Earth Day 2011: International Year of Forests
The theme for our Earth Day celebrations this year is “International Year of the Forests.” To celebrate, we’re having a day of student-led activities and workshops, a vegetarian international lunch and an afternoon assembly on the 29th April.
This video was produced by the Good Planet Foundation and is the official film of the International Year of Forests. Most of the HPD classes have seen it, and here it is if you want to watch again:
Ideas:
– why not watch the movie yourself in short bursts and spend a few minutes looking up the concepts mentioned in the narration?
– Use Embed Plus to annotate the video with keywords and links to internet resources on the concepts discussed.
Ever the issues in Indonesia, forestry management, biodiversity protection and sustainability should be on our minds all year round, not just on one day. How can we take real action in the school? At the very least we should reduce our reliance on an unsustainable source of paper. Think before you print!
Let’s hope the activities we take part in lead to continued and mindful actions!
Guardian and Wellcome Trust Science Writing Prize
If you’re in the UK, have a go at this science writing prize from the Wellcome Trust and the Guardian. The winners will have their work printed in the ‘Guardian’ or the ‘Observer’, receive a £1000 cash prize and benefit from a science writing workshop at the ‘Guardian’.
One category is for non-professionals and undergraduate students – that includes you, super-smart IB Biologists. The closing date is 20th May, so it’s perhaps not the best idea for students in their exams!
For the full introduction, go to the competition page. There is also a good piece, as well as some tips, on the Guardian.
Some resources that might help:
Scitable’s Scientific Communication Library
Peter Clarks’ Quick 50 Writing Tips
“The science of scientific writing” from American Scientist
Simple ‘eye’ grown from stem cells
A Japanese team of researchers have turned embryonic mouse stem cells into a very basic eye, or ‘optic cup’. This video shows a time-lapse of the cells self-organising into the structure:
As you watch the video and read the article, think about the following curriculum links:
- How do cells ‘organise’ and how do stem cells become differentiated?
- What might be the therapeutic uses of this in the future?
- What functionality does this ‘eye’ have compared to ours?
“Remarkably, the rudimentary eye and the different types of cells it contained took shape spontaneously from a floating cluster of embryonic stem cells the scientists had cultured.”
The Guardian has a good article on the story. The original paper was published in Nature (paywall), but their Scitable area has a very good focus on stem cells.
Genetics Case Study: Diagnose the Patient
By completing this task, we will learn about chromosomes, genes, alleles and mutations, as well as some theoretical genetics. It serves as a review of transcription and translation, as well as protein structure. In the final stages, we will also access the Entrez Gene database (ICT requirement 4 on the 4PSOW).
This task is heavily based on the work of others and is credited at the end.
For more excellent case study resources for science, visit the National Center for Case Study Teaching in Science.
Scitable – Authentic Science Learning from Nature Education
Nature Education’s Scitable project is a free, collaborative online project which opens up lots of peer-reviewed, high-quality Nature content to students, teachers and learning groups.
The goal was to put high-quality Science information onto the web, and to give control and flexibility over learning. Having signed-up and looked at some of the brilliant readers and resources there, I will surely be using it in future! Scitable represents an authentic, evolving and engaging alternative to science textbooks, one of the reasons I started this blog in the first place. Check out some of the student blogs, too!
Here’s a quick video overview, but there is more information after the jump.
Manipulative Skills self-assessment
Word 97-2003 version here.
This is only formally assessed once at the end of the course, but can be a good exercise in student self-assessment. I have unpacked the aspects into some skills and indicators in the second table. Feel free to download and edit to suit your own needs.
Awesome Random Reviews
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Here are two quizzes which you can take online and will give you 50 randomly-selected questions from my Quia questionbank each time.
Higher Level Random Review (Topics 1-11)
Standard Level Random Review (Topic 1-6)
You do not need to log in.
IB Biology Teachers – your subject needs you
You may be aware that the curriculum review for Biology is currently underway and feedback from IB Bio teachers is very useful in the process. The curriculum review team posted a report on their meeting from October in 201o onto the OCC (login needed). There is a survey on the OCC for teachers to complete.
To find the report and complete the survey, please log in to the OCC and go the Biology area:
Click here to log in to the OCC and scroll down a bit to complete the questionnaire.
Please note that I am not part of the review team, but do feel that this is an important role for teachers to play. This is where we get the chance to have input into content and internal assessment. There are also discussion threads on the OCC dedicated to this review.
What’s Your Water Footprint?
Visualizing.org had a competition for best visualisation for World Water Day (22nd March), and the winner is this interactive world map by Joseph Bergen and Nicki Huang, from Harvard:
What's your water footprint? Joseph Bergen and Nicki Huang's interactive visualisation.
i-Biology 