Lesson #2 Biology and Scaling
Materials:
- Copy of Michael LaBarbera's article The Biology of B-Movies
- Student questions for Sessions 1-3 located in Appendix B
- Copy of Build a Monster activity guidelines
Objective:
- Students will be able to relate the principals of scaling and the relativity of size to the structure and function of organisms.
- Students will construct their own creature or monster based on the scientific principals discussed in class and in the B-Movie article
Procedures:
Students will be given a copy of excerpts from LaBarbera's B-Movie Monsters, which will divided into three sessions as it is in the original article. I have constructed a PowerPoint presentation in which I have embedded video clips from Youtube.com of selected movies presented in the article. I did this because many of these movies were made in the 1930's-1980 and my students may be unfamiliar with them. Our school system has just approved our computer system to unfilter the transmission of Youtube. We will discuss each session individually after viewing the clips. LaBarbera has included a total of six sessions, the last on size and animal behavior, but due to time constraints, I only plan on discussing the first three. This would be an excellent enrichment activity to visit back to if time permits at the end of the semester.
Upon completion of this activity, the students will be assigned the task of designing their own monsters demonstrating the concepts that they learned from our classroom discussions and the B-Movie article. The students will present their designs to their classmates, who will in turn offer feedback on their creation and the accuracy of their scientific reasoning. The guidelines for this activity and the feedback questions are provided in Appendix B.
Lesson # 3 Introduction to Nanotechnology and its Applications Materials:
- PowerPoint and Student activites found in Appendix C
- Student articles on current topics related to nanoscience or nanotechnology
Objectives:
- xStudents will be able to relate to the scale of nanotechnology and its applications.
Procedures:
For the final lesson in this unit, we will be discussing the nature of nanotechnology and its practical applications. I already have a lesson in which we discuss biotechnology focusing on practical applications such as genetic testing, genetic engineering, cloning, etc. In the PowerPoint that I have generated for this lesson, I am going to add the technology of nanoscience and some of its applications. I have found several articles on the site Science Daily. There are articles discussing cosmetics, sunscreen, self-cleaning toilets, as well as advances in medicine. I will discuss what I learned in my seminar on Nanotechnology and Human Medicine: self assembly of micelles, liposomes, and buckeyballs. I will ask my students to research and find current articles demonstrating applications for nanotechnology, many of which are on the market today. The students will share their articles with their lab partners and then select the most interesting to share with the class. We will then discuss the pros and cons of this technology and the potential it has for future use.
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