Ruth+Nation




 * Unit Title ||
 * The Good, the Bad and the Dangerous? ||
 * Unit Summary ||
 * Students will investigate how organisms relate to each other in both beneficial and detrimental ways. Students will be studying viruses, fungi, protists, and bacteria. Each of these is both helpful and harmful in its own unique way. Students will research and then create a public service announcement about a particular organism. ||

How do organisms benefit our lives? What are the dangerous organisms around us? ||
 * Curriculum-Framing Questions ||
 * || Essential Question || How do organisms in the world impact me? ||
 * || Unit Questions || Is disease inevitable?
 * || Content Questions || What is a virus? What are fungi, bacteria, protists? ||

BBC The Survivors Look at Craig's assessments

At this point, I'm trying to design a lesson for 7, 8 or 9th grade science. This is not a strong area for me personally so it is truly going to be a challenge. I found a GLE that I think might work; This project is subject to change...at least until tomorrow morning.
 * Explain the beneficial or detrimental impact that some organisms (i.e., viruses, bacteria, protists, fungi) may have on other organisms (e.g., diseases, antibiotics, breakdown of waste, fermentation) ||

My essential question: How are things around me helpful or harmful? Unit questions: How do organisms impact other organisms? Is disease inevitable?

I have to wonder if your essential question would be better as "How do influences in the world impact me?" Just a thought. - Matt **Carla: We can look over the gles you have and compare them with the plan for the tools when we meet on Thursday. We have time to develop the l****esson as we work on Thursday and Friday.** Ranking Tool: Actually make two tools one having them rank the organisms based on what they think is the most beneficial and another one taking the same organisms and ranking them by the most detrimental. After they compare their tools with one another then we will compare the two separate tools.

or Create the same tool with the four organism groups listed (bacteria, fungi, virus, and protists) and have the teams use the prompt "Of these which do you think has the most detrimental effects on the world?" Rank from the most harmful to the least harmful. This will access their prior knowledge and maybe misconceptions.

Seeing Reason Tool: I think this tool would work for this unit, in that students could add relationships within their organism as they research, however, I think I will use the Showing Evidence tool for this instead. I don't think I want to use both tools.
 * Af ter viewing the next tool you will be make a clear decision on which tool is best. CarlaW **

OK, I'm thinking that I will use this tool to facilitate discussion among the students on how organisms can be both beneficial and detrimental. I can see each team having good discussions as they create their tool, with each member adding their evidence. I also really like the ability of each team being able to leave comments on each team's tool. Possible Prompt: After researching your organism, what evidence can you provide that your organism is the most detrimental organism with the least beneficial aspects?

What about having the students create some ideas of what evidence do they need to support their claim before they start? ** I really like the public service announcement for the final project! Cool idea! - Linda
 * With student-created evidence was more than one trial of the experiment conducted? with math you could use different methods of solving the problem. We also really like "if you took a piece of evidence away does the argument fall apart?"