My Science Box

Marin Headlands: photograph of Marin Headlands from the Golden Gate Bridge by Christopher BelandSummary
The Marin Headlands contain the geologic record of a great deal of plate tectonic action that can be used to piece together the history of the formation of California. Briefly, around 180 million year ago, the North American plate collided with a now subducted plate called the Farallon plate. As the Farallon plate dove under the North American plate, bits and pieces of the Farallon plate were scraped off. These bits and pieces can be found in the Marin Headlands in several distinctive rock formations: pillow basalts (at the Point Bonita Lighthouse), chert (near Rodeo Lagoon), and sandstone (at Rodeo Beach). By closely observing these rocks and figuring out how they formed, an understanding of how California itself was formed may be inferred.

******DRAFT*******

This is a test bed for posting to Irene's website. I'll be posting at least one full lesson as the semester progresses. My hope is to develop a series of ooey-gooey usshy-gusshies to provide visceral experiences as foundations for particle awareness.

Summary
Students take what they know about earthquake, volcano and mid-ocean ridge distributions (The Big One and Plate Patterns) and put it together with what they know about convection in the Earth’s mantle (Journey Through Earth and Convection in a Pan). They revisit what they know about how earthquakes are created, by the sudden release of energy as plates collide or rub together (but not so much when they split apart). They look for patterns in their world maps, observing that mid-ocean ridges and dense earthquake/volcano zones tend to lie on the opposite side of plates. With this information, they can infer the direction that the plates are moving. Next students build a model illustrating seafloor spreading and discuss the magnetic and seafloor age data that support this model. Finally, students codify the different types of plate boundaries, describing the various features and characteristics of each.

Summary
What drives the motion of the Earth’s tectonic plates? Partly, it is convection, the process by which heat energy is transferred by currents in a liquid or gas. Convection currents within the mantle carry tectonic plates along with the slowly moving mantle like giant rafts carried along by a current in a river. To help students understand this idea, soapy water in a pie pan is heated from below and convections currents can be observed forming and moving in the soapy water. Several prelude demonstrations help students recognize that hot things rise and cold things sink.

Summary
Kilauea Crater, Hawaii: Pu'u 'O'o crater at dusk. Image courtesy of USGS.Starting with an earthquake epicenter map (generated by students in The Big One activity), students add information about where active volcanoes are located and the location of the mid-ocean ridges. With the combined information about volcanoes, mid-ocean ridges, and earthquake epicenters, student can trace the boundaries of the Earth’s major plates. On individual student maps containing earthquake epicenter data, they outline the plate boundaries, learn the names of each plate, and use colored pencils to highlight volcano zones and mid-ocean ridges. Future activities in this box have students adding plate direction and speed information to student maps as well as labeling 4 different types of plate boundaries: continent-continent convergent boundaries, subducting convergent boundaries, transform boundaries, and divergent boundaries. The direction and speed of many plates can be inferred from the opposition of mid-ocean ridges on one side of the plate and volcano zones on the other.

Summary
San Francisco, 1906: Aftermath of the 7.8 magnitude earthquake that caused an estimated 3,000 deaths and $524 million in damage.Students use the USGS World Earthquake Archive to research the major earthquakes in recorded history. Each student is given a range of dates and assembles a table of facts on 10 earthquakes within that time frame. Students present their research and plot the locations of their earthquakes on a large world map, thereby discovering distinct earthquake zones that define the boundaries of the earth’s plates (see the Plate Patterns activity for ways to elaborate on this idea).

Objectives
Can use the USGS Earthquake Archives to research information about historically important earthquakes around the world.
Can diagram and explain what causes earthquakes in general terms.
Can understand and use basic earthquake terminology (fault, epicenter, magnitude, etc.)
Can use latitude and longitude information to plot locations on a world map.

Vocabulary
fault
earthquake
epicenter
magnitude
seismogram
latitude
longitude
tectonic plate

Summary
Sail aboard a research vessel and explore the living treasures of the San Francisco Bay. The Marine Science Institute (MSI) provides some of the best hands-on science and environmental education in the Bay Area. On the Discovery Voyage, students spend 4 hours learning about the San Francisco Bay ecosystem by examining water quality and collecting organisms at every level of the food web from microscopic plankton to mud dwellers to bat rays and fish. The diversity of life in the Bay is astounding and surprising to students who have spent their whole lives living by its water but never “diving in”.  If a half-day voyage isn’t for you, many other fantastic programs are available including Inland Voyages (where live marine organisms come to you), Ocean Lab (where students explore animals of the rocky coastal ecosystem in MSI’s Discovery Lab classrooms), and Tidepool Expeditions (where MSI naturalists provide a guided tour of the tidepool creatures at Pillar Point).

Summary
To solidify students’ conceptualization of cells, students build a model of a cell in a ziplock bag using polyvinyl alcohol slime as cytoplasm. So far, students’ experience with cells has been 2 dimensional – diagrams and microscopic slides. The 3 dimensional nature of cells comes to life as students use everyday objects to represent the many parts of a cell. In addition, students can use this activity to develop a sense of scale, calculating how big a human would be if the ziplock bag cell model were really the size of a cheek cell.

Summary
Students create DNA models from beads and wire that may be used as earrings, pendants, Christmas ornaments, and/or key chain pulls. This project is simple enough that a good substitute could lead the students through it since the content should be taught beforehand. More importantly, this is just one of many possible 3D DNA models you could have your students build. Be creative! Use gumdrops, Styrofoam, marshmallows, Legos, grapes, wood, aluminum cans, etc. Better yet, have your students design a model independently.

Summary
In this long term computer based simulation, students play with a fabulous FREE software program called Biologica developed by the Concord Consortium. It offers an in depth, virtual experience exploring Mendelian inheritance patterns in dragons. Activities increase in complexity from initial modules introducing dragons and their chromosomes to later activities that require problem solving skills and the integration of many levels of prior knowledge. In the program, you can manipulate dragon chromosomes, breed dragons, explore pedigrees, and more. There are fantastic puzzles along the way: Which gametes should you select to breed a purple, fire breathing, boy dragon? What happens if you change the DNA sequence? Can you figure out the genotype of invisible dragon parents from the phenotypes of their offspring?