Louisiana State University

Instructional Models

INVSTIGATIVE LESSON (3.3) for students’ experiments

LSU Team: Courtnie Dicapo and Morgan Story Mentor Teacher: Course: Biology
Date to be Taught: School: Classroom Number:
Time to be Taught: Grade Level: High School Biology Lesson Topic: Abiotic and Biotic Factors
Title of Lesson:
How can local crop production be improved by eliminating or enhancing various abiotic and biotic factors?
Source of Lesson:
N/A
Description of Concepts to be Taught (include a brief summary of why the lesson is important to students):
This lesson combines student experimentation with science communication.

Louisiana Grade Level Expectations (GLE’s):

The Standards will vary per groups because of their individual projects; however, every group has to expound on their experiments. All students will be exposed to
each other’s projects and their standards. Possible standards include:

Ecosystems have carrying capacities, which are limits to the numbers of organisms and populations they can support. These limits result from such factors as the
availability of living and nonliving resources and from such challenges as predation, competition, and disease that affect biodiversity, including genetic diversity
within a population and species diversity within an ecosystem. Organisms would have the capacity to produce populations of great size were it not for the fact that
environments and resources are finite. This fundamental tension affects the abundance (number of individuals) of species in any given ecosystem. (HS.LS2A.a)

Human activity directly and indirectly affect biodiversity and ecosystem health (e.g., habitat fragmentation, introduction of nonnative or invasive species,
overharvesting, pollution and climate change). (HS.LS2A.b)

The dynamic interactions within an ecosystem can keep its numbers and types of organisms relatively constant over long periods of time under stable conditions. If
a modest biological or physical disturbance to an ecosystem occurs, it may return to its more or less original status (i.e., the ecosystem is resilient), as opposed to
becoming a very different ecosystem. Extreme fluctuations in conditions or the size of any population, however, can challenge the functioning of ecosystems in
terms of resources and habitat availability and may result in new ecosystems. (HS.LS2C.a)

When evaluating solutions it is important to take into account a range of constraints including cost, safety, reliability and aesthetics and to consider social, cultural
and environmental impacts. (HS.ETS1B.a)

Changes in the physical environment, whether naturally occurring or human induced, have thus contributed to the expansion of some species, the emergence of
new distinct species as populations diverge under different conditions, and the decline–and sometimes the extinction–of some species. (HS.LS4C.c)

Student Learning Objectives:

Students will be able to conduct experiments to test various impacts abiotic and biotic factors have on local crops.
Students will be able to propose solutions on ways to increase yield of local crops.
Safety Precautions:
No running in the classroom. All students will have taken the lab safety assessment at the beginning of the year.
Advanced Preparations: Extended time for groups with students with learning disabilities. Large print or brail for individuals with visual impairments.
Set up materials (or make available) for students to conduct their projects.

What the Teacher Will Do
Teacher will ask students to work in their project
groups to create a summary of the methods, project
hypothesis, predictions, and factors that play a role
in their projects in as many sentences as they can
for the next five minutes.
TRANSITION
Teacher will call time at the end of the five minutes and transition to the student’s projects
What the Teacher Will Do
Teacher will walk around the room and observe the
groups progress as they collect data for that day.
(Students will be working on the projects they
create at the beginning of the unit and has been
approved by the teacher. The students will have
pages in their project binders dedicated to data
collection. Students will have the choice to collect
data quantitatively or qualitatively depending on
their experiment. All experimental methods and
data collection will be approved by the teacher
prior to the students beginning their projects in
week two.)
One example of a student project would be to build
an apparatus to test for improving drainage in a
field. An example of students collecting data for
this experiment would be to use water (in place of
rain) and track how quickly water was able to be
irrigated out.
TRANSITION
Teacher will call time at the end of the twenty minutes and will outline the directions for the posters. Teacher will
allow the early finishers to continue working on their explanation posters.
ENGAGEMENT
Eliciting Questions and Student Responses
Teacher: What are the concepts your group has
covered?
Student: We have covered nitrogen levels in the
soil and are writing about our methods of our
experiment (answers will vary).
EXPLORATION
Eliciting Questions and Student Responses
Questions will be altered depending on groups’
research project.
Possible questions include:
Do you feel that the results you are getting are
close to your predictions? Why do you think it is
going differently?
Student example: Since we are collecting data on
different fertilizers used on crops, we are
measuring the height of our plants every day.
Predictions and expectations will depend on
students. The students could expect the Miracle
Grow to work better than the off brand, and they
could find the off brand working better or worse.
Approximate Time: 5
What the Students Will Do
Groups work to create a summary of their projects
(methods, project hypothesis, predictions, and
factors that play a role in their projects) in as many
sentences as they can for the first five minutes of
class.
Approximate Time: 20
What the Students Will Do
Groups will collect data in project binder.
If some groups collect their data faster than others,
the students will be asked to start working on their
posters (next section). Teachers can make
accommodations for students with learning
disabilities by having groups with those students
start working on the poster while they are
collecting data.

What the Teacher Will Do
Teachers will outline the expectations of the
explanation posters on the student’s projects. (the
posters will include a sentence or two sentences
about these categories: methods,
hypothesis/predictions, and factors that play a role
in their projects). Then all groups must include the
title, the research question, preliminary data from
that day, and the student’s names.
This will start the groups thinking about their final
poster projects.
TRANSITION
Teacher will ask students to stick their posters on the wall next to their table and go back to their desk to pull out a
sheet of paper.
What the Teacher Will Do
Teacher will expound on the gallery walk. The
instructions: A student from that group’s poster
must stay at their poster to be a representative to
expound on their project design and answer
questions if the other students are confused. The
representative must collect comments from their
peers. The other students will go around the room
viewing every groups’ poster and leave a comment
on the clarity of the categories, grammar marks,
questions, or implement pro/con comments of their
project factors (Students will use sticky notes).
Teacher will walk around the room keeping all
students on task and ask questions to group
representatives on the clarity of their posters.
EXPLANATION
Eliciting Questions and Student Responses
Teacher: Why did you decide to organize your
poster in a bullet outline format?
Student: We wanted clean cut easy to see
organization of our project.
Teacher: Why did you use a double bar graph to
show your results from today?
Students: We are measuring leaves change in color
from different chemicals sprayed on them and were
counting the number of leaves with discoloration
and leaves without discoloration.
ELABORATION
Eliciting Questions and Student Responses
Teacher: What category do you think this group
explained well? Why?
Student: I like how they described their methods in
a story like way rather than a bulleted list. The
detail was very clear and concise.
Teacher: Why did your group decide to write your
categories in different colors and fonts?
Student: We wanted to separate each section in a
different and interesting way.
Approximate Time: 20
What the Students Will Do
Students will be expected to create a quick sticky
page poster on their projects that include: methods,
hypothesis/predictions, project factors (abiotic or
biotic), title, research question, preliminary data
from that day, and the student’s names.
Approximate Time: 10
What the Students Will Do
A student from that group’s poster must stay at
their poster to be a representative to expound on
their project design and answer questions if the
other students are confused. The representative
must also collect comments from their peers. The
other students will go around the room viewing
every groups poster and leave a comment on the
clarity of the categories, grammar marks, questions,
or implement pro/con comments of their project
factors.
Comments will be on sticky notes, and names will
not be on these sticky notes.
Teachers will inform students that each student will
lose 10% of their project grade if any notes are
derogatory or vulgar.

TRANSITION

Teacher will ask students to leave their poster on the wall, turn in their sticky note comments, and go back to their
desk to pull out a clean sticky note.
EVALUATION Approximate Time: 2 min

What the Teacher Will Do Eliciting Questions and Student Responses What the Students Will Do

Teacher will ask the students to put a sticky note on Why did you put your sticky note on their poster? Students to put a sticky note on the poster that they
the poster that they thought was the most I really like their idea and how they connected thought was the most interesting and most detailed
interesting and most detailed as they walk out the water levels to seasons. The detail was great. as they walk out the door.
door.
Teacher will explain that the students cannot put a
sticky not on their own group poster, they have to
put their name on the sticky side of the poster and
the group with the most sticky notes will get 3
bonus points on the upcoming checkpoint grade.
LSU Team: Courtnie Dicapo Mentor Teacher: Lesson Topic: Abiotic and
and Morgan Story Biotic Factors

Date to be Taught: School/Room:

Time to be Taught: Grade Level: High School

Biology

DATE Requested for Pick-up: DATE to be returned:

TIME Requested for Pick-up: TIME to be returned:

Items Requested # Requested # Returned

Popsicle sticks 24
Copies of activity document 24
 Sticky notes 50
Sticky posters 12

Collected by ______________________________________ Date_____________

Returned by ______________________________________ Date_____________