I reviewed the first
biology sample tests from both the TCAP and the ECA. The most striking example of where modeling
could help students on these tests were the questions about food chains. These problems usually showed a small section
of the food chain, and asked what would happen to one of the organisms if another
organism went extinct, or surged in population. Students who had done the wolf sheep predation
model would possess a good intuition about these scenarios as they would have
experimented with a variety of different starting conditions and seen the
results. One thing that might actually
confuse them would be the difference between the long term effects of a big
population change like that versus the short term effects. For example, introducing a lot more wolves to
the system initially cuts the sheep way down, but then if the wolves eat all
the sheep the wolves go extinct too.
Hopefully the questions are clear enough about the fact that they are
looking only for the immediate results.
The next thing that
modeling could help with would be evolution.
Several models including the butterfly model can demonstrate to students
how evolution works. In the butterfly model,
butterflies with longer feeding tubes are more likely to survive, so over time
you end up with many more long nosed butterflies. Students who had done this modeling unit
would understand the questions on the TCAP and ECA about evolution because they
would have seen it in action on a greatly accelerated time scale.
Modeling could also be
used to show how cells react to solutions of different salinity, which is a
type of biology problem that comes up on the tests.
Another type of question
that students might understand better thanks to modeling is the trophic energy
level questions. In the wolf sheep grass
model, a discussion would hopefully arise about the different energy amounts
gained by eating grass vs eating a sheep, and also about the relative
quantities of grass and sheep and where there is more total energy. These discussions and experiments with
different relative energy levels would give students a better chance of correctly
answering energy level pyramid questions.
One question on the TCAP
asks about the behavior of the molecules of a gas. This could easily be explored with modeling
which could show how the behavior of molecules changes when temperature
increases and the substance changes from solid to liquid to gas.
Questions
·
What are the differences
between Boxer and NetLogo?
·
What are some examples
other than the butterfly model that would be interesting to act out with
students instead of just running the program?
·
It seems like one good
way in biology to learn all the vocab words on these tests is to have games
that involve the vocabulary. Do games
that involve science count as scientific modeling, or is that just scientific games?
·
How can modeling be used
to teach about genetics?
I think there are multiple models that can be acted out with students, especially models about ecology. Also, including vocabulary is important. I mentioned on another post that during revision/explanation and argumentation portions of models is an excellent time to incorporate vocabulary. Asking students to elaborate about their ideas, observations and hypotheses gives opportunities for the instructor and student to involve new vocabulary. As for games and modeling I think that when games involve constructing academic knowledge it may be considered modeling. A key component of modeling is allowing the user to interact with an environment while constructing knowledge. If a game offers this to a student, I say it's modeling, at least to a point. As for modeling genetics, I was thinking about a pedigree chart model. Perhaps starting with a male and female where different types of traits can be had by either or both. Then their offspring can mate with others that either have the trait or maybe are carriers for the trait.
ReplyDelete