Transformations in Matter and Energy Carbon TIME is an NSF-funded partnership led by Michigan State University
Activity 1.2 - Expressing Ideas and Questions about How Animals Grow (40 min)
Target Student Performance
Students complete the Expressing Ideas Tool for animals growing, helping them document, share, and examine their ideas. There are no “right” answers during this phase of the unit.
Resources You Provide
- sticky notes (1 per student)
- time-lapse video of child growing, such as https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLTfq6JjPus&t=1s
Resources Provided
- 1.2 Expressing Ideas and Questions about How Animals Grow PPT
- 1.2 Expressing Ideas and Questions Tool for Animals Growing (1 per student)
- 1.2 Assessing the Expressing Ideas and Questions Tool for Animals Growing
- 1.2 Animals Storyline Reading: Learning from the Work of Hans Krebs (1 per student)
Recurring Resources
- Questions, Connections, Questions Student Reading Strategy
- Learning Tracking Tool for Animals
- Assessing the Learning Tracking Tool for Animals
- (Optional) Big Idea Probe: What Happens to the Fat? (1 per student)
- (Optional) Assessing the Big Idea Probe: What Happens to the Fat?
Setup
Prepare your computer for showing the PPT as well as a time-lapse video of a child growing (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLTfq6JjPus&t=1s). Have 1 copy for each student of 1.2 Expressing Ideas and Questions Tool for Animals Growing, and sticky notes. Print one copy of the Big Idea Probe: What Happens to the Fat? (optional), and 1.2 Animals Storyline Reading for each student.
Assessment
Use the student responses to the class discussions and also their ideas on the 1.2 Expressing Ideas Tool for Animals Growing as well as the 1.2 Assessing the Expressing Ideas Tool for Animals Growing to assess their thinking at the beginning of the unit. By the end of the unit, students should be able to explain what happens when animals eat, grow, move, and breathe at macroscopic and atomic molecular scales. For now, listen to students’ ideas, with attention to how they describe matter and energy. Some students may not use principles of conservation of matter to identify food as the source of mass for animals (and instead only associate food as a source of chemical energy). Students may think that the food disappears as it is eaten, and may not recognize that atoms are transferred from the food to the organism for the purpose of growth.
Tips
If you are teaching this to multiple classes, you can save different versions of the PPT, with Slide 6 completed for each block. Alternatively, have all classes combine their answers and have students look for similarities and differences.