Tag Archives: Biology

A STEAM PLAN ON HEALTHY DIET

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“Trace Minerals as Pillars of a Healthy Diet”  is a three-session  (in-class or online) Scientix  LS which enables one to work on 4 different disciplines: Chemistry, Biology, Maths and English as a foreign language. There is one complimentary activity between the 2nd and the 3rd, which is designed as a non-class one.

  • What is it about?

The main real life question it raises is how to do conscious shopping with the aim of having a healthy, balanced diet. With the increasing rates of obesity, this is one of the most critical issues of today’s world.

  • What educational trends does it follow?

As one will see when the activity steps are unfolded, the LS proves to be a sound example of some of the important educational trends and all the 4C’s: peer-learning, collaborative learning, BYOD and edutainment,  critical thinking, communication, collaboration, creativity.

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WHAT COMES FROM NATURE GOES TO NATURE

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ABSTRACT

Pollution is a kind of damage to the environment. Substances or wastes cause it. Some pollution breaks down quickly. However, some might take thousands or millions of years to break down. Therefore, food waste is a global problem. It is threatening environmental, social and economic sustainability.

In this learning scenario, we are planning to find solutions to prevent environmental pollution. For instance, we can use homemade waste. In addition, we will have a useful product. Firstly, students will learn a way of preventing environmental pollution. It will be by recycling food waste at school or in their household. They will use a simple method. Secondly, they will be simulating the worm’s role in nature. Worms are used to recycle food into valuable soil. Thirdly, students will produce fertilizer for planting. They will help to clean the environment. Moreover, the pollution will decrease with the help of recycling. As a result, students will discuss other solutions for pollution. Also, they will prepare a final presentation of their findings. Some will prepare posters in Turkish or English.

The picture is the author’s own –(Attribution CC-BY)
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Designing educational material from household waste

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ABSTRACT: In our STEM activity with 13-14-year-old students, it was aimed to evaluate waste materials, create design products, learn about organelles, and develop three-dimensional thinking skills. Traditional lectures on cells and organelles are not enough to learn adequately. In our activity, which is prepared to understand both engineering design skills and molecular biology with a multi-disciplinary study of biology, students are presented with information and visuals about various organelles. Students were asked to prepare designs from domestic wastes by thinking in three dimensions of various cellular structures (endoplasmic reticulum, mitochondria, chloroplast, ribosome, nucleus, lysosome, Golgi apparatus, etc.). The students were excitedly prepared for this event, and they were happy to prepare completely their own material choices and original designs.

A selection of images from the project practice– The images are the author’s own –(Attribution CC-BY)
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Mitosis vs Meiosis: an online science lesson

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Author: Teresita Gravina

My name is Teresita Gravina and I am a Math and Science Teacher in IC De Amicis- Da Vinci a lower secondary school in Caserta, Italy.

Due to the Covid19 emergency the school in my region are closed since 5th of March. We had to move our lesson to online platform in one night without bring nothing from school laboratory. Since then I am working hard, trying to do my best, to ensure the best learning experience for my students. This is a national emergency and everyone can participate doing what he/she can, I am a teacher, so I teach 😀

When the school closed I was to begin to introduce cell and their functions to my 6 grade students. I am used to include in every topic a practical activity and students in general loves it (not always the same for the parents) so I decided to organize an activity about mitosis, meiosis and their differences. I organized the activity thanks to a Google module. In this you can add photo, ask question and receive answers, send an assessment and students can share with you their files. You can have a look at the activity here, and if you want to use it, please let me know and I will invite you to modify it and use in your class (remote or real).

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Darwin’s Other Bird

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If you think about Darwin’s bird, it is only natural that the finch comes to mind. In September 1835, the English naturalist Charles Darwin and the crew of the “Beagle” arrived in the Galapagos Island. These volcanic islands are located west of Ecuador, along the Equator in the Pacific Ocean. The travellers had got there as part of their five-year (1831-1836) journey to study plants and animals around the world. Darwin collected and documented a dazzling array of species in the Galapagos, and he studied these organisms when he returned home to England. Eventually, he focused his study on his collection of finches, a species of small birds. The finches were very similar, but had beaks of different sizes and shapes. Darwin theorized that the beaks were adaptations that helped each species of finch eat a different type of food, such as seeds, fruits or insects. Darwin’s study of the plants and animals of the Galapagos was integral to his theory of natural selection, a part of the larger process of evolution.

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