Tag Archives: life science

Welcome!

Posted on February 7, 2018 | 4 comments

Source: WikiJournal of Science

I’ve created this site for my students as well as teachers and learners of science around the world. My intention is to share engaging content-specific resources as well as general guidance for science learning and scientific communication. The tabs across the top of the page take you to pages dedicated to IB Biology, IB Environmental Systems and Societies, and MYP Integrated Sciences. Much of the content on those pages also applies to science classes which are not a part of the International Baccalaureate Organization structure, though the assessment criteria are specific to the IBO’s Diploma Program and the Middle Years Program.

Below, you’ll find a few resources which I think are some of the most valuable for my students, and which I want them to come back to regularly. This is where you’ll find guidance on writing lab reports, creating data tables and graphs for data analysis, and developing presentations to effectively communicate about science. You’ll also find a list of digital resources for science, which I update regularly as I unearth new tools that I think will benefit students’ learning, as well as previous blog entries (from the days when I had more time to write).

How to Write MYP Science Reports

How to Create Scientific Tables and Graphs

How to Effectively Communicate Scientific Knowledge

Digital Resources for Science

Happy learning!

Mr K

4 Comments

Posted in astronomy, biology, chemistry, earth science, Education, Environmental Systems, IBO, MYP Science, physics

Tagged biology, chemistry, earth science, ecology, Education, education resources, environmental science, IB Biology, IB ESS, IBO, international baccalaureate, lab report, life science, MYP, MYP Science, physical science, physics, science, science communication, Science education, science resources, science skills, science writing

Ecology resources for students: Part 1

Posted on September 14, 2016 | 1 comment

Good afternoon!

I’m back with another set of bookmarks for students and teachers. Because I’ve taught the IB Environmental systems and societies course for several years, this set of online resources is closest to my heart. Some of these links are here simply because I think they’re cool or fun. Many may also be applicable for studying biology and chemistry as well. Let’s get to it:

United States Census Bureau. Extensive database of global human populations. Can be used to create age-sex pyramids, as well as other applications.
Earth wind map. A cool interactive resource to check wind patterns in real time anywhere on the planet.
Visualizing Environmental Science, 1st edition. By John Wiley and Sons, Inc. Online textbook and animations. Much of the site is password protected, but parts are available for free.
IB Environmental systems and societies worksheets and past questions. From Pearson, a of publisher of one of the IB-aligned student textbooks.
Edge of Existence, by the London Zoological Society. Full of resources on endangered species.
Living National Treasures. A guide to threatened and endangered species which are endemic to a single country and nowhere else. Searchable by country or species.
Aquatic and Terrestrial Biomes. University of Miami, Florida, USA. The page looks a little dated but is still a wealth of information.
The Habitable Planet. An extensive digital platform for teaching “the systems approach to environmental science”. By the Annenberg Foundation and the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.
Ecology and geography fieldwork techniques.
Survey techniques for beginners. From Wild About Britain.
Field survey methods from the New South Wales Office of Environment and Heritage. More advanced than resources above.
Wildlife Surveys presentation 1. A powerpoint presentation about how to conduct wildlife surveys.
Wildlife Surveys presentation 2. A powerpoint presentation about how to conduct wildlife surveys.
Wildlife survey field lab template. This PDF from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection has a good layout to help middle school teachers and students design their own field surveys.
GRID-Arendal Maps and Infographics Library. In association with UNEP. This is one of my favorite resources for teaching environmental science. Searchable by topic, keyword, or geography. All maps and images are free to share. Awesome!
Timelapse. Watch the world change over the course of nearly three decades of satellite photography.
Ocean Health Index. A searchable database around several components of ocean health.
NicheScience. An IB ESS YouTube channel, with podcasts for most of the old syllabus and a growing list of videos aligned with the new syllabus.
AP Environmental Science. Another YouTube playlist from the very talented Paul Andersen.
Kyoto Protocol. A website dedicated to the organizations and research involved in the effort to understand climate change.
IPCC official website. Home of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service homepage.
Animation gallery from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Searchable. Reliable. Lots of visual data.
Visualizing global carbon footprints. Interactive data maps from National Geographic.
Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) process. From the World Food and Agriculture Organization.
ARKive photo and video collections organized by species, conservation status, geography, environmental topic, habitat, and student age group. UK-centered.
Edible Schoolyard. All the resources you need to create a food garden at your school. Based on the very successful program in the U.S.

Happy learning!

Cheers,

Mr K

1 Comment

Posted in Environmental Systems, MYP Science, Random Thoughts, Uncategorized

Tagged 21st century learning, Africa, agriculture, biodiversity, biology, chemistry, climate change, conservation, cool stuff, ecological pyramids, ecology, ecosystems, Education, elephants, energy, Energy resources, environmental perspectives, environmental science, ESS, evolution, food resources, human impact on the environment, human populations, life science, online resources, photosynthesis, plants, poaching, population growth, research, resources, science, Science education, trophic levels, videos

Biology resources for students: Part 1

Posted on September 6, 2016 | 1 comment

Good morning!

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been updating various pages within my website, and as I work, I keep encountering all these different websites and digital resources I’ve bookmarked over the years. My bookmarks bar is organized by broad scientific subjects: astronomy,biology, chemistry, ecology, and physics. I’ve also got a folder dedicated solely to scientific games. I will share the resources in these folders in subsequent posts, organized by subject area. Once posted in the blog, I’ll then add all bookmarks to the general science pages in my website, but I thought I’d take this opportunity to share them with the broader global community as well. I have so many of these resources that I’m going to have to split the list into two parts – the bookmarks from my Chrome browser and those from Firefox.

Today: biology resources for students (and teachers!) in no particular order.

The Cell: Basic Unit of Structure and Function by McGraw-Hill. Animations, quizzes, flashcards, and other resources aligned with their Human Anatomy textbook. Links to other chapters can be found in the sidebar.
Bioman Biology. Interactive biology games on a variety of topics, including physiology, cells, ecology, genetics, evolution, DNA, respiration, and photosynthesis.
Carbon cycle animation from the University of Alberta, Canada. A simple but comprehensive flow chart (system diagram) of the global carbon cycle.
InstaGrok interactive concept maps. Pre-made concept maps showing links between a whole bunch of topics in general biology. Click on a term to see links to other biology topics, facts, websites, videos, images, or add your own notes.
Cells Alive! This site has been around for years. Good, easy-to-understand interactive cell models.
DNA video from NotCot.org. A beautiful 3 minute animation explaining DNA for BBC Knowledge from Territory.
John Kimball’s online biology textbook. This guy has been teaching biology for decades, and he’s amassed an incredible amount of resources on his site around every conceivable topic in biology. It’s kind of an old-school site, but it’s thorough.
Learn.Genetics at the University of Utah, USA. I use the tutorials from this site extensively in my genetics and evolution units.
Bozeman Science biology playlist on YouTube. 76 videos! 76! This playlist contains videos that could be useful in AP Biology, IB Biology, Biology, and other life sciences, all from the amazing Paul Andersen.
Mitosis World Home at University of North Carolina, USA. An aggregate of several other biology resources.
Discover Biology animations from W.W. Norton & Co. High-quality animations that can be viewed straight through, step-by-step, or narrated.
Interactive transpiration animation from ScienceMag. Adjust plant parameters and environmental conditions to see different effects on the movement of water through plants. With some creativity, you could run a virtual lab from this animation.
Understanding Evolution at the University of California – Berkeley. Densely packed with information and thoroughly researched. I use this site as a main reference for my evolution units. The site has been around a long time and is showing its age, but it’s still highly useful.
Sex determination video at TED-Ed. One of many useful resources from the TED people. Includes a review quiz and discussion questions.
Biology for Life. A great website from Gretel von Bargen at Skyline High School in Washington state, USA. It follows the new IB Biology syllabus. Also linked to her Twitter feed. I use this site a ton.
Bioknowledgy. Probably my favorite site for IB Biology. Chris Paine in Shanghai has created an extensive library of resources and materials aligned with the new IB Biology syllabus. Includes presentations, videos, and guided revision questions, among other resources. Awesome!

I hope that’s a good start for now. If you find any helpful resources you think I’ve missed, please send them my way in the comments, and I’ll add them to the second batch.

Cheers!

Mr K

1 Comment

Posted in biology, Environmental Systems, MYP Science

Tagged 21st century learning, biology, cells, cool stuff, Education, ESS, evolution, life science, online resources, organelles, photosynthesis, plants, research, resources, science, Science education, science skills, videos

What’s on the Biology Quiz?!?

Posted on October 1, 2013 | Leave a comment

Image Credit: by Mark A. Hicks, illustrator, via school.discoveryeducation.com

I’ve heard this question a bunch of times already this week, and it’s only Tuesday morning! If you’ve been paying attention in class, you should already have a pretty good idea of what will be on the quiz. If you haven’t been paying attention, I’m going to give you a couple of hints in this post.

Quiz Dates

9A + 9C: Friday 4 October
9B: Monday 7 October

Quiz Format

Criterion C1: Explaining Scientific Information
Level 1-2 Questions: Matching definitions with vocabulary, labeling diagrams
Level 3-4 Questions: Identifying and correcting True/False statements
Level 5-6 Questions: Describing and explaining scientific concepts.

Quiz Topics

Cell structure and function
Biological molecules
Ecological pyramids
Food webs
Trophic levels

Biological Molecules

Well, today was a little wacky, with no electricity or projector, class photographs in the middle of one class, and virtually no air circulating in my room to make for a hot hot hot day at school. Add in the noise and distraction of holding class in the courtyard, and we have….well, we have a bit of a mess.

Just so we’re all on the same page of the biology unit, I thought I’d summarize the key points from today’s lesson on biological molecules. Below are the finer points of the lesson.

The 3 major functions of all biological molecules

Instructions
Energy storage
Source of energy

Carbohydrates

chains of C, H, and O
supply all energy in cells and food chains
energy tends to be short-term energy (glycogen)
simple sugars such as glucose may build more complex molecules
some long chains of sugars, such as cellulose, are used for cellular structure

Lipids

do not dissolve in water
long chains of C, H, O, and P
have more bonds than carbs, so they’re used for energy storage
slow release of energy
saturated fats: all single C-H bonds, tend to be solids
unsaturated fats: some C-C double bonds, tend to be liquids (oils)
Image credit: http://www.uic.edu

phospholipids make up cell membranes and have two main parts:
- a phosphate group at one end, which is polar (charged), meaning it is hydrophilic
- the hydrophobic hydrocarbon tails

Proteins

most important biological molecule
many functions in organisms:
- enzymes
- structural components (building blocks)
- hormones
- antibodies
made of chains of amino acids
only 20 amino acids make all the 1000’s of proteins in the world

Nucleotides

made of C, H, O, P, and N
3 parts of each nucleotide:
- nitrogen base
- sugar
- phosphate
4 different nitrogen bases to know: A-C-G-T (shown at right)
several functions in organisms:
- chemical messengers
- coenzymes
- carry energy from one part of a cell to another
- build nucleic acids
two kinds of nucleic acids:
- DNA: sequence of nucleotides makes up the genetic code of an organism
- RNA: translates the code into specific proteins

And finally, the slides from class…

Plants and Animals: Cellular Differences

Plants and animals are both eukaryotes, meaning they have distinct nuclei. (Bacteria, by contrast, are prokaryotes, which means they don’t have a nicely organized nucleus.)

Plants and animal cells have many other similarities: ribosomes, mitochondria, chromatin, cell membranes, smooth and rough endoplasmic reticula (ER), vacuoles, and Golgi complexes, among some other organelles we’re not studying in this unit. However, there are some fundamental differences between plants and animals on a cellular level:

cell wall in plants
chloroplasts (plastids) in plant cells
large central vacuole in plant cells
centrioles in animal cells
some differences in the structure and function of the Golgi complexes

Watch this video for a nice summary, and please do click on the links he posts at the end for a deeper explanation of the topics he covers.

The following video is a bit more ‘scientific’ and uses some nice computer animation to tour plant cells. It’s worth a quick watch, too.

2 Comments

Posted on September 23, 2013 in Grade 9 Science

Tagged biology, cells, Grade 9, life science, organelles, plants

Image

Organizing Life

Now that we’ve spent some time getting to know our key vocabulary in the biology sequence, let’s start to delve a little deeper into the links and relationships among those words.

The Cell Theory is one of the foundational ideas behind all of biology, and it is something you must be familiar with before starting any future classes in bio. There are 3 main postulates to the Cell Theory, which I’ve listed below.

All living things are made of cells.
All cells come from pre-existing cells.
The cell is the smallest unit of life.

Even though all living things are made of cells, not all cells are alike. Living organisms are classified into 5 kingdoms of life based on differences in their physiology and cell function. I think the link above and the image below nicely summarizes the way we classify living organisms.

Image credit: http://www.mindfiesta.com

In this unit we’ll look at one of the key distinctions among Earth organisms: the differences between plant and animal cells. The notes packet and diagrams you received in class contain the “official class notes” on this topic, so don’t lose them! You might also find the following items somewhat useful:

Biology – key vocabulary

Posted on September 12, 2013 | 1 comment

image source: filebox.vt.edu

Welcome to the biology unit, kids! I’ve added a couple of helpful documents to this post, which you will want to refer to as we move through our unit on the organization of life on Earth.

The first document, G9 Biology Vocabulary, is an outline of the major concepts in this unit. It’s basically a big list of important vocabulary words. I’ve intentionally left out the definitions, examples, and explanations, because that’s what you need to add – that’s how you learn! You should download this document and add to it as we cover different topics during the unit.

The second document, G9 Biology vocabulary matchup, is the collection of cards we used in class. You’ll find vocabulary terms and definitions organized into columns and sorted by topic. This will be a nice reference in case you miss something during a class.

1 Comment

Posted in Grade 9 Science

Tagged biological molecules, biology, cells, ecosystems, energy, life science, nutrients, organelles, organisms, structure, trophic levels, vocabulary

Tag Archives: life science

Welcome!

Ecology resources for students: Part 1

Biology resources for students: Part 1