Experience Biology vs Science 8

EXPERIENCE BIOLOGY invites students to investigate basic scientific phenomena and concepts in biology through simulations and interactive labs. Using an inquiry-based learning approach, the apps challenge middle-school students with investigations and quizzes based on the students' explorations of each interactive unit. EXPERIENCE BIOLOGY PROVIDES APPS WITH • Dynamic simulations of scientific phenomena and concepts • Scientific background relating to the phenomenon and concepts • Multiple representations through dynamic graphs, tables, and interactive animations • Investigations based on interesting inquiry questions • Thought-provoking quizzes • Activities appropriate for individual learning, small-group work, and teacher-led class instruction EXAMPLES OF EXPERIENCE BIOLOGY UNITS: POND FOOD CHAIN investigates a simple food chain consisting of producers, herbivores, predators, and top predators. Students understand basic concepts relating to an ecological system by changing population sizes, running the simulation, recording the results, and drawing conclusions. How can changing the population size of one species influence the population sizes of the other species in the same food chain? THE BODY AS A SYSTEM explores the physiological responses of walking or running on a treadmill. Students can change the velocity of the treadmill and observe the corresponding changes in the runner's heart rate, respiration rate, body temperature, oxygen consumption, and blushing. What changes occur in our bodies when we increase our rate of walking and running? CELLULAR RESPIRATION examines how the digestive, respiratory, and circulatory systems work together in the process that provides energy to the body's cells. How do the molecules that interact within the cells in this process (the reactants) reach the cells? What happens to the molecules that result from this process (the products)? JOURNEY TO BIOLOGICAL LEVELS OF ORGANIZATION explores biological levels of organization, from the biosphere to atoms, in three ecosystems: the Mediterranean Scrubland, the African Savannah and the Coral Reef. What patterns can you notice as you move up an ecosystem, level by level? INHERITANCE OF A SINGLE TRAIT investigates how traits are transmitted from one generation to the next, using the dominant-recessive pattern of inheritance. The simulation invites students to conduct genetic crosses of plants with different traits, in order to solve five genetic challenges. PHOTOSYNTHESIS invites students to investigate how light intensity and carbon dioxide levels affect the photosynthesis rate, by manipulating these variables under different conditions, graphing the results, and drawing conclusions. What are limiting factors and what role do they play in photosynthesis? THE BEATING HEART examines how blood flows from the body to the heart, lungs and back to the body. The simulation invites students to investigate how the heart works. What is the effect of different levels of physical activity on the heart rate?

These are a few tools for helping visualize middle school science. I spent a year volunteer tutoring middle school (grade 8) science students. While doing that, I created an app with a few simple demonstrations and practice tests to help them. The modules included were those that illustrated or helped practice the concepts my students had trouble either understanding or remembering. The test module contains every test the students took. Hot Molecules is an interactive demonstration of the effects of heating and cooling on molecular activity. Will it float? is an interactive lab simulation for determining density. Questions is a test-practice module for all subjects thus far covered (phase changes, heat transfer, density, atoms, molecules, reactions, atmosphere). Buckets is a category builder to help understand grouping of like things on arbitrary traits Which is Bigger? is an interactive statistics exploration, showing how much overlap there is between categories and how important sample size is. How do population dynamics of the species populations in a food web interact? Play with the simulation and ecological and human-introduced factors. Watch out for natural disasters! Other demonstrations and test topics are added periodically.