Humans can have a positive and/or negative impact on Earth’s Systems. During this unit, students will assume the role of a city transportation manager who designs and implements a plan to help reduce air pollution in the city. Students’ plans should include ideas on how to get people to their destinations efficiently while keeping the air pollution levels as low as possible.
Humans can have a positive and/or negative impact on Earth’s Systems. During this unit, students will assume the role of an engineer who looks for ways to mitigate water pollution by planting plants in strategic locations. Students will gather and record data as they make modifications to a model to investigate the impact of the plants on the pollution levels reaching the pond.
A plant’s ability to survive depends on its adaptability. During this unit, students will run a model under different conditions and try to experimentally figure out the best growing conditions for each plant. Students will gather data on the survival of each plant and draw conclusions about the type of ecosystem in which the plants thrive best. Then students will look at trends in the data and determine the identities of the plants based on their growth patterns.
Animals utilize their instincts and adaptability to survive, but there are other variables that occur like over-population and/or disease that can alter the balance. In this unit, students will have the opportunity to modify a model to try to keep the ecosystem balanced for a longer period of time which will allow animals a better chance of survival.
Butterflies use camouflage as a defense mechanism for survival against predators. But they are only camouflaged in areas of like colors. Using the Catching Butterflies model, students will collect and graph data about the survival rate of butterflies in different garden environments. Then their peers will use the data on the graphs to determine what color flowers were in the garden.
Complex systems are actions of individuals that turn into the behaviors of a group. Computer models provide opportunities for scientists to look at how complex systems act under different conditions. This unit introduces students to complex systems and how they can be modeled to simulate real events such as the spread of an infection.