Jon Choe

Multidisciplinary Unit: Science

TCH 306
1. While reading the book, “The Hunger Games”, there was a fictitious bird called the
Jabberjay, which was created by the higher up government to spy on the community. The
bird had the ability to repeat conversations from enemies which gave information to the
government. While reading upon that, the Jabberjay bird is an example of a genetically
modified organism. Students will find the meaning of a genetically modified and
organisms and explore the risk and benefits of using GMOs.

2. Students will be able to construct an explanation based on their evidence from

experiments and from the texts given to them about whether GMO’s are a positive,
negative, or both to society.

Students will be able to gather information from the given texts and comprehend what
GMO’s are and the effects that they have on food and animals.

3. MS-LS4-5: Gather and synthesize information about the technologies that have
changed the way humans influence the inheritance of desired traits in organisms.
MS-LS1-5: Construct a scientific explanation based on evidence for how environmental
and genetic factors influence the growth of organisms.

4. Charles, Dan. “GMOs Are Safe, But Don't Always Deliver On Promises, Top Scientists
Say.”NPR, NPR, 17 May 2016,
www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2016/05/17/478415310/top-scientists-say-gmos-are-
safe-but-dont-always-deliver-on-promises.

Mashable. “Neil DeGrasse Tyson Gets to the Bottom of GMOs.” YouTube, YouTube, 30
Aug. 2017, www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMDhUsxom0U.

5. “GMOs Are Safe, But Don’t Always Deliver on Promises, Top Scientists Say”
An article that describes how GMO’s were used on soybeans to have a longer lasting
survivability with weed killers. They genetically modified these soybeans twenty years
ago and the data shows contentious results that would lead the public into suspicion. The
article goes into depth about the use of GMO’s on crops and that they show no risk
involving the nutrition of the crop itself, the article concludes that the government needs
to have more regulation involving the GMO’s. Some would say that the insects would
grow an adaptation to the GMOs, since the GMOs prevent insects from feeding off the
crops. However, the article mentions that there was no evidence of insect adaptation.

“Neil Degrasse Tyson Gets to the Bottom of GMOs”

Neil Degrasse Tyson and Chuck Nice have a discussion as to why we need GMO’s. They
have discussion about what a GMO is and why would we need it. They interview other
experts on GMO’s and discuss and analyze their response and their views on GMOs.
Similar structure to a podcast.
 6. https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2016/05/17/478415310/top-scientists-say-gmos-are-
safe-but-dont-always-deliver-on-promises
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMDhUsxom0U

7. The reason I chose a YouTube video and an article as the texts for this unit because both
text provides two sides to GMO’s and this topic is a debatable topic. There are both
negatives and positives to GMO’s and showing students the information about the unit
and provide them with one side of the argument, that does not show effective teaching.
Showing both sides of the topic provides students a choice as to whether they believe is
GMO’s are a good to society or a negative to society. The YouTube video is a discussion
about GMO’s from Neil Degrasse Tyson, though he is an expert on astronomy, he is a
well-known scientist that brings in experts about GMO’s and they discuss the effects of
GMO’s and investigate further into whether they are a positive or a negative. The article
shows the positives of GMO’s but do not always deliver from scientists. The article
provides a short podcast that students would listen to and students would answer
following questions that would relate with the article and podcast. Both texts would be
necessary for this unit, as mentions students are able to observe both sides of the
argument and this would potentially lead into a class discussion as to if they are in
support of GMO’s or not.

8. An explanation of how you will address each phase of learning with each text. For
each text, create a table that responds to the following phases of learning, as
described in BLL Ch. 7-10. Provide justification for the strategy selected.

“GMOs Are Safe, But Don’t Always Deliver on Promises, Top Scientists Say”

Problematic Situation: Students would have already been

aware of what a genetically modified organism is and have
done tests and experiments on GMOs. The title of the article
would be the problematic situation. Students would describe in
their own words of how to regulate the problem if they were
Phase 1: Activating &
given the power to find the solution to this problem. This
Connecting
specific strategy would be appropriate for the middle school
(BLL Ch. 7)
classroom because the student’s responses would not have a
generally correct response. Their responses would involve
multiple solutions, one may be better than the other, but the key
would be that there is no one correct solution. Therefore, this
would bring in the creativity aspect from this text.
Following the problematic situation would be the Think Pair
Share. After students have thoroughly read through the text
Phase 2: Monitoring &
made notes and then wrote a response as to how to regulate or
Checking
fix the problem from this article, students would then share
(BLL Ch. 8)
their ideas with other peers. After sharing, the students would
suggest to one another or question their ideas, bringing in
 constructive ideas towards one another and gives students a
chance to defend why their solution would be best. Think pair
share of this text brings in the discussion from the articles and
since students are sharing with one another, students are
moving around and being active.
Zooming in and Out: This strategy would work while students
are reading the article itself. For students to go forward with
their thoughts for the problematic situation, reading the article
would not be the best help for students to fully comprehend
what the article is pointing out. By providing students a
Zooming in and Out guide, students can identify and write
Phase 3: Consolidating & down the main ideas that the article mentions and to write down
Reconnecting the unimportant facts from the article. By modeling out how to
(BLL Ch. 9) identify using the Zooming in and Out guide, students will be
able to differentiate the differences of what is important and
what is unimportant from the article. As mentioned before, this
strategy will allow students to practice their ability to read a
text and pin point what the main idea and important information
that goes along with the main idea are. Useful skill to have as
students move forward in their education.
As students are discussing their ideas with the problematic
situation students would discuss within a group of their peers
and come up with one final solution and then posting that
solution by blogging. Students would summarize the article
Phase 4: Extending & they have read and respond with their thoughts and opinions
Reflecting that their group cam up with on social media. For students to
(BLL Ch. 10) express their final thoughts through social media, students are
given the practice of how an average citizen can contribute to
society when they have strong feelings that are fore or against a
big issue. The importance of blogging brings in student to be
bold with social justice.

“Neil Degrasse Tyson Gets to the Bottom of GMOs”

Phase 1: Activating & Exploratory Question: The questions while watching the
Connecting video would be “Why do we need GMOs?” or “Do we need
(BLL Ch. 7) GMOs?” The video is very heavy and loaded with a mass of
information, students would watch during class, but watching
three minutes at a time to have students reflect upon what they
watch and jot down notes to the exploratory questions. The
exploratory questions would be appropriate for this text because
the video has loads of information that discuss the importance
and brings in information as to do we need GMOs. The video
brings in the opinion of students which would lead into debates
or meaningful discussion.
Phase 2: Monitoring & Think aloud: This method would be done as student are
Checking observing the text. Instead of stopping every paragraph it would
(BLL Ch. 8) be to stop every couple of minutes. Students would jot down
their notes towards the exploratory question. The think aloud
method brings in the importance to stop observing the text itself
and reflect upon what you have just observed. The
appropriateness of reflecting on what you observed is a skill
that brings importance when given heavy assignments that
requires one to look back and re-observe.
Phase 3: Consolidating & 3-2-1 Strategy: as students are jotting down their thoughts
Reconnecting towards the exploratory questions, there is information that
(BLL Ch. 9) students have learned from observing this text, students can
find interesting facts from the video, and students would write
down their question they may still be curious about. Using this
strategy to reconnect would be appropriate with this text
because of the last part that students would be doing, which
would be what question do they still have. The questioning of
what a student had just read or observed upon can lead to a
researching stage for the students. The importance of this
method leads towards the next step of this unit.
Phase 4: Extending & Plain English: as mentioned the text itself is loaded with a
Reflecting mass of information, students would then be divided into
(BLL Ch. 10) groups and students would collaborate what they saw. Each
group would be responsible for breaking down each parts of the
video. Each portion would be divided up for every three
minutes. The same way that was done with the think aloud.
Plain English would be most appropriate for this text because
the text was loaded with information and breaking it down and
restating the parts of the text into simpler terms would allows
students that do not have the academic vocabulary skills to
understand what they just watched.

9. Formative assessment for the students would be for the students to respond to the article
as to whether the government should be more involved with regulating GMO usage by
farmers. Students would provide evidence from other sources to support their claim and
reasoning. For the YouTube video on GMOs, students will create a graphic organizer, an
outline, or any sort of organized notes either by hand or electronically on the topics that
were discussed within the video. Students will also provide their responses on the topics
that were being discussed

For the summative of this unit, students will be in groups of three or four and design a
poster that will show whether they are in support of GMOs or are against. The poster will
be a sign that includes what their positioned when it comes down to GMOs and will have
a short description. Like a protest, but on the back of the poster will have students
reasoning as to why they chose to be in that certain position when in the topics of GMOs.
Each group will also create a chant, like a protest, there are chants that protestors would
shout out in public. Each group will have their own chant. Each poster will be presented
in front of their peers.