This blog post from the Wisconsin Fast Plants website describes the value …
This blog post from the Wisconsin Fast Plants website describes the value of using Fast Plants as a model organism for biological and environmental investigations. This post is primarily an index of Fast Plants resources, providing prompts for teaching goals and suggesting Fast Plants kits (distributed by Carolina Biological) that can be used to accomplish these teaching goals.
This blog post from the Wisconsin Fast Plants website provides an overview …
This blog post from the Wisconsin Fast Plants website provides an overview and list of resources for teaching life science topics with Wisconsin Fast Plants. This blog is primarily a point of reference for other Fast Plants teaching resources.
This blog post on the Fast Plants website discusses the concept of …
This blog post on the Fast Plants website discusses the concept of plant blindness (the inability to see or notice the plants in one's own environment) and the importance of ending plant blindness and supporting plant vision. Fast Plants are an effective introduction to growing and noticing plants: to know a plant, grow a plant! This blog post includes links to preservice teacher lesson plans that support plant vision and a botanically-inclined future.
This blog post from the Wisconsin Fast Plants website describes the value …
This blog post from the Wisconsin Fast Plants website describes the value of using Fast Plants as a model organism to teach plant life cycles at multiple grade levels. Content includes an overview of plant growth stages (including videos) and links to resources and activities that can enrich teaching and learning about the plant life cycle as your Fast Plants grow and develop.
This video shows scanning a Wright's stained blood smear slide with pauses …
This video shows scanning a Wright's stained blood smear slide with pauses to view leukocytes. The video was taken at 630X under a brightfield microscope. This video is compatible with a laboratory lesson in which students observe, categorize, and count leukocytes. More than 100 leukocytes are viewed in this video. Note, this video does not have narration.Video credit: Emily Fox
The purpose of this lesson is to teach students about blood and …
The purpose of this lesson is to teach students about blood and its components while instilling an appreciation of its importance for survival. The lesson takes a step-by-step approach to determining the recipe for blood while introducing students to important laboratory techniques like centrifugation and microscopy, as well as some diseases of cell types found in blood. It also highlights the importance of donating blood by explaining basic physiological concepts and the blood donation procedure.
In this activity, students develop an understanding of the relationship between natural …
In this activity, students develop an understanding of the relationship between natural phenomena, weather, and climate change: the study known as phenology. In addition, they learn how cultural events are tied to the timing of seasonal events. Students brainstorm annual natural phenomena that are tied to seasonal weather changes. Next, they receive information regarding the Japanese springtime festival of Hanami, celebrating the appearance of cherry blossoms. Students plot and interpret average bloom date data from over the past 1100 years.
This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by …
This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:
"Bogs are unique ecosystems, which have important ecological functions in carbon storage, climate stability, water quality, and biodiversity. The bog microbiome, composed mostly of bacteria that live in association with bog plants, plays key roles in these functions. However, the differences in associated bacteria between vascular plants and the non-vascular bryophytes that predominate in bogs remain unclear. Researchers recently used shotgun metagenomics to investigate the microbes associated with 12 representative bog species. Vascular plants tended to be colonized by specific bacteria, while bryophytes exhibited greater bacterial species richness and diversity. The two plant groups also had different marker species. The gene profiles of vascular plant- and bryophyte-associated microbes revealed functional differences, including differences in nitrogen cycling..."
The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.
Storms can have devastating impacts on coastal communities. Typically, tropical storms like …
Storms can have devastating impacts on coastal communities. Typically, tropical storms like hurricanes get the most attention, but there are other types of storms that occur at more northern latitudes that can be just as destructive. For example, in January of 2018, Winter Storm Grayson caused more than 300,000 power outages and $1.1 billion in damage, and resulted in 22 confirmed casualties along the eastern seaboard. In this module, students will learn how barometric pressure changes during a storm, analyze the effect of storms on oceanographic variables, classify a storm as a bomb cyclone, and compare a bomb cyclone to a hurricane. Ultimately students will use their quantitative reasoning skills to manipulate and visualize data during storms in the northeastern United States.
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Students investigate the bone structure of a turkey femur and then create …
Students investigate the bone structure of a turkey femur and then create their own prototype versions as if they are biomedical engineers designing bone transplants for a bird. The challenge is to mimic the size, shape, structure, mass and density of the real bone. Students begin by watching a TED Talk about printing a human kidney and reading a news article about 3D printing a replacement bone for an eagle. Then teams gather data—using calipers to get the exact turkey femur measurements—and determine the bone’s mass and density. They make to-scale sketches of the bone and then use modeling clay, plastic drinking straws and pipe cleaners to create 3D prototypes of the bone. Next, groups each cut and measure a turkey femur cross-section, which they draw in CAD software and then print on a 3D printer. Students reflect on the design/build process and the challenges encountered when making realistic bone replacements. A pre/post-quiz, worksheet and rubric are included. If no 3D printer, shorten the activity by just making the hand-generated replicate bones.
Each student selects a popular science book on a geoscience topic of …
Each student selects a popular science book on a geoscience topic of interest to them, finds two book reviews of that book, and writes a book review that includes some description of the book as well as some commentary and review. Each student also gives a short (three-four minute) oral presentation of their review to their classmates (either stand-alone or with one Powerpoint slide).
(Note: this resource was added to OER Commons as part of a batch upload of over 2,200 records. If you notice an issue with the quality of the metadata, please let us know by using the 'report' button and we will flag it for consideration.)
This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by …
This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:
"Neuroblastoma is a childhood tumor that forms in the neural crest during early development. While treatment has remained elusive, scientists do know that a partially deleted chromosome 11 contributes to one of the most aggressive forms of neuroblastoma. Here, researchers now say, lies an important gene whose absence gives rise to runaway tumor cell growth. That gene is discs large homolog 2, or DLG2. DLG2 and other genes in its family play important roles in cell structure and growth. DLG2 gene transfection experiments slowed the growth of neuroblastoma cells, whereas silencing DLG2 promoted neuroblastoma growth. A closer look revealed that low DLG2 expression fast-tracks cells through the growth phase of the cell cycle, bypassing a critical checkpoint designed to catch faulty DNA. A review of real-world patient data showed that low DLG2 expression is in fact correlated with poor survival in patients with neuroblastoma..."
The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.
This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by …
This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:
"SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, continues to course through communities around the world. While researchers have learned enough about the virus to build defenses, much remains unknown about how SARS-CoV-2 interacts with the immune system to cause disease. One promising target researchers are exploring is a process known as “T cell exhaustion.” During infection, disease-fighting T cells are recruited to areas where inflammation is taking place. These cells are virus-specific and represent one of the most critical defenses against SARS-CoV-2. Some patients with COVID-19, however, show significantly reduced T cell counts, impairing their ability to fight the disease. Although it’s unclear how T cell exhaustion occurs, numerous potential biomarkers of this process do exist. Among these is the protein PD-1, which helps T cells identify cells as friend or foe..."
The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.
In January of 2003, CSUF drilled and completed a deep multiport-monitoring well …
In January of 2003, CSUF drilled and completed a deep multiport-monitoring well on the north side of campus. This was done in order to gain a better understanding of the local subsurface geology and groundwater conditions in and around CSUF. Samples were collected from the drill hole (boring) every 5-feet. The total depth of the well is 870 feet below ground surface (grade). Borehole geophysical data (E-log) information was collected from the boring prior to the installation of the well pipe. As you describe the soil samples, compare and contrast your findings to those of the geophysical signature (gamma-ray log) found in the accompanying "E-log" for the boring.
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Preparation requires lecture and/or reading material on stereonet methods in plotting small …
Preparation requires lecture and/or reading material on stereonet methods in plotting small circles, and on making stereonet rotations along small circles. In lab, students are given a description of the problem, along with a schematic cross section on the blackboard showing how the dip of the eastern fold limb is not constrained, but how the orientation of cross beds in an unoriented core are the only data available to help constrain the dip of the fold limb. Students are then given a while (~20 minutes) to think about and discuss how a solution can be made. An open class discussion follows, and then I guide the students through the answer. An alternative method is to let the students take a week to think about and solve the problem with little or no help.
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Question In many high-grade metamorphic belts around the world, rocks were buried …
Question In many high-grade metamorphic belts around the world, rocks were buried 20-30 km beneath the surface during deformation and metamorphism. How deep is that relative to the cruising altitude of a typical commercial airplane flying across the country?
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Question Over the last 70 million years or so, the Hawaiian Hot …
Question Over the last 70 million years or so, the Hawaiian Hot Spot has been pumping out lava, a total of about 775,000 km3 worth. As the Pacific Plate has moved over the hot spot, the volcanic peaks and plateaus of the Hawaiian-Emperor seamount chain have formed. If all of that lava had erupted in California, how deeply would California be buried in lava?
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Question Suppose that you are building a new house. It will take …
Question Suppose that you are building a new house. It will take about 90 kg (198 pounds) of copper to do the electrical wiring. In order to get the copper in the first place, someone needs to mine solid rock that contains copper, extract the copper minerals, throw away the waste rock, and smelt the copper minerals to produce copper metal. Rocks mined for copper typically contain only very small percentages of copper -- about 0.7% in the case of most of the big porphyry copper deposits of the world. How much rock would someone have to mine in order to extract enough copper to wire your new house?
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Question In 1983, an eruption began at Kilauea Volcano in Hawaii that …
Question In 1983, an eruption began at Kilauea Volcano in Hawaii that has proved to be the largest and longest-lived eruption since records began in 1823. Lava has poured out of the volcano at an average rate of about 160 million m3 per year. To put those flow rates into perspective, let's suppose that the volcano was erupting directly into your classroom. At these flow rates, how long would it take to fill your classroom with lava?
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Question Let's suppose that you have a shoe box full of water …
Question Let's suppose that you have a shoe box full of water (the box is waterproof, of course). The shoe box weighs about 9 kg (19.8 pounds). Suppose you emptied the box and filled it completely with rock (little or no air space). How much would it weigh? Let's empty the box again and fill it completely with pure gold. How much would the box weigh now?
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