From Dragonflywoman's blog

Click on this image or this link to Dragonflywoman’s blog to learn how to preserve insects in hand sanitizer….what a cool way to prepare insect specimens for the classroom.

http://dragonflywoman.wordpress.com/2011/02/21/hand-sanitizer-preservation/

BTW,  you’ll find a lot of great insect resources on her web site.  I think you’ll be impressed.

Kim Foglia

We lost a great biology educator, Kim Foglia on Jan. 4th, 2011 after a long, dignified and courageous battle with pancreatic cancer.  Back in 2009 a number of AP Biology teachers got together and worked hard to establish an award from NABT, sponsored by Pearson, Benjamin Cummings, recognizing Kim’s unprecedented contributions to the AP Biology teaching community.  She was not able to attend the ceremony at the national meeting but she sent a letter that Patti Nolan Bertino read in her stead.  At the time I thought the letter was particularly reflective of the Kim I knew.  She was appreciative and honored but she immediately put it a challenge back on all of us.  Patti, recently shared the original letter with me and I reproduce it here to honor Kim and to pass her challenge onto the NABT and AP Biology communities:

I want to thank the National Association of Biology Teachers for honoring me with the AP Biology Service award.  I am truly overwhelmed by the attention, but the recognition is much appreciated.  I was so sad that I couldn’t attend this meeting in person, so I want to thank Patti for acting as my stand in.  I also want to thank all the teachers that have been sending me prayers and well-wishes this year.  You have no idea how much you have bolstered my spirit and strength.  I am pleased to say that I am winning my personal war on cancer and look forward to attending next year’s meeting.

This award is for service to the AP Biology teaching community.  In that vein, I want to issue a challenge to the teachers in this room.  You would not believe how many teachers write to me each year pleading for help, telling me they are taking over the AP Biology program at their school and the retiring or departing teacher has left them with nothing.  Rather than this proprietary stance, we need to see ourselves as art of a community–a cooperative communty.

We lose nothing by sharing.  In fact, we all gain.  I know I have gained as much from other teachers as I have given out through my Web Site.  So here’s my teacher challenge:  Look at your classroom and pick out your best practices and offer to freeely share them with teachers beyond your district.  You’ll be amazed at how much more you will get back.

And to NABT, I issue this challenge.  Become the active catalyst to creating this collaborative community.  Acknowledging individual efforts through this award is the first step.  It is a wonderful idea.

However, may I suggest, you can go further.  We need an online community through which we can archive and share quality resources developed by teachers.  There are some very successful models for this that we can learn from.  And it could become the premier venue for best practices in biology teacher.  I look forward to working with you to bring such a project to a successful launch.

We have nothing to lose and so much more to gain.

Thank you.

Kim Foglia

November 12, 2009

We’ve got our work cut out for us.  There is a new AP Biology curriculum coming down the line.  Kim was helping us write some of the new labs for this revision.  The new approach is going to require more than ever that we, as a community, get together, like Kim has challenged and build our own set of resources that reflect the kind of excellent teaching and mentorship that was the hallmark of Kim Foglia.

She was very talented, with a deep knowledge and passion for biology but even more than that she had spunk.  I admired her talent and spunk greatly.

We need more teachers like Kim–it’s time to answer her challenge.

BW

Here they are:

Wickliff, J. L., and R. M. Chasson. 1964. Measurement of photosynthesis in plant tissues using bicarbonate solutions. BioScience 14, no. 3: 32–33.

In this article I saw this graph of a photosynthesis light response curve that got me to thinking:

Last year, the UKanTeach program where I teach acquired a couple of PAR (photosynthetically active radiation) meters to measure photon flux. PAR meters are typically on the expensive side but this model from Apogee runs about $300. I hadn’t taken time to try them out and decided that now was the time.

Yesterday, I went out the north side of Haworth Hall and picked an ivy (Hedera helix) leaf that was growing in deep shade under a shrub.

I picked a shade adapted leaf figuring that a leaf adapted to shade would likely reach photosaturation earlier than a sun adapted leaf. I wasn’t sure whether or not my light source was bright enough to induce photosaturation.

My light source is a clamp shop light with an 8 inch reflector and an 100 watt equivalent compact fluorescent bulb. Actually I found that if I put my meter within a couple of inches of the bulb I can get a flux reading equivalent to a summer’s day. I was sure my light was bright enough for the leaf I had picked.

I modified the technique that I presented here by placing the infiltrated disks in shallow petri dishes instead of plastic cups. I also modified the data collection procedure. Instead of counting disks floating at the end of each minute, I actually attempted to time each disk–a bit of a challenge that I wasn’t quite up to the first time. I should have used a video camera or at least used a computer timer program capable of timing 10 or more “laps” or intervals.

It is real easy to record the first movements of the disks with this technique.

In low light conditions, I started by carefully cutting about 80 disks from one leaf. I then infiltrated ten disks at a time with a dilute bicarbonate solution with a vacuum created with a 10 ml syringe. I placed the 10 sunken disks in separate petri dishes with a total of 30 mls of bicarbonate solution. The dishes with the disks were then placed under a box lid to exclude any light. I then tested 6 of the sets of 10 disks under different light intensities. The data from the highest light intensity are not included because I neglected to use a water heat sink filter to keep the infiltration solution temperature constant. The higher temperatures on this replication affected the outcome. It was only when the light was very close to the petri dish that this was a problem but I need to account for this next time.

Here’s the results:

Note that I’ve plotted plus or minus two estimated Standard Errors for each mean. I was impressed. This is a classic response curve and the parameters of this curve are consistent with data reported in the literature for shade grown English Ivy. I’m more convinced than ever that the floating leaf disk assay is a very valuable tool for a biology teaching laboratory. With this technique students can start their exploration of photosynthesis but the same technique is powerful enough to explore more sophisticated concepts.

From Michael Dougherty:

The American Society of Human Genetics (ASHG) invites you to participate in the 6th Annual DNA Day Essay Contest! It is open to students in grades 9-12.

DEADLINE: MARCH 7, 2011 at 5:00 PM EST

Please visit http://www.ashg.org/education/dnaday.shtml for the rules, rubric, and more information.

2011 Essay questions:

Option1: In 2010, a major discovery in genetics research found that the DNA of some modern humans contains small amounts of Neanderthal DNA. Briefly explain this finding and discuss its relevance to human ancestry and evolution.

Option 2: A number of companies offer genetic testing directly to consumers, bypassing the involvement of physicians and genetic counselors. Discuss whether you think this is a good idea or not. You might focus on medical, ethical, legal, or social dimensions of this issue.

A 1st, 2nd, 3rd place will be chosen for each question. Winning students will receive:

1st Place Winners: $400.00 + Teacher receives a $2,000 grant for laboratory genetics equipment
2nd Place Winners: $250.00
3rd Place Winners: $150.00

Please expect another email in January 2011 when the submission site is live. Questions? Please email Angie Wong (awong@ashg.org).

What are those dark ones doing in there?

In last week’s  “Biology Challenge”, I challenged biology teachers to contribute identifications and descriptions of the relationships illustrated in a photo of aphids, ants and milkweeds.  Sure enough, within an hour the milkweed was successfully identified as Asclepias syrica and the aphids as Aphis nerii.  A number of various Formica species were sent in as tentative identification for the ants in the image.   Though, I would not begin to suggest I know much about ants I am pretty sure you’ll find that these ants belong to the genus Crematogaster–the acrobat ants.   Mark DuBois produced a Checklist of Kansas Ants in the Kansas School Naturalist that includes possible candidates.  There are any number of resources on the web that might lead us to an identification if I collected some of the ants.

But what I really want to get to is the nature of the interactions taking place on the tip of the milkweed leaf.  Several people noted that the ants were tending the aphids in a classic ant/aphid mutualistic relationship.  There’s several items that complicate this however and I think this image can serve as an open door to an incredible landscape of accessible student study.  For starters, while ants do tend aphids on milkweed–the aphids tend to be Aphis asclepias and not A. nerii–that’s what caught my eye.  Hmmmm…A. nerii presumably sports the bright yellows and oranges as warning coloration.  If ants don’t typically tend A. nerii then perhaps the aphid’s  “honeydew” is somehow not as toxic as normal in this instance.   Milkweed plants vary in their toxicity–perhaps parts of the individual milkweed vary in toxicity as well.

Check out Herbivory.com, Anurag Agrawal’s web site for a truly in depth interaction to the milkweed ecological community.  In particular check out his powerpoints and videos under the Multimedia tab.  These will introduce you to the incredible complexity of community level interactions that he and his colleagues are uncovering.  Specifically link to his Publications tab–there, you’ll find a very rich resource of pdf’s that will help you to see the milkweed communities in a different light and help you to guide your students inquiry.   I have spent hours reading these papers.  I think you’ll find that many of them are very accessible.  Here’s a Discover blog post that introduces one of the studies:  Mooney, K. A. and A. A. Agrawal. Plant genotype shapes ant-aphid interactions: implications for community structure and indirect plant defense. American Naturalist 171: E195–E205. Here’s another relevant paper and a link to it:    Smith, R.A., K.A. Mooney and A. A. Agrawal. Coexistence of three specialist aphids on the common milkweed Asclepias syriaca. Ecology 89: 2187–2196.

Once a person starts to focus observations on a relationship like that illustrated in the photo from my original post, then all sorts of questions come to mind.  I propose that this is one of our jobs as biology teachers–put students into a situation/an environment that promotes original and accessible student questions.  Help them to focus their observations and reconcile them with what they know and don’t know.  Questions will follow.   What does this take in the classroom?  Not much really,  start a butterfly garden,  participate in the Monarch Watch’s Waystation Program.  Participate in Monarch Larval Monitoring project.  Here’s a resource on aphid from the MLMP:  Monitoring Aphids.  Participate in the earthworm project that Eric shared.  Participation in projects like these almost invariably leads to students asking all kinds of questions.  At first they are very general and non-focused but with only a little help with some guiding questions from their instructor the students natural curiosity can be turned to powerful questions for study.

Years ago, in the process of helping to establish the Monarch Watch with Chip Taylor, I would promote Monarchs in the classroom by reminding folks of Karl Von Frisch’s description of his honeybees:

“The bee’s life is like a magic well: the more you draw from it, the more it fills with water”.

Really, any natural system is like that once you start to pay attention to detail. Natural systems exude wonder and complexity that begs study. Exploit this with your students—introduce them to doing science by “drawing from the well”….

We’ve had a mostly cool and wet spring to date.  The plant involved is about 0.6 m tall at this point and there is a large flower bud within these leaves.  For this challenge, let’s start with the names of the species involved (at least to genus) followed by a description of the interactions involved.  Turns out there is a great site on the web that has this all documented with photos and scientific papers.  Maybe you can find that.  Part of the reason I put this challenge here is to hopefully inspire biology teachers into thinking just what they and their students might be able to investigate with just a small butterfly garden.  Another image:

btw, I’m putting this challenge up on the KABT BioBlog at the same time—I want to see who figures this out first–the KABTer’s or the NABTer’s……challenge on.

Miniposter--Jai Hoyer

Background and Rationale:

Almost 20 years ago, I was fortunate to be invited to my first Bioquest Workshop at Beloit College. Maura Flannery covered the Bioquest experience in several her columns in the American Biology Teacher. These workshops challenge and inspire you as you work with a number of like-minded biology educators working on the edge of new developments. What really caught me off guard was the intensity of the learning experience. Before the end of the first full day, each working group had to produce a scientific poster presentation. This was my first, personal experience with building a poster so I’m glad that I don’t really have a record of it. I talked to John Jungck about the poster requirements—he told me that the students in his labs prepare a poster for each laboratory–rather than a lab-write up and they have to defend/present them in poster sessions. I immediately saw that a poster would help me evaluate my student’s lab experience while provide a bit of authenticity to my students doing science. That fall I had my students do a poster session that was displayed in the science hall. It was a big success with one exception. For my high school class, the experience was a bit too intense and too time consuming. It turned out that we could only work in one big poster session that year. One of the little bits of clarity of thought that comes from teaching for decades instead of years is the realization that students need to practice, practice, practice—doing anything just once is not enough. I thought about abandoning the poster session since it was too time consuming. However, I witness great learning by all levels of students with this tool. I didn’t want to abandon it. With this thought rolling around in my mind, I was primed as I visited one of my wife, Carol’s, teacher workshops. She’s a science teacher, too. In this workshop she was presenting an idea to help elementary teachers develop science fair project—a mini-science fair poster. This idea involved the used of a trifolded piece of 11″ x 17″ paper. The teachers were inputting their “required” science fair heading with post-it notes. Revision was a breeze. The teachers learned the importance of brevity with completion. They added graphs and images by gluing their graph to a small post-it. It was all so tidy, so elegant, so inviting, I probably stared a little long, struck dumb by the simplicity of the mini-poster. Once I came to my senses I realized that the mini-poster was my answer–a way to incorporate authentic peer review, formative assessment in my science classes. My high school classes could be like John’s college classes.

Making Mini-posters:

Putting the miniposter together

Over the years, mini-posters have evolved into the following. We take two colored (for aesthetics file folders, trim off the tabs and glue them so that one panel from each overlap—leaving a trifold, mini-poster framework. Each student gets one of these. For these posters we go ahead and permanently glue on headings that include prompts to remind the students what should be included in each section. Later, they can design their own posters from scratch. The image at the top of the page and the ones following will give you an idea. By using post-it notes the posters can easily be revised and we also reuse the poster template several times over the year. Don’t feel that you have to follow this design–feel free to innovate.

Implementing Mini-posters:

Defending the miniposter

For the first mini-poster experience, I give my students as much as a class period to work up a poster after completing an original research investigation. (We do quite a few of these early in the school year with others periodically throughout the rest of the year). Sometimes poster work is by groups and sometimes by individuals. Once the posters are ready, the class has a mini-poster session. The class is divided up in half or in groups. Half the class (or a fraction) then stays with their posters to defend and explain them while the other half play the part of the critical audience. To guide the critic, I provide each “evaluator” with a one page rubric and require them to score the poster after a short presentation. I restrict the “presentation” to about 5 minutes and make sure that there is an audience for every poster. We then rotate around the room through a couple of rounds before switching places. The poster presenters become the critical audience and the evaluators become presenters. We then repeat the process. By the end of the hour every poster has been peer-reviewed and scored with a rubric–formative assessment at its best. The atmosphere is really jumping with the students generally enjoying presenting their original work to their peers. The feedback is impressive. At this point I step in and point out that I will be evaluating their posters for a grade (summative assessment) but they have until tomorrow (or next week) to revise their posters based on peer review—oh, and I’ll use the same rubric. The process works very well for me and my students and my guess is that it will for yours as well. You’ll naturally have to tweak it a bit—please do. If you find mini-posters work for you, come back here and leave a comment.

The images are from our UKanTeach Research Methods course first assignment—a weekend research investigation.  Thanks to the Research Methods course for the images.

Here’s a file that illustrates what a miniposter might look like constructed in MS Word.

Links to websites for advice on making scientific posters:

http://www.swarthmore.edu/NatSci/cpurrin1/posteradvice.htm

http://www.ncsu.edu/project/posters/NewSite/index.html

http://people.eku.edu/ritchisong/posterpres.html

http://www.tc.umn.edu/~schne006/tutorials/poster_design/

http://www.the-aps.org/careers/careers1/GradProf/gposter.htm

The Rusty Blackbird Blitz

Rusty Blackbirds are in decline and Kansas is part of their winter range. This “blitz”/survey is set up for the first two weeks of Feb. Check out the link for protocols. If you decide to get out and count blackbirds don’t just report to eBird; share your experience here on the KABT BioBlog.

An excerpt from the Cornell eBird website:

January 11, 2010

Singing male Rusty Blackbird, Alaska. Photo by David Shaw (www.wildimagephoto.com).

Populations of Rusty Blackbirds are crashing! Their numbers have plummeted by as much as 88-98% over the last few decades, according to data gathered between 1966 and 2006 for the North American Breeding Bird Survey and Christmas Bird Count. A species that was once considered to be abundant is rapidly disappearing before our eyes. Your observations can help save this species by arming scientists with critical information about its ecology. The Rusty Blackbird Working Group has developed the Rusty Blackbird Blitz, a winter survey whose goal is to count Rusty Blackbirds range-wide just prior to spring migration. From 30 January – 15 February, search for Rusty Blackbirds in your area and report your observations to eBird.