Tuesday, April 19, 2016

Biology Lessons 4/18

Monday
  • Make up day/ enrichment opportunity
Tuesday
  • Phylogeny and cladistics
Wednesday
  • Building cladograms
Thursday
  • Review
  • Study Guide
Test next Monday4/25
Evolution and cladistics

Earth Science Lessons 4/18

Monday
  • Make up day/ enrichment extra credit
Tuesday
  • Fossils
  • Making molds and casts
Wednesday
  • Review/ study guide
Thursday
  • Test Chapter 12

Monday, April 18, 2016

Earth Science Enrichment

grand canyon

Write a paragraph explaining the geologic story of the Grand Canyon.
5 pts. extra credit

Bio enrichment activity

Evidence for evolution

Watch this 12 minute video on you tube discussing evidence for evolution. 
Answer the following questions.
  1. What two major claims are made by the theory of evolution.
  2. List 2 pieces of evidence for each claim.
5 points Extra Credit

Wednesday, April 13, 2016

Earth Science assignment

Half Life Modeling Activity

Learning Goal:  Construct a decay curve for a hypothetical radioactive isotope which has a half life of 2 minutes.  Practice with the concepts involved in radiometric dating.

  1. Cut out 100 .5x .5 inch squares out of printer paper. (you can use random.org coin flipper to model this if you don't want to use paper)
  2. On one side write H and the other write T on each piece.
  3. Drop the 100 pieces from eye level and allow them to fall to the floor.
  4. Count the number of heads and tails.
  5. H represents parent isotope atoms and T represents daughter atoms.
  6. Repeat the above procedure but only drop the  parent isotopes.  Remove the daughter atoms.
  7. Construct a decay curve for this isotope.  On the Y axis plot number of parent atoms remaining.  On the x axis plot the number of half lives.
  8. Each time you do a drop represents a half life.
  9. Complete each drop every two minutes.
  10. Repeat the procedure until you have no more parent isotopes remaining.
  11. How long did it take for all of your parent isotopes to decay?
  12. How many half lives took place?
  13. How old would a fossil be after the 4th half life according to your graph?
  14. What questions do you still have about radiometric dating?
  15. What was the ratio of parent to daughter atoms for each half life?
  16. Use your graph to find the age of the sample when 30 parent atoms remain.

Monday, April 11, 2016

Biology Lessons 4/11

Monday
  • Radiometric quiz retake
  • Begin Plant project
  • Plant Marigold seeds
Tuesday
  • Marigold project data tables
  • Background research
Wednesday
  • Peppered Moth evolution activity
Thursday
  • Evolution of populations
  • How natural selection works
  • Genetic drift
Friday
  • Quiz
  • The process of speciation