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  PBL3: Project, Place, and Phenomenon-Based Learning
  • PBL Home
  • Harmful Algal Blooms (HABs)
  • Nuclear Energy Project
  • Mars One Project
  • Amateur Astronomer / Astronomy Week Projects
  • BP Oil Spill Project
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  • Project Noah Virtual Zoo
  • Getting Started: Finding a Project
  • Getting Started: Activities
  • Getting Started: Assessment
  • Crime Scene: Density
  • Maize High CSI

PBL: Harmful Algal Blooms
​#RehabHABs

A Real-World, Systems-Thinking Science Investigation


Phenomenon 
In this sequence, students will be co-creating storylines about the water supply of their own region. As each water supply has a unique composition, the result of each investigation will also be unique. The complete story map is not yet drawn; instead, students can co-create one for their own community through data visualization and data storytelling.

The following is a storyline "prompt" to get started on this real science investigation in your area:

According to USGS, “Freshwater and marine algal blooms can be called harmful because they lower dissolved oxygen concentrations, alter aquatic food webs, leave ugly scums along shorelines, produce taste-and-odor compounds that cause drinking water and fish flesh to taste bad, or produce toxins so potent they poison organisms in the water and on the land.” CyanoHABs, a suite of potent neurotoxins and hepatotoxins [liver toxins], have been implicated in human and animal illness and death in at least 43 states in the United States, and microcystins, the most common and most potent group of cyanotoxins, occur in all 50 of the United States (1, 2, 3, 4).

​
A report of the American Water Works Association (AWWA) Research Foundation found that 80 percent of samples in Canada and US were positive for microcystins, and they were found to persist for up to two months following the decline of algal populations”
(5). Entering populations by way of drinking water and by way of the food supply from irrigated cropland, toxins from harmful algal blooms have been shown to successfully migrate through both the blood-brain and the blood-testis barriers, implicating them in both structural and functional physiological changes in animal models and in the promotion of proto-oncogenes, the genes responsible for all known cancers (6, 7). 

"USGS National Water-Quality Program scientists are leading a diverse range of studies to address cyanoHAB issues in water bodies throughout the United States, using a combination of traditional methods and emerging technologies in collaboration with numerous partners. However, despite advances in scientific understanding of cyanobacteria and associated compounds, many questions remain unanswered about:
  • the occurrence of cyanoHABs,
  • the environmental triggers for toxicity, and
  • ​the ability to predict the timing and toxicity of cyanoHABs."
                     (Source: USGS National Water Quality Project)


The answers to these questions are hidden in the water quality data of USGS, and your students have a real-world, interdisciplinary, cross-disciplinary Science investigation to conduct that will benefit your families, community, and community partners for years to come!



Engaging in Argument from Evidence

  • Field Work Training/ Primary Data Collection: Consider taking your students on an adventure to the water! Or if that is not possible, take the water to your students!
    • Water Sampling Protocols by Michigan Sea Grant
    • LEAF PACKS
  • Lab Work Experimental Design: Student questions can and should drive this scientific investigation! Students can design their own protocol for setting up a safe, classroom lab-based inquiry algal blooms (HABs) using non-toxic algae from Carolina Biological. 
  • Teachers: Do you have interest in potentially hosting an experimental algal tank in a larger university research study?  Email me asap!
  • What methods do you use to foster scientific discourse in the classroom? I have found the Driving Question Board (DQB) to be an invaluable tool for getting students to argue from evidence!​
Credit: Utah State Parks and Recreation

Develop & Use Models

Entry-Level Data-Users:
Using Common Online Data Analysis Platform (CODAP), a free educational software for data analysis, located at https://codap.concord.org/, you can manipulate and visualize trends in data from United States Geological Survey (https://waterdata.usgs.gov/nwis), a new site released February 12, 2019.

Intermediate-Level Data-Users:
Students can quantify the levels of fluorescence from chlorophyll-a, phycocyanin, and/or phcoerythrin in water samples using a range of methods and equipment:

Vernier's Go Direct® SpectroVis® Plus Spectrophotometer, which can also be used as a fluorometer or fluorimeter

Fluorometers and Sondes for Cyanobacteria - Ohio EPA


Advanced Data-Users:
Ready to deep-dive?

​

Test drive these other Project EDDIE resources:
  • Set up and run the General Lake Model (GLM) in the R statistical environment to simulate lake thermal structure.
  • Understand the structure and function of GLM configuration files, driver data, and output files.
  • Modify the input meteorological data for one GLM model to simulate the effects of different climate scenarios on lake thermal structure.
  • Interpret model output from GLM simulations to understand how changing climate will alter lake thermal characteristics.
  • Use the GRAPLEr R package to set up hundreds of model simulations with varying input meteorological data, and run those simulations using distributed computing.
  • Explore the application of distributed computing for modeling the effects of changes in climate on lakes.


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3D Assessment
  • The Task Annotation Project in Science is a valuable framework for the development of multimodal, 3D assessments. (Disclaimer: I developed exemplars and an interchangeable performance assessment template for this project.)
  • For this Harmful Algal Blooms (HABs) project, in particular, my students developed websites, videos, presented at local, state, and national science and government conferences, etc. (You can see some of that work on Twitter with the hashtag #RehabHABs.) 
  • I use the Science & Engineering (SEPs) rubric below for evaluation, and these are a couple of "infographics" that students used to demonstrate content prowess prior to presenting in public venues.​
  • If you are interested in more exemplars, please feel free to email me, and I will shoot some your way! 

seps_rubric.pdf
File Size: 242 kb
File Type: pdf
Download File

Science & Engineering Practices (SEPs) Rubric
Credit: Conejo Valley Unified School District, California
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Where is the curriculum "map" for how to do this project? 
​
​
In genuine science practice, there is no road map to the unknowns. Instead, as scientists, we create the map as we explore the terrain.

Without a story map, or prefabricated storyline, how can teachers get students where they need to go? 

We instead explore, and the 
Crosscutting Concepts lead the way to our discovery of the unknown hidden within the data.

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***Click Here for Examples of "How-To" to Use the Crosscutting Concepts (CCCs) to Navigate and to investigate Data sets***


Performance Expectation(s)
The list below makes a set of connections between the instruction outlined on this web page and the NGSS. Other valid connections are likely.

HS-LS2-3: Ecosystems: Interactions, Energy, and Dynamics
    Construct and revise an explanation based on evidence for the cycling of matter and flow of energy in aerobic and anaerobic conditions.

HS-LS2-4: Ecosystems: Interactions, Energy, and Dynamics
    Use mathematical representations to support claims for the cycling of matter and flow of energy among organisms in an ecosystem.

HS-LS2-5: Ecosystems: Interactions, Energy, and Dynamics
    Develop a model to illustrate the role of photosynthesis and cellular respiration in the cycling of carbon among the biosphere, atmosphere, hydrosphere, and geosphere.

HS-LS2-7:  Ecosystems: Interactions, Energy, and Dynamics
    Design, evaluate, and refine a solution for reducing the impacts of human activities on the environment and biodiversity.

HS-ESS3-1: Earth and Human Activity
    Construct an explanation based on evidence for how the availability of natural resources, occurrence of natural hazards, and changes in climate have influenced human activity.

HS-ESS3-4:  Earth and Human Activity    
    Evaluate or refine a technological solution that reduces impacts of human activities on natural systems.
Science & Engineering Practices

Analyzing and Interpreting Data

Analyze data using computational models 
in order to make valid and reliable scientific claims. (HS-ESS3-5)

Using Mathematics and Computational Thinking
Create a computational model or simulation of a phenomenon, designed device, process, or system. (HS-ESS3-3)

Engaging in Argument from Evidence
Evaluate competing design solutions to a real-world problem based on scientific ideas and principles, empirical evidence, and logical arguments regarding relevant factors e.g. economic, societal, environmental, ethical considerations). (HS-ESS3-2)

Developing and Using Models 
Use a model to provide mechanistic accounts of phenomena.  (HS-ESS2-4)

Constructing Explanations and Designing Solutions
Construct an explanation based on valid and reliable evidence obtained from a variety of sources (including students’ own  investigations, models, theories, simulations, peer review) and the assumption that theories and laws that describe the natural world operate today as they did in the past and will continue to do so in the future. (HS-ESS3-1)



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  • PBL Home
  • Harmful Algal Blooms (HABs)
  • Nuclear Energy Project
  • Mars One Project
  • Amateur Astronomer / Astronomy Week Projects
  • BP Oil Spill Project
  • Keystone Pipeline Project
  • Project Noah Virtual Zoo
  • Getting Started: Finding a Project
  • Getting Started: Activities
  • Getting Started: Assessment
  • Crime Scene: Density
  • Maize High CSI