genes Are Inherited.

ARCHIVE

In the  hands-on activity, Mitosis, Meiosis and Fertilization, students use model chromosomes to simulate the processes of mitosis, meiosis and fertilization, and they answer questions designed to promote understanding of these processes. To demonstrate the principle that genes are transmitted from parents to offspring through the processes of meiosis and fertilization, students follow two alleles of a gene through gametes to zygotes as they model meiosis and fertilization. Students also learn how a mistake in meiosis can result in Down Syndrome.

In this minds-on analysis and discussion activity, students interpret evidence concerning natural selection in the peppered moth.

This evidence includes (1) the results of experiments that evaluated predation by birds on different color forms of the peppered moth in different environments, (2) the genetic basis for the different color forms, and (3) correlated changes in both the environment and the frequency of each color form in industrialized and rural regions in England and the US.

This activity will help students to consolidate a scientifically accurate understanding of the process of natural selection.

(This activity is very similar to the last section of the hands-on activity Evolution by Natural Selection.)

This minds-on, hands-on activity begins with an anchoring phenomenon, how a person’s breathing changes when he/she is re-breathing the air in a plastic bag. Students develop a negative feedback model of how the changes in breathing stabilize blood levels of O2 and CO2. To understand changes in breathing when running, students analyze cellular respiration.

Next, students use a negative feedback model to understand temperature regulation and homeostasis. Then, students analyze how failures of negative feedback can result in diabetes. Finally, students compare and contrast positive and negative feedback.

The Appendix for the Teacher Preparation Notes suggests an optional activity in which each student group investigates a question or hypothesis concerning negative feedback, homeostasis and changes in breathing.

Download Student Handout: PDF format or Word format

Download Teacher Preparation Notes: PDF format or Word format

In the first part of this activity, students learn how to use the floating leaf disk method to measure the rate of net photosynthesis (i.e. the rate of photosynthesis minus the rate of cellular respiration). They use this method to show that net photosynthesis occurs in leaf disks in a solution of sodium bicarbonate, but not in water. Questions guide students in reviewing the relevant biology and analyzing and interpreting their results. In the second part of this activity, student groups develop hypotheses about factors that influence the rate of net photosynthesis, and then each student group designs and carries out an investigation to test the effects of one of these factors. (NGSS)

This analysis and discussion activity contains three "soap opera" episodes that help students to understand the principles of inheritance and the relevance of genetics to everyday life. In the first episode, students answer the probing questions of a skeptical father who wants to know how his baby could have albinism when neither he nor his wife have albinism.

The second episode, "Were the babies switched?", covers the concepts of codominance, incomplete dominance, and polygenic inheritance, and reinforces student understanding that the alleles of a gene give the instructions for making different versions of a protein.

In the third episode, students analyze sex-linked inheritance. Each episode can be used separately or with other episodes, depending on your teaching goals.

This analysis and discussion activity engages students in understanding how biological communities remain stable and how they change during ecological succession.

Students analyze several types of research evidence, including (1) repeated observations of a biological community to assess stability or change over time, (2) analyses of dated fossils in a peat bog, and (3) analyses of how mutualism, competition and trophic relationships contribute to stability or change in biological communities.

Students use this evidence to understand the causes of stability and succession in a variety of habitats, including a tropical forest, a new volcanic island, abandoned farm fields, and ponds. Students also analyze the effects of climate and non-native invasive plants.

The Student Handout is available in the first two attached files and as a Google doc designed for use in online instruction. The Teacher Notes, available in the third and fourth attached files, provide background information and instructional suggestion and explain how this activity is aligned with the Next Generation Science Standards. A PowerPoint with illustrations of each habitat is available in the last attachment.

In the proposed sequence of topics and learning activities, the major biological concepts build in a logical progression that uses earlier concepts to help students understand subsequent concepts and reinforces student understanding of earlier concepts as they are used in subsequent sections of the course. For example, students are introduced to DNA structure and function early in the course and then use their understanding of DNA structure and function to enhance their understanding of subsequent topics, such as genetics and cell structure and function.

The attached documents present the proposed sequence of topics and learning activities. The learning activities will help students meet the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) (http://serendipstudio.org/exchange/bioactivities/NGSS/listing).