"Jurassic Park has made the general public very aware of the wonders and possible horrors of genetic engineering. The drama of life unfolds within a single cell."
This is the first page of a new section, "Mathematics & Genetic Engineering." This section spans several pages, so expect me to devote several blog posts to this topic.
Cell biology, of course, counts as life science. Therefore, if I had taught science the way I was supposed to, this topic would have been covered in my seventh grade class. Instead, I attempted to teach it to my eighth graders under the NGSS standards.
I've admitted before that life science isn't my strong suit. And so I tried to use my Bruin Corps student, a molecular biology major from UCLA, to explain the details of this topic. In reality, I should have come up with a stronger science program from the start of the year -- well before the arrival of my Bruin Corps student -- and then had him supplement that curriculum, rather than try to have him be the curriculum.
Of course, I couldn't make the students enthusiastic about science if I am not enthusiastic about it. To increase my interest in life science, let's try to tie it to my best subject, math -- and this is exactly what Pappas does in this section. She writes:
"Here enter the mathematical concepts of patterns, sequences, relations, one-to-one correspondence, all playing a role in unraveling the codes and mysteries of the living cell."
We also see how Pappas ties cell biology to a branch of science I'm stronger at -- chemistry (as I wrote in yesterday's post):
"It is amazing to consider that every living cell is composed of the same six elements -- carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, phosphorus, nitrogen, and sulfur."
Again, this purpose of this is to engage myself with the lesson by tying it to my stronger subjects. But the next step is to engage the students with the material. Pappas herself suggested a way when she mentions the movie Jurassic Park.
At the time Pappas wrote her book in 1994, the first Jurassic Park film had just been released. Since then, it has expanded into a full franchise, with Jurassic World having been released two years ago and the fifth movie, Fallen Kingdom, to be released around the last day of this school year. So surely it wouldn't have been that difficult to tie the movies to the science lesson. "Have any of you watched the newest Jurassic Park movie? Do you know how the scientists in the movie brought the dinosaurs back to life? It's called genetic engineering...." This might have sparked an interest in learning the science and convince the students to let me teach them even though I wasn't a true science teacher.
I owed it to my students to teach them life science -- after all, I'd never know how many future doctors I had in my classes. One seventh grade girl once told me that she wanted to become a veterinarian when she grew up. Obviously, vets need to be familiar with life science -- and this includes genetic engineering (what is dog breeding after all).
Lesson 0.2 of Michael Serra's Discovering Geometry is called "Line Designs." In this lesson, students learn to draw amazing designs with nothing but straight lines. Serra writes:
"The symmetry and the proportions in geometric designs make them very appealing. Geometric designs are easy to make when you have the tools of geometry."
Serra explains to the students that there are many tools used in geometry -- including the compass, straightedge, ruler, and protractor. As a second day of school assignment, this is a great time to tell students to purchase these tools for use in this class.
Today's assignment officially requires only a ruler. Technically, the compass or protractor could be used to ensure that the angles are right angles, but I expect the students to have access only to rulers for this assignment.
The first question directs students to re-create two designs using only lines. Notice that the first one can also be completed using graph paper. The last two can be drawn on isometric graph paper if it is turned sideways. (Yes, I still recall the problems my class had with isometric graph paper.) One of these is Sierpinski's Triangle, a famous fractal.
Serra also writes about several famous architects -- Ustad Ahmad Lahori, the designer of the Taj Mahal (and a mathematician!), as well as Frank Lloyd Wright. I include the project based on architecture on today's worksheet.
Meanwhile, I skipped Serra's question on the symmetries of the benzene molecule. Of course, this question would be related to yesterday's and today's Pappas pages.
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