Setting the stage for Climate Kids Interactive Workshop by Amber Pairis
Do you have a small budget? No budget? Interested in having students build molecular models? In this session I will present several low to no cost molecular biology labs and activities that can be integrated into your existing pacing plan. All activities and labs link to one or more of the Science and Engineering Practices and Crosscutting Concepts of the NGSS. Topics include: biochemistry of water, DNA and protein structures, and use of DNA ladders as crime scene samples. All attendees will receive a free one of a kind DNA model! Information about free reagents from New England Biolabs and how the LSSI-Amgen Teacher Program can provide free reagents and equipment to support these molecular biology labs will also be shared.
How can scientists tell what Earth’s climate was like thousands of years before human measurements? This activity simulates the use of fossil ocean foraminifera, tiny organisms whose growth patterns are different in warm or cold water. Your students will analyze and graph samples of replicas of these organisms, and use this information to determine relative warm and cold periods in the past 200,000 years. This activity is from EDC Earth Science, a new NSF-supported high school earth science program from LAB-AIDS that uses an active, data-oriented approach to the student of earth science and earth systems.
Richard Louv in his 2005 book Last Child in the Woods documents the benefits to children by spending unstructured and unsupervised time in Nature. Many of the stories he relates are from years past and from rural areas. The challenge for us now in populous urban areas is how to achieve those same results while sustaining our limited natural resources.
This presentation proposes that wildlife tracking skills can be a sustainable way for kids (and others) to better experience Nature in neighborhood canyons and open space preserves. It suggests some classroom/schoolyard activities that can prepare students for nature field trips and describes a simple field trip activity. Finally, it tries to relate all this to the scientific process.