Bio description

Good Practice description (Guiding Document to prepare GPs and start sharing) Your name: Hermann Morgenbesser Country where you teach: Austria General description: Author (of the GP) name: Rosner Bettina (BG /BRG Klosterneuburg) Title of the selected GP: Statistics – biological experiment Subject Area: Biology Other subjects involved (if any): Informatics Age of students: 14-15 Topic: Quantitative analysis of an Osmosis Experiment Content involved: In and out of cells/ Membranes and Osmosis Skills (student skills) involved: Practical lab skills: handling of experimental equipment , measuring ;data collection; analysis: skills in excel and statistics Aims: Applying theoretical knowledge on a scientific experiment. Learn to evaluate and draw conclusions from the findings. Training of different methods and thinking skills for quantitative research. Duration: 135 min. Detailed description of how to proceed (sequence of tasks in a chronological order including indication of time spent on each task): Building up on already taught theoretical background about cells, membranes, osmosis and quantitative data collection, the students got a worksheet with a detailed description of the experiment: Steps of the Experiment: The class was separated into 5 Groups of 5 students in each group. 1. Three different test - tubes filled with: distilled waterweak sugar solutionstrong sugar solution 2. Potatoes cut into chips (length = 5 cm) 3. Test-tubes filled with the chips 4. 30 min. later: measure the length of the chips and write down in the table 5. Transfer of the Data into an Excel sheet 6. Compare the different length of the chips in groups. 7. Buildung statistic output (median, bias, etc…) Methodological aspects: How to launch activities and raise student’s interest: Including students into the design of the experiment. Discussing options and other possibilites for answering the same research question. Transferring the conclusions to living systems, e. g, the human body. How to organize students (individual work, pairs, larger groups, different ways at different moments … ): Groups of five students;Pairs (Experiments),Individual work (calculation and statistics); Feedback (LMS).Presentation: statistics data in class Resources needed (equipment, software, manipulative, text, video, websites, …) : LAB equipment; Worksheets (for filling in the starting time etc). PC’s with Office software Learning Management System Moodle. Specific strategies to keep students engaged: Different stations of LAB working ; Different workplace for creating Data; Data transfer into an Excel file. Lab protocol - LMS Outside the classroom: Homework (if any): Transfer of the data and findings into visually attractive forms. Family involvement (if any): - Evaluation: How to evaluate/access learning : Written feedback; Hotpotatoes test (LMS) = part of an Annual Biology test. This LO was feedbacked by the students after finishing their work. They like the way of getting information. Most of them prefer working in pairs. Our students like lab activities, because the Austrian lesson plans don’t include project working in labs, the universities force this way of working. SPICE- Science Pedagogy Inovation Center for Europe