M A R C H 2 0 1 2

the

Carbon TIMEs

In This Issue • Andy’s Message • Mealworm Investigations • Dear Staci • Reminders: important! • New Materials Available • Notes From the Field • Trivia Question • Spotlight on the Undergrad • Important Links • Carbon TIME Comics • Trivia Answer

Andy’s Message As you can see from the contents of this newsletter, Jenny Dauer, Courtney Lannen, and Marcia Angle have been hard at work checking out the investigations and looking for the most robust ways to do them. So if you have questions about mealworms, mold, or plants, be sure to check with Staci or Jenny to see that you have the latest advice on what the possible problems are and how to manage them. See also the reports on mealworms and fungi in this issue and the pages about methods in the cross-unit documents section of the teaching materials web page (http://bit.ly/xecY3e). We are making good progress on the Ecosystems unit. Look for it to be on the web page soon. And work on our last unit, Human Energy Systems, is underway. Look for a progress report next month and a teacher’s guide soon after. Finally, we are planning now for spring workshops and for the next round of piloting—with much improved units thanks to your work and feedback. Dan or I will be in contact with each of you about your interest in continuing to work on the project next spring. We are looking forward to continuing the work!

-Andy

2

MARCH 2012

Mealworm Investigations Over the past few weeks, we have made improvements to the mealworm investigations that use soda lime and BTB (Animal Unit, Core Lesson 5). We recommend including food (potato) in these investigations because the mealworms respire much more when they have a food and water source. It is most efficient to use mealworms of a total mass of 20 grams or greater to see convincing results over 24 hours. Each mealworm is approximately 0.1 gram, so 20 grams of mealworms is about 200 worms…that’s a lot of worms! Taking the total mass of the worms is much easier than counting them out by hand. The chart below shows the data we collected while we were working on improving this investigation. When worms don’t have food they lose a very small amount of weight. When worms have food the gain in mass between the worms and soda lime is approximately equal to the loss in mass of potato. In addition, we found that the BTB investigation can proceed quickly enough to perform within a class period, when using greater than 25g of mealworms. We also found that potatoes are a good food source for the mealworms and food investigation (Animal Unit, Core Lesson 1 and 2). Potatoes do not rot as quickly as fruit and the worms seem to enjoy eating them. Remove as much potato peel as you can as the worms may have difficulty getting through the peel.

-Courtney Lannen and Jenny Dauer

In this graph, trials 1 and 2 were done without food, and trials 3 and 4 were done with food. Notice the difference between the mealworm mass change with food! Thanks, Jenny, and Courtney for figuring this out!

Results of Mealworm

Investigations

3

MARCH 2012

Dear Staci Feedback on the Units Dear Staci: I would feel more comfortable talking with someone about my progress on units than I would updating my progress on the wiki. Is it possible for me to talk with someone about my progress?

Staci: Yes. We hope that the wiki will be a helpful tool for feedback, but if you would prefer talk with someone we can schedule a time for someone to call you on the phone and we can enter what you say into the wiki ourselves. If you’d like to do this, please let me know! We will have someone call you ASAP.

Video Taping in Class

Dear Staci: I am finding the microphone and video taping difficult. The microphone is hard to work and I am worried that I am not recording the class lessons the best way possible. Can you help with this? Staci: Yes! We are working on a solution to this problem and we will let you know as soon as we have ideas about how to make this better. Thanks for letting us know!

Reminders We included these last month, and are including them again because they are top priority! If you've distributed gift cards to students for interviews, please send in the completed gift card receipts. Some of the cards have come out of pocket, and your project manager can't get reimbursed until you send them in! We need signed consent forms for the student interviews! If you've already sent in the interview tapes, please get those forms in ASAP.

New Materials Available

• A new updated version of the Decomposers teacher’s guide is now available on the Environmental Literacy Website.

• Also new on the website: BTB and Soda Lime information sheets and sample data for investigations are available! These are a result of the work that Jenny and Courtney have been doing on the investigations.

• Ecosystems Unit coming soon! Thank you for being patient with us as we finish up this unit.

4

MARCH 2012

Notes from the Field

It's unanimous! Students and teachers love moldy Jell-O. When asked "What are your favorite activities; ones that you want to try again next year?" the teachers who filled out Part 3 of the feedback form for Decomposers all agreed the Rotten Work lesson on mold biosynthesis and cellular respiration was a hit. "Students got great data, were able to link loss in mass with decomposers conducting cellular respiration. Observation of fungal growth and learning about fungal structure was also a valuable outcome of this activity." Cindy Jatul "It was great to see the growth of the decomposers. Adding Biomass and biosynthesis and at the same time the loss of mass due to cellular respiration. Clear data to work with. I also used and will use the powerpoint slides on decomposers again next year. Good job covering cellular respiration, biosynthesis and growth as well as how decomposers break down organic material." Tracy Landboe "Students were very excited to look at their petri dishes under the microscope." Margaux Isaman There were some issues, however, as the Jell-O liquified early in some classes, most likely due to the microbes eating the gelatin protein. Maybe we should use the Jell-O Jigglers recipe! Marcia Angle discovered another issue with modly experiments, when her daughter said to her: “You know your mom is a science teacher if you come home and find mold growing in your refrigerator!” Marcia said she refrained from pointing out that some might consider her daughter’s pile of smelly sneakers in the hallway another kind of science experiment.

-Jennifer Doherty

Some teachers have reported that the Process Tool was difficult to use for some students in Systems & Scale. One suggestion put forward is to introduce the process tool earlier, before the first Carbon TIME unit, with a physical change such as a sponge drying out. When asked "Did the expressive form of the process tool help your students clarify their thinking?" teachers reported yes, it was helpful for students to organize their thinking, especially in the earlier units. However, many teachers indicated they thought the process tool is used too often in the curriculum as it is written and students have learned to fill it out without thinking. We are also taking this suggestion into account as we revise the units.

-Jennifer Doherty

Rotten Work not so Rotten

Process Tool: Use it Early, but not Often

Trivia Question Which of these greenhouse gases is most abundant in the atmosphere? a) Carbon Dioxide b) Methane c) Nitrous Oxide d) Water Vapor

Meet Etiowo Usoro, a new member of the Carbon TIME team. Etiowo is originally from Troy, Michigan, and is currently a sophomore physiology major at Michigan Statue University. He wears many hats in the Carbon TIME project, but some of his time is spent making spreadsheets, handling student tests and data, distributing teacher materials, and doing developmental coding. After he graduates, he is interested in moving on to study oncology or stem cell research. He is a big soccer fan, and his favorite team is the Portland Timbers. He is interested in working on Carbon TIME because he says that “the information that we can learn from Carbon TIME is endless!”

Carbon Time Wiki: http://carbontime.wikispaces.com

Environmental Literacy Homepage: http://bit.ly/xecY3e

Facebook: www.facebook.com/groups/179507025481693/

Twitter: @CarbonTIME

Trivia Answer

D Water Vapor Water vapor is the most abundant greenhouse gas in the atmosphere. As the Earth's atmosphere warms, water evaporates faster from oceans and ground sources, which in turn heats up the atmosphere further and continues the cycle. Carbon dioxide (CO2) is the next most abundant gas, followed by methane and nitrous oxide. So if it's not the most abundant gas, why are climate change scientists so concerned about carbon dioxide? While methane actually has a much stronger warming effect than CO2, carbon dioxide is responsible for over 60 per cent of the enhanced greenhouse effect. It can also stay in the atmosphere a lot longer than methane, with a lifetime of five to 200 years as opposed to methane's 12 years. Burning of fossil fuels is releasing carbon into the atmosphere at a faster rate than it can be absorbed. Currently, atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide are rising by over 10 per cent every 20 years.

Spotlight on the Undergrad

Welcome, Etiowo!

Important links

MARCH 2012

Carbon TIME Comics