Brenna Hunt

This week in lab we did a lot of review from previous weeks, including discussing the different biomes and how they would be affected by certain natural and human disasters. We also talked about sea turtles and the obstacles they face even as babies and when they are in eggs which leads to a survival rate of only 1/1,000. We filled out a t-chart of helpful and harmful factors that were both natural and human-caused. One thing that I already knew was that sea turtles are in danger and they require some human intervention to survive, so I was able to reinforce that with these activities and book reading. One way I can apply this learning to my teaching in the future is to emphasize that ecosystems can be influenced both positively and negatively by interfering with animal's survival. My partner and I pointed out how even though many sea turtles do not survive into adulthood, it is a touchy concept to completely turn that around and help almost every sea turtle to survive. Thou...

One thing that I learned this week was the difference between habitats, ecosystems, and biomes. A biome is like a large scale ecosystem, an ecosystem is community of living and nonliving things that interact with each other in a specific environment, and a habitat is the specific place where a particular community of organisms live. One way I can apply this to my teaching is to differentiate similar vocabulary words when teaching a lesson like this by creating an activity where my students can create some type of model showing how biomes, ecosystems, and habitats interact and how they are different. One question I have is about the food chains. If only 10% of energy is retained, how do third-level consumers eat enough food that they can be sustained if they are usually very large animals? Does this high amount of food intake hurt the rest of the levels because they have to eat so much?

This week, we learned about the 5E model of instruction. This model consists of 5 phases, all starting with the letter 'E'. The stages include engage, explore, explain, elaborate, and evaluate. These phases work well in alignment with the NGSS goals, and especially when conceptual understanding is the goal, as this model is inquiry-based. One way I can apply what we learned in lab is by providing my students the time and resources to go through each of the 5 stages. By also creating activities that allow each stage to be enacted, my students can experience their new learning in depth. For example, creating a lesson plan will help me break up each phase and make sure my students are getting each part so they can gather the most information and develop a deeper understanding for the new ideas being presented, and can even connect it to their previous knowledge. One question I have relates to the questions we were asked towards the beginning of the lab, do the 5 stages of the ...

This week in lab we learned more about life cycles. We talked about life cycles of meal worms and butterflies, as well as life cycles of plants. Both of these insects go through a complete metamorphosis, meaning they go through 4 stages. The stages are egg, larva, pupa, adult. A plant goes through 3 stages: seed, seedling, and plant. One of things I can relate to what I have done already is raising butterflies and using a butterfly habitat. When I was growing up, my parents would either order the baby caterpillars or we would find caterpillars out in our yard and put them in our butterfly habitat to watch them grow. Because of this, I knew the process of butterflies exiting their chrysalis and drying their wings, etc. One question that I have always wondered about and still do is, what happens inside the chrysalis as the caterpillar turns into the butterfly? How does it change?