Gingerbread Anatomy - New and Improved!

While I have made Anatomy gingerbread men before - see HERE, today was a totally upgraded experience.  I found an amazing activity online by Mr. Stephens where students create a clay gingerbread man, and perform surgery on him.  

I used this as a review of anatomical terminology before their midterm.  We all know reviewing can be very dry and difficult to get students interested in, and this hooked even my most reluctant students.


Here's an example of the instructions from his lab - "The patient's spleen was ruptured during the accident and needs to be removed.  Make a sagittal incision in the lateral portion of the left hypochondriac region.  Which organ must you move out of the way in order to locate and remove the spleen?  Suture the incision by drawing a short line with cross marks on it."


With something as simple as toothpicks, a plastic knife, and play-doh, my students were reminded of planes/sections, directional terms, and abdominopelvic regions.

There is a surgery documentation form where students record all their procedures, and at the end they must determine priority order if they were doing triage on the patient in the ER - bringing in those real life career connections.

They had a great time and were reminded of their terminology in a way that paper and pencil just can't compete with.

The Wonderful World of Task Cards

Toward the middle of last school year, I discovered the wonderful world of task cards.  Now, I'd been forcing my students to move around the room to review stations for some time - but this is much more effective.  Each card has a question and a number, and students can choose which questions they'd like to answer.  They're full color - with engaging graphics, and the students really like them.  Some even have QR codes, or ask students to perform artistic tasks like drawing, writing poetry, or inventing superheroes.

I've been particularly enamored with a few users on TPT, including Surviving Science, Bond with James, Brilliant Biology, and The Science Duo.

After having these printed in full color, and laminating them in the school library (thanks go to our AWESOME librarian), I can keep these for years to come.

My favorite thing to do has been separating them into six categories and pushing my tables into six groups with table tent category labels.  Students are required to spend a certain amount of time at each table and then rotate, recording their answers on notebook paper or the worksheet provided.

So today, when i couldn't find a set of task cards with enough detail for anatomy, I created my own.  The first set is about epithelial tissue types, and I'm working on one about connective tissue types as well.

I chose to make my cards a little smaller than some of the ones on TPT, so it takes less paper and laminating material to make them - although I'm still toying with the idea of making them bigger like the others I've seen.

I hope you give task cards a try in your classroom - they're such an effective strategy!

Fizzy Drink Stoichiometry

Last year I stumbled across a lab for stoichiometry that has students create carbonated Kool-Aid by combining food grade citric acid and baking soda in their drink.  It worked beautifully, and we completed it again today.  I bought four packets of generic fruit punch drink mix, a bag of sugar, one box of baking soda, plastic spoons, cupcake paper wrappers for measuring the powders on the balance, enough red plastic cups for each team to have one, and enough small Dixie cups for each student to have one.  The food grade citric acid was a bit harder to find.  I called around to grocery stores after reading that it was used in canning, but no local shop had it in stock.  They sweetly offered to order it for me, but I figured I could do that myself.  I ended up purchasing a small jar online.  Each team of four students uses less than one gram, so the 100+ gram small jar is more than enough, and not expensive at all. Citric Acid


Students first taste the drink alone, drink + citric acid, then drink + baking soda.  It's a very dramatic response when they taste them.  I always stress that no one is required to eat/drink anything they don't wish to, but I encourage them to try it if they feel comfortable doing so. 

The final part of the experiment is to

1) write a balanced equation for the reaction between citric acid and baking soda
2) calculate the quantity of baking soda that would react completely with 0.30 g citric acid.
3) mix your calculated quantities together in the drink.  If calculations are correct it's lovely and bubbly, but not sour or salty.
4) answer analysis questions about the work, including several more three step stoic problems leading toward the idea of limiting reactants.

 I'm very happy with the science involved, the dramatic student interest, and the content ties to real life in such a simple way.  I think this lab will be a winner for years to come.


The activity HERE is very similar to what I use, although I've modified the questions to suit my curriculum.

Lift a Flap Stoichiometry Practice

When we move from one step conversions to three-step stoichiometry problems, students struggle at first.  The idea that they must combine three different conversions confuses them, and they need some support.  Often, they need individual help more than I can offer, with lots of them needing my help and only one of me available.  One solution I've found to this problem is "Lift A Flap" Stoichiometry Practice.



Students are given a regular stoich worksheet with three step problems (just like our practice the previous day, with new numbers and reaction examples).  Set up around the room are eight stations with the problems worked out for them, but hidden under little paper flaps.  They can peek to see how to set up any part of the problem they want, or they can just check their answers.





This activity isn't for a grade, as that just encourages them to copy the answers without thinking about the process.  They know that tomorrow we're going to be doing a stoich lab, and if they don't understand the process, they won't be successful in their lab.  This is a problem for two reasons - they will lose points tomorrow on the lab AND the lab is edible.  If they don't calculate the quantities correctly, their drink will turn out disgusting.  Hopefully tomorrow I'll take some photos and blog a bit about our Fizzy Drink Stoichiometry Lab.  It was a big hit last year, and I'm really looking forward to trying it again.

Diagnosis Success: Making Anatomy and Physiology Come Alive

Last spring I purchased a few new books from NSTA, one of which is titled "Diagnosis Success: Making Anatomy and Physiology Come Alive" by NH Maller.  I've implemented most of the book now, so i feel good about speaking to its success in my classroom.

The students pretend to be doctors, including starting with "Medical School" where they research four medical conditions (later seen in their patients), and reading and signing the Hippocratic Oath.

The book has four anonymous celebrity patients, and encourages you to choose popular faces from the entertainment industry to connect students to their work.  Each patient has a chart and over the course of six lab tests, students identify which condition the patient has and creates a final diagnosis.

Teachers are encouraged to support each lab test with information about a different body system, and covers the Urinary, Digestive, Blood, Lymphatic, Respiratory, and Endocrine Systems through the labs.  This has taken more time than I anticipated, but the students have stayed engaged each time I bring back their "Celebrity" patients and updating their medical charts.  I've kept manila folders in the class for each group to keep their lab results and patient charts in, so they're always accessible.

Some of the labs are a bit gross (digestive by-products), or socially edgy (HIV test), but the students have really enjoyed the work and I think they see a more powerful connection to WHY we might want to know how the body systems work.

One of the best things is, when I had a question I was able to email the author from her website, and she responded to me the next day (question about materials needed for a lab).  She was very friendly and helpful, and was interested to hear how the implementation worked out in the classroom.

Overall, I think this term was very successful, and the increased student engagement was compliments of Maller and her new book.

Oxidation Reduction Batteries

Last year when teaching about Redox reactions in Chemistry, I could feel my students lack of energy and imagine little floating Z Z Z Z zzzzzz over their heads.  I decided this year to do something a bit more interesting, inspired by a blog called Kitchen Science by the Naked Scientists.  They referenced a YouTube video where the author shows charging his iPod with a fruit battery.

I downloaded one such video, and used it as a jumping off point with my students to inquire, "Can you charge an iPod with a fruit battery?"  We spent 6 days on this short PBL project, and it was completely student driven.  Students were shown the video (hoax), and shown a real example in a Two-Potato Clock that I bought at a garage sale last year for $1.  

After students journaled about how they think the clock works, they chose groups and researched their own food batteries.  They had one day in the computer lab to research and develop their own experimental plan, including safety information, materials lists, step by step instructions, and blank data tables.

We had two days in class to perform experiments, and access to several types of wire, metal plates, alligator clips, multimeters, and potatoes.  Anything else needed to be brought from home.  They also used a Kill a Watt meter to measure how much energy their own phone or iPod charger uses, so they can make a direct comparison between their battery and charging the device.

At the end of collecting their data, we spent one day on direct instruction of what redox reactions are, and how they power the two potato clock example from the first day.  They compared their understanding from their journal on day 1 to their understanding after this activity.

Lastly, students used this new information and photos they took during the experiment to develop a two slide presentation for the class.  They included diagrams / photos of their most successful batteries, and the chemical reaction that was causing the flow of electrons (including identifying what was being oxidized and what was being reduced).  This quick two slide presentation provided a nice quick conclusion of their work, as well as reflecting on what they could have done to make their battery better in the future.

At the end of the class on the final day, we compared the data collected by students (amps and volts), and determined there was no way the initial video was real, it was indeed a scam.  One of my students said we'd "busted" the myth.  I'm just glad we learned about Redox with less pain than last year, and hopefully making more of a memory for the future.

Anatomy Gingerbread Men

When looking for a post-midterm activity for my students, I stumbled across an amazing blog with posts entitled Science Cookie Roundup.  She has collected many beautiful cookies with science themes, and I thought I would try my hand at this with my students.  We have one day between completing our exams and a two week holiday break, so this really fit the bill.

My cookies: skeletal, circulatory, and digestive systems

I purchased frozen gingerbread cookies from GFS, along with a tub of white icing, piping bags, and Wilton food colors I had from home baking projects.  I showed students a few example pictures I found online, and they had a blast.



My favorite part of this activity is that it's holiday related without being religious.  At school I need to be sensitive to the fact that  many of my students do not celebrate Christmas, but everyone can have fun decorating a cookie.


The students really enjoyed making their cookies, and were so excited to have me take pictures of their work.  Here are a few of their creations.

ok, so they're not all science...

beautiful detail on her holly and string of lights

little pink heart to accent her skeleton

This one broke his arm, so it's bleeding.

this skeleton is wearing a Santa suit.

Mr. and Mrs. Claus

Tarzan and Jane.  My student says this counts as science because Jane went to study the gorillas...

Two skeletons made by friends sitting next to one another, so they placed them holding hands.

nice contrast with the green and white