Jonathan Leibovic Unit Topic: Human Ecology // Grade level: 8 Stage 1 Desired Results Content Standard/Established Goals(s):

S8.A.1.1.1 Distinguish between a scientific theory and an opinion, explaining how a theory is supported with evidence, or how new data/information may change existing theories and practices. S8.A.1.1.2 Explain how certain questions can be answered through scientific inquiry and/or technological design. S8.A.1.1.3 Use evidence, such as observations or experimental results, to support inferences about a relationship. S8.A.1.2.2 Identify environmental issues and explain their potential long-term health effects (e.g., pollution, pest controls, vaccinations). S8.A.2.1.5 Use evidence from investigations to clearly communicate and support conclusions. S8.A.3.1.1 Describe a system (e.g., watershed, circulatory system, heating system, agricultural system) as a group of related parts with specific roles that work together to achieve an observed result. S8.A.3.1.3 Distinguish among system inputs, system processes, system outputs, and feedback (e.g., physical, ecological, biological, informational). S8.A.3.1.4 Distinguish between open loop (e.g., energy flow, food web) and closed loop (e.g., materials in the nitrogen and carbon cycles, closed-switch) systems. S8.B.1.1.4 Identify the levels of organization from cell to organism and describe how specific structures (parts), which underlie larger systems, enable the system to function as a whole. S8.A.1.2.2 Identify environmental issues and explain their potential long-term health effects (e.g., pollution, pest controls, vaccinations) S8.B.2.1.1 Explain how inherited structures or behaviors help organisms survive and reproduce in different environments. S8.B.2.1.4 Describe how selective breeding or biotechnology can change the genetic makeup of organisms. S8.B.2.1.5 Explain that adaptations are developed over long periods of time and are passed from one generation to another. S8.B.2.2.1 Identify and explain differences between inherited and acquired traits. S8.B.2.2.2 Recognize that the gene is the basic unit of inheritance, that there are dominant and recessive genes, and that traits are inherited. S8.B.3.1.1 Explain the flow of energy through an ecosystem (e.g., food chains, food webs). S8.B.3.3.4 Explain the long-term effects of using integrated pest management (e.g., herbicides, natural predators, biogenetics) on the environment. S8.C.2.2.1 Describe the Sun as the major source of energy that impacts the environment. S8.D.1.2.1 Describe a products transformation process from production to consumption (e.g., prospecting, propagating, growing, maintaining, adapting, treating, converting, distributing, disposing) and explain the processs potential impact on Earths resources. S8.D.1.2.2 Describe potential impacts of human- made processes (e.g., manufacturing, agriculture, transportation, mining) on Earths resources, both nonliving (i.e., air, water, or earth materials) and living (i.e., plants and animals).

Understanding(s)
Students will understand that claims in advertising, and claims in general, cannot be swallowed whole at face value that there are many ways to approach a scientific question, including controlled experimentation and secondary research that the human body is a system, comprised of many organ systems that the human body is itself part of a much larger system of energy and matter flowing across the Earths surface that scientific questions are never really settled, but arguments for a particular conclusion become stronger or weaker as evidence accumulates

Essential Question(s):
How do you know whether something is healthy? What kind of evidence do you trust or believe? What happens to our food after we eat it? What happens to our food BEFORE we eat it?

Student objectives (outcomes)

Students will know the major organ systems of the human body, including their names, functions, and representative organs the basic tenets of experimental design, including hypothesis, control, independent and dependent variables, and data collection and analysis

Students will be able to critique claims that are not founded on sound evidence defend their own conclusions with robust evidence

Performance Task(s):

Stage 2 Assessment Evidence Other Evidence:

In-class participation; taking good notes on graphic organizers

Week 1: Participate fully in a class discussion/debate about whether V-8 Splash is healthy Week 2: EITHER take a 30-item PSSA-style test OR write a 1-3 page paper OR submit a design for another Is this food healthy? investigation

Learning Activity M

Stage 3 Learning Plan Objectives/Goals Formative Assessment Pose the question; design the research projects
Watch video. What are some ways we could investigate whether this claim is true? Anticipated responses: experiment, look up ingredients. Divide students into two groups: one to look up ingredients (give them packet on High-Fructose Corn Syrup and Vitamin C), and one to experiment (make sure they have a control group, constants, good data collection, a plan to get V-8 Splash, and informed consent. Give them a good graphic organizer!!!) Inform students that on Friday we will be having a debate, and their job before then is to pay attention in class and gather as much information about their assigned topic as possible. Everyone will be expected to participate fully with what they learned in Fridays discussion, and they will be expected to cite evidence to back up their claims. If someone else makes a claim and does NOT back it up with evidence, students will be expected to ask about the evidence.

Beginning Culminating

Tu W Th F

Tu W Th F

Digestive and Excretory Systems Cardio-respiratory systems Nervous and endocrine systems Support claims, and critically refute other claims, WITH EVIDENCE Health: from an individual to a systemic perspective Food Webs Photosynthesis and respiration Artificial selection & genetics
Demonstrate that you have learned something by completing one of three optional tasks

Graphic organizer Graphic organizer Graphic organizer Active, respectful, thoughtful participation in the fullclass debate about whether V-8 Splash is healthy

Give students reading packet (Omnivores Dilemma) and introduce Fridays assessment options. Frame the weeks topics and do a KWL chart. Graphic organizer: what did you eat today? Song/dance Game EITHER take a 30-question PSSA-style test on human ecology, OR submit a 1-3 page paper about the experience, OR design another experiment to test whether or not a food is healthy

Verbal-Mathematical 1-2 page reflection paper (double-spaced)

20-question PSSA-style test

Design an experiment to test whether a food is healthy. Must include: the name of the food, what you know about it, a hypothesis, an independent variable, control group, a dependent variable, constants, and what kind of data you would collect. YOU DO NOT HAVE TO DO THE EXPERIMENT, just show me the design. (give template)

Visual Draw a food web incl. sun, 8 producers, 4 herbivores, 2 predators, 1 apex predator, and decomposers. Label each organisms niche and use arrows to show flow of energy. (give example) Draw and label a diagram of: 1 cell, 1 nucleus, 2 chromosomes, 2 loci, and 4 alleles. Using color coding, show (and label) one set of alleles that is heterozygous and one that is homozygous. Illustrate process of evolutionary change in one documented species (give options!). Show a timeline and at least 3 distinct phenotypes. For each phenotype, describe ONE adaptation the organism has to survive/reproduce in its environment, and ONE source of stress or selective pressure. Include bibliography (list of information sources).

Musical-Kinesthetic Perform photosynthesis song/dance (may be recorded)

Compose your own song/dance for a food web or artificial selection (if no song, must include a brief description with vocab) Compose your own song/dance for some environmental issue you are concerned about (air pollution, water pollution, climate change, deforestation, environmental health, etc.)

Everyone will complete a 15-item PSSA-style quiz on Friday (12 multiple choice, 3 short response) Verb Math Music Inter Intra Dance Visual Natural
1-3 page reflection paper (doublespaced) Design an experiment Perform photosynthesis song and dance Groups of humans also form systems: systems of government, systems of business and economics, systems of cooperation Monitor your body systems for a week and keep track of your findings. You must log at least TWO data points per day for Compose your own song/dance for a food web, artificial selection, or an environmental issue you are concerned about Draw food web and cell Make a list of as many systems as you can and define their name, inputs, outputs, processes, byproducts, stresses, and

and love. Human systems are usually much harder to predict than other systems. Write about a human system (i.e. the judicial system, our system of law-making, our education system, an occupation, anything). Identify the inputs, processes, outputs, byproducts, feedbacks, and stresses on the system. What is a change that might occur in this system? Predict how the system MIGHT react to such a change.

each system: circulatory (i.e. pulse), respiratory (i.e. breathing rate), and digestive (what goes in or what comes out). What changes did you see over the course of the week?

feedbacks.

Rubric: -Uses appropriate vocabulary -Describes how the system would respond to a change