Teaching Strategies
The anchoring activities of this unit are a lab report quantifying the microbial biodiversity of our school by sampling and culturing communities from different parts of the school, testing different antimicrobial methods using an engineering design protocol, and then developing and proposing public health interventions for our school or community stakeholders based on research. These activities introduce biodiversity, characteristics of life, molecular genetics, cells, and the basic skills for exploring, analyzing, and communicating like scientists and engineers.
Project-Based Learning
Used as the first research experience of ninth grade, sampling our school for microbial biodiversity engages students with hands-on laboratory manipulation. Anecdotally, students report that using the tools of science “makes them feel like they’re actually doing science.” Developed by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute in 2008, the Science Education Alliance Phage Hunters Advancing Genomics and Evolutionary Science (SEA-PHAGES) protocol is a research-based investigation where undergraduate students sample, isolate, sequence, and characterize bacteriophages from the environment. In 2017, more than 10,000 bacteriophages had been added to the SEA-PHAGES library, 1800 of which had complete genomic sequences, and at least one successful human trial in phage-therapy had been conducted referencing this student-derived library.81 At the undergraduate level, the SEA-PHAGES research program has been shown to engage young people in the experiences of a professional scientist, i.e. the thrill of discovery, collaboration within a community, and advancing scientific knowledge relevant to the broader community.82 These psychosocial elements are correlated to increased persistence in the sciences and benefit all students regardless of their intended area of study.83 Although very few public high-schools have the time or technology to offer a two-semester course on microbiology, especially the isolation and sequencing steps, the laboratory activities that follow preserve the discovery aspects of the SEA-PHAGES protocol as best as possible while still respecting resource constraints on public high school teachers.
Knowles Engineering and Design for Social Justice
Developed by the Knowles Teaching Initiative for high-impact, culturally relevant lessons, an engineering design process is a professional technique for exploring a problem, assigning constraints and criteria to measure and rank outcomes, then prototyping, testing, and communicating efficacy and trade-offs of proposed solutions. These steps allow significant overlap for the Next Generation Science Standards science and engineering practices. All eight of the identified skills of STEM professionals can be incorporated with intentional design, but these four are always achieved by proper implementation of the process:
- Asking questions and defining problems
- Planning and carrying out investigations
- Analyzing and interpreting data
- Obtaining, evaluating, and communicating information
While this process can be applied to almost any academic material, research shows that self-identifying as an engineer or scientist is more likely when young people are positioned as experts in the problems of their own lives, and the skills of these professions are taught as techniques for empowerment and change.84 Self-identifying as a scientist and engineering has been correlated to higher educational attainment and higher persistence in STEM fields.85 Knowles provides strategies for connecting the engineering protocol to student driven social justice. Framed in four steps from purely engineering design to a fully student-driven project to change their world, the implementers do not encourage educators to aim for a fully student-driven project every time. It is important that young people experience many different kinds of projects as scaffolding for more involved ones.
Place-Based Learning
An essential component of Project-Based Learning is that student work should have real world application. By utilizing a place-based approach to studying biodiversity of our school microbial community, it increases personal investment in the scientific skills and results.86 “What bacteria and fungi are in the student bathroom?” is potentially more compelling investigation than quantifying fecal contamination from a distant beach students will likely never visit. In the social justice-aligned version of sampling, students read about antibiotic resistant microbes and are given informational cards from the CDC Health Equity group outlining how different communities in the United States are impacted more acutely by certain strains of these microbes. Because my students are members of those communities or know, love, and care for people in those communities, it provides a personal and emotional context to science skills and applies them in a way that could make real change in their lives.
Collaborative Student Choice
Students have many different dreams when they enter the science classroom. Some have a vision of what they might like to pursue professionally, others have interests but are not sure about life after school, and a vast majority of teens are simply dealing with the realities of life as they come. By approaching science conversations that also include avenues for art, emotion, law, philosophy, and religion, I hope to provide many modes of access for discussion, especially for young people who are still developing spoken language proficiency in English. For students who are not intrinsically motivated by the pleasure of hands-on science, producing a “zine,” or a small magazine, about genetic engineering invites many different access points for aligning with student interests and expertise. Young people interested in law are invited approach aspects of patent law and bioethics under existing legal structures. Students interested in finance and entrepreneurship are supported to research market demand and the liabilities of producing genetically modified organisms (GMOs). Artists contribute digital or print media examples of before-and-after modification of organisms, potentially utilizing 3D imagining tools. Poets and religiously inclined young people are invited to write additional pieces informing genetics and GMOs. Students proficient in organization or graphic design can manage the presentation of these class materials on a publicly facing website. Although this is ultimately a collaborative project valuing many different skills, students have a great deal of freedom in choosing their mode research and are not penalized for the non-performance of classmates.
Gamification and Reward Structures
Quizlet is a “freemium” software platform that “gamifies” vocabulary memorization. Styled as a timed matching activity that displays a vocabulary word and four possible definitions (or vice versa as a paid option), this interface allows students to review teacher-directed vocabulary terms individually and then compete as random or assigned teams. During individual study time, ranked student performance is projected using animal signifiers to respect anonymity. On the teacher interface, private report are available showing individual student names and scores for participation and proficiency. Although not every student can be the fastest person in class, the team activity makes it possible for any student in class to earn candy for participation. At least two teens have verbally recognized the correlation between personal studying and team success, and engagement and improvement have been high across all of my classes from 2021 – 2023. In addition to candy rewards for team activities, students know that these vocabulary words are the basis for successive quizzes, first testing five vocabulary words, then ten, then all fifteen words from each three-week unit. The vocabulary from these three successive quizzes also appear on the end-of-quarter and end-of-semester exams. Used as the starting activity at the beginning of nearly every class, repeated exposure to the definitions builds familiarity when seeing them used in context and gives all students a better starting place by sharing a common language for conversation.
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