Final Exam – 2014
Study Guide
Scientific Inquiry Goals
Students will be able to:
• explain to
a lay person the practices that brought about at least one major breakthrough
in each of the four areas of science and how this contributed to our modern
understanding of science.
• Explain what it is to “do science” and how the idealized steps of the “scientific method” do not do an adequate job of explaining what it is to do science.
• Explain and demonstrate how science is a “way of knowing”
• Describe differences in the process of scientific discovery as described in Derry: Serendipity and Methodical Work, Detailed Background and Dreamlike Vision, Idealized models and Mathematical Calculations, Exploration and Observation, the Hypothetico deductive method
• Describe what a generalization is and what it takes to prove and to disprove a generalization or scientific theory.
• Describe a hypothesis, explain when it’s appropriate to use a hypothesis and how a hypothesis differs from a prediction.
• Describe how a hypothesis and a generalization relate.
• compare and
contrast “Scientific Practice” with “Engineering Design”
• describe an
engineering design cycle and how to apply it to design challenges
• define and
provide examples of design criteria and design constraints
• judge a student’s
abilities to do design practices in an “informed” way.
• Provide examples of big ideas which flow through the sciences
• Describe how each field of science relates
• Describe the necessity for observations and characterization of patterns to understand the invisible
• Describe how organization/categorization can predict the unknown
• Explain the value of comparing and contrasting to learn about how and why something works as it does.
• Describe the value of a model regardless of whether it models the phenomena exactly.
• Provide examples of scientific contributions that did not involve experimentation
• Determine the tools used by a certain type of scientist
• Describe the activities that a given type of scientist engages in during a typical day.
• Describe how a person becomes an expert.
• distinguish
effortful practice from regular practice and its necessity in becoming an
expert.
• Recognize science vs. pseudoscience
• Apply the ideas of pseudoscience to a scientific claim to identify if and specifically why it’s pseudoscience. To be pseudoscience some, not necessarily all of the criteria below are required; however, it must claim to be science to be considered pseudoscience.
Real science |
Psuedoscience |
Ideas change over time and build on prior knowledge – old knowledge is not discarded |
Static or randomly changing ideas |
Goal is to achieve some coherent understanding of our observations. |
Vague mechanisms to acquire understanding |
Rigorous logic, a strict chain of deductive reasoning with no gaps or weak spots. |
Loosely connected thoughts |
A new idea is usually presumed wrong until sufficient evidence shows that it’s right. |
Lack of organized skepticism. In fact, it’s forbidden. |
Evidence virtually always builds on prior work. |
Disregard of established results |
·
Rate the
Quality of Evidence used to support an argument based on its level of public
verifiability.
Quality of
Evidence – Level of Public Verifiability (Wendy Adams and Joe Elkins, University of Northern
Colorado adapted from Browne and Keeley) |
||
Low |
Med |
High |
Personal observation |
Analogy |
Peer-reviewed study |
Personal Testimony |
Appeal to authority |
Survey |
Personal Experience |
Case Study |
Statistics |
Intuition |
|
Meta-analysis of peer-reviewed studies |
Content Goals.
Basic
Inheritance
Students will be
able to:
• explain the difference between mitosis and meiosis.
• describe why meiosis is necessary to create gametes (eggs and sperm)
• describe simple inheritance and calculate the probability of particular traits showing up in offspring.
• explain how certain diseases and genetic defects can occur in newborns.
• explain what stem cells are, their purpose and where they exist.
•
describe
the basic process of invitro fertilization (IFV) and genetic testing
•
describe
how the two different types of twin babies can come about – fraternal and
identical.
Earthquakes
Students will be
able to:
·
describe
where earthquakes can be located and how it takes two pieces of information,
the epicenter and the depth, to fully describe the location of the quake.
·
explain
how and why earthquakes are not predictable
·
describe
different types of deformation that rocks can experience due to stress and
strain
Science
of Sound
Students will be
able to:
·
identify
the source of sound based on the idea that vibrations make sound
o Our throat vibrates to make voice
o Straw tip vibrates to make sound
o Plucked string vibrates to make sound
·
Describe
how sound travels as sound waves (not
particles), showing how sound waves travel through air molecules
·
Apply
the idea that sound carries energy and it can be transferred to other objects
or into other forms
·
Define pitch
and frequency and how they relates to treble and bass notes.
·
Describe
natural frequency (The frequency an object “likes” to vibrate at) and how it
affects the sounds we hear from different instruments such as:
o Different lengths of straw “like” different
frequencies so we hear a different note.
·
Describe
the three things that are required to make a musical instrument: 1. A source of
vibration, way to change the pitch and a way to amplify the sound.
·
Identify
how sound is amplified in different instruments. Either via a resonance chamber or sympathetic
vibration.
Students will be
able to:
Describe the basic function of the ear:
• The ear flap is called the pinna and is used for funneling sound into the ear.
• sound waves travel into the ear and through the inner ear into the cochlea
• The cochlea is filled with thousands of tiny sensors called hair cells
• These hair cells turn vibrations into electrical signals that are sent to the brain and the brain interprets the source of the sound (piano vs. a guitar).
• Different parts of the cochlea resonate with certain frequencies....
Some like high pitches and some like low pitches…
• Listening to loud sounds for too long can damage the hair cells
• Damaged hair cells can’t be fixed.
Conservation of Mass
Students will be able to
· describe how mass comes into plants to form the plant material.
· how mass exits humans or other animals when they lose weight.
Conservation of Energy and metabolism
Students will be able to
· apply the concepts of conservation of energy to systems, tracing different forms of energy as they are “used” and converted by plants, animals and other mechanisms.
· Identify energy conversions between kinetic and gravitational potential energy.
· describe how scientists determine how many calories are contained in a type of food.
· explain which variables affect BMI and which do not (weight, height, body fat, age, gender)
· explain what BMI tells about a person including its limitations.
· describe what a person can do to increase their heart’s strength and what affects strain on the heart.
· Identify if a given combination of diet and activity will cause a person to gain weight, lose weight or stay the same.
Quiz solutions: