Our Outcomes
My priority student goal for this project is to generate and analyze real data. I teach the same class all day long and have 115 biology students. I would like to do this with all my classes and combine the data. This is my first year teaching high school, but I am a 12 year veteran of teaching middle school life science. I want to do longer projects like this because I feel it gives students a more authentic science experience than a lab that can be completed in one or two class periods. I am particularly excited about the extension opportunities with the foundations of genetics theme I plan to do. My background leans strongly into the domain of plant science, working in the plant physiology lab during my undergrad. I have a M.S. in Science Education so I am very familiar with the ?science as inquiry? process. I feel confident that this project will meet several of the NGSS practices and core concepts in my curriculum. Genetics can be rather abstract for my students so I am excited for them to have the opportunity to own that knowledge through their own experimentation. Plants are an excellent species to experiment with and so many students have so much yet to learn about that kingdom. I look forward to sparking their interest through this hands-on approach. The program recommends that I start with just one class, but due to the nature of our schedule (we run a 90 minute block on a two day cycle) and the fact that this is a course required for graduation, it is important that I do this with all sections. My six sections include class sizes between 13 and 23 students. I calculate that I will have 28 groups of four students total.
