This unit launches with students hearing about an injury that happened to …
This unit launches with students hearing about an injury that happened to a middle school student that caused him to need stitches, pins, and a cast. They analyze doctor reports and develop an initial model for what is going on in our body when it heals. Students investigate what the different parts of our body are made of, from the macro scale to the micro scale. They figure out parts of our body are made of cells and that these cells work together for our body to function.
This unit is part of the OpenSciEd core instructional materials for middle school.
In this course, you will learn the principles of genetics with application …
In this course, you will learn the principles of genetics with application to the study of biological function at the level of molecules, cells, and multicellular organisms, including humans. We will cover structure and function of genes, chromosomes, and genomes; biological variation resulting from recombination, mutation, and selection; population genetics; and the use of genetic methods to modify genes and genomes and analyze protein function, gene regulation, and inherited disease. This course, based on the MIT course 7.03 Genetics taken by enrolled MIT students, was organized as a three-part series on edX by MIT’s Department of Biology (Note: The third part of the course is not available yet). It is self-paced and free as long as you enroll in the Audit Track option, which you can select after creating a free account on edX.
In this course, you will engage in the biology of cells of …
In this course, you will engage in the biology of cells of higher organisms. You will study the structure, function, and biosynthesis of cellular membranes and organelles; cell growth and oncogenic transformation; transport, receptors, and cell signaling; the cytoskeleton, the extracellular matrix, and cell movements; cell division and cell cycle; functions of specialized cell types. This course emphasizes the current molecular knowledge of cell biological processes as well as the genetic, biochemical, and other experimental approaches that resulted in these discoveries. This course, based on the MIT course 7.06 Cell Biology taken by enrolled MIT students, was organized as a three-part series on edX by MIT’s Department of Biology. It is self-paced and free as long as you enroll in the Audit Track option, which you can select after creating a free account on edX.
To pique students’ curiosity and anchor the learning for the unit in …
To pique students’ curiosity and anchor the learning for the unit in the visible and concrete, students start with an experience of observing and analyzing a bath bomb as it fizzes and eventually disappears in the water. Their observations and questions about what is going on drive learning that digs into a series of related phenomena as students iterate and improve their models depicting what happens during chemical reactions. By the end of the unit, students have a firm grasp on how to model simple molecules, know what to look for to determine if chemical reactions have occurred, and apply their knowledge to chemical reactions to show how mass is conserved when atoms are rearranged.
This course is an in-depth adventure through the molecular mechanisms that control …
This course is an in-depth adventure through the molecular mechanisms that control the maintenance, expression, and evolution of prokaryotic and eukaryotic genomes. Through lectures and readings of relevant literature, students will explore gene regulation, DNA replication, genetic recombination, transcription, and mRNA translation. The quizzes are designed to build students' experimental design and data analysis skills. This course, based on the MIT course 7.28/7.58 Molecular Biology taken by enrolled MIT students, was organized as a three-part series on edX by MIT’s Department of Biology. It is self-paced and free as long as you enroll in the Audit Track option, which you can select after creating a free account on edX.
In this 21-day unit, students are introduced to the anchoring phenomenon—a flameless …
In this 21-day unit, students are introduced to the anchoring phenomenon—a flameless heater in a Meal, Ready-to-Eat (MRE) that provides hot food to people by just adding water. Students explore the inside of an MRE flameless heater, then do investigations to collect evidence to support the idea that this heater and another type of flameless heater are undergoing chemical reactions as they get warm. Students have an opportunity to reflect on the engineering design process, defining stakeholders, and refining the criteria and constraints for the design solution.
This unit is part of the OpenSciEd core instructional materials for middle school.
This unit on metabolic reactions in the human body starts out with …
This unit on metabolic reactions in the human body starts out with students exploring a real case study of a middle-school girl named M’Kenna, who reported some alarming symptoms to her doctor.
Students investigate data specific to M’Kenna’s case in the form of doctor’s notes, endoscopy images and reports, growth charts, and micrographs. They also draw from their results from laboratory experiments on the chemical changes involving the processing of food and from digital interactives to explore how food is transported, transformed, stored, and used across different body systems in all people.
Students figure out that they can trace all food back to plants, …
Students figure out that they can trace all food back to plants, including processed and synthetic food. They obtain and communicate information to explain how matter gets from living things that have died back into the system through processes done by decomposers. Students finally explain that the pieces of their food are constantly recycled between living and nonliving parts of a system.
This unit on matter cycling and photosynthesis begins with students reflecting on …
This unit on matter cycling and photosynthesis begins with students reflecting on what they ate for breakfast. Students are prompted to consider where their food comes from and consider which breakfast items might be from plants. Then students taste a common breakfast food, maple syrup, and see that according to the label, it is 100% from a tree.
Based on the preceding unit, students argue that they know what happens to the sugar in syrup when they consume it. It is absorbed into the circulatory system and transported to cells in their body to be used for fuel. Students explore what else is in food and discover that food from plants, like bananas, peanut butter, beans, avocado, and almonds, not only have sugars but proteins and fats as well. This discovery leads them to wonder how plants are getting these food molecules and where a plant’s food comes from.
How does changing an ecosystem affect what lives there? This unit on …
How does changing an ecosystem affect what lives there? This unit on ecosystem dynamics and biodiversity begins with students reading headlines that claim that the future of orangutans is in peril and that the purchasing of chocolate may be the cause. Students then examine the ingredients in popular chocolate candies and learn that one of these ingredients--palm oil--is grown on farms near the rainforest where orangutans live. This prompts students to develop initial models to explain how buying candy could impact orangutans.
This unit is part of the OpenSciEd core instructional materials for middle school.
The Open Science movement is rapidly changing the scientific landscape. Because exact …
The Open Science movement is rapidly changing the scientific landscape. Because exact definitions are often lacking and reforms are constantly evolving, accessible guides to open science are needed. This paper provides an introduction to open science and related reforms in the form of an annotated reading list of seven peer-reviewed articles, following the format of Etz et al. (2018). Written for researchers and students - particularly in psychological science - it highlights and introduces seven topics: understanding open science; open access; open data, materials, and code; reproducible analyses; preregistration and registered reports; replication research; and teaching open science. For each topic, we provide a detailed summary of one particularly informative and actionable article and suggest several further resources. Supporting a broader understanding of open science issues, this overview should enable researchers to engage with, improve, and implement current open, transparent, reproducible, replicable, and cumulative scientific practices.
Why are living things different from one another? This unit on genetics …
Why are living things different from one another? This unit on genetics starts out with students noticing and wondering about photos of two cattle, one of whom has significantly more muscle than the other. Students figure out how muscles typically develop as a result of environmental factors such as exercise and diet. Then, they work with cattle pedigrees, including data about chromosomes and proteins, to figure out genetic factors that influence the heavily muscled phenotype and explore selective breeding in cattle.
This unit is part of the OpenSciEd core instructional materials for middle school.
This video features residents of Shishmaref, Alaska, plus environmental journalist Elizabeth Kolbert …
This video features residents of Shishmaref, Alaska, plus environmental journalist Elizabeth Kolbert and scientist John Holdren, exploring the human impacts of global climate change.
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