Modeling Exercise Snapshots
The snapshots provide ideas for integrating phenomenon-centered modeling activities into your instruction. Each of the 7 CCCs is represented by 2-3 snapshots. If you are just beginning to introduce modeling and/or anchoring phenomena in your instruction, these snapshots may be particularly useful.
The Modeling Exercise Snapshots can be used as guidance for implementing phenomena-based modeling within related life science units or as singular modeling activities to help learners develop and strengthen their modeling skills. Note that each snapshot is a suggested activity that emphasizes modeling through a CCC. You can modify, shorten, extend, or skip any activity to fit your context. Additionally, some snapshots extend to other scientific practices, such as interpreting and presenting data. Each snapshot includes suggested model elements and/or sensemaking components, allowing you to jump right to a Visual Library to support the activity.
| Crosscutting Concepts | Phenomena and modeling integration idea Phenomena marked with (v) connect to illustrative vignettes. |
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Cause and Effect: Mechanism and Prediction
Events have causes, sometimes simple, sometimes multifaceted. Deciphering causal relationships, and the mechanisms by which they are mediated, is a major activity of science and engineering. |
MDMA/Water/Estrogen (v) Malaria & Sickle Cell Anemia “Where did the green go?”: Seasonal Impacts on Trees (Deciduous vs Evergreen Trees) |
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Energy and Matter: Flows, Cycles, and Conservation
Tracking how energy and matter flow into, out of, and within systems helps one understand their system’s behavior. |
Inner Life of a Cell Life in a Bottle Ecosystem (v) |
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Patterns
Observed patterns in nature guide organization and classification and prompt questions about relationships and causes underlying them. |
Pedigree Charts and Ancestry Climate Change; Climate Change Predictions (Climate Change & Predicting) Antibiotic Resistance (v) |
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Scale, Proportion, and Quantity
In considering phenomena, it is critical to recognize what is relevant at different size, time, and energy scales, and to recognize proportional relationships between different quantities as scales change. |
Epoch Proportions: Life & Environments of the Geologic Time Scale Properties of Water (v) |
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Stability and Change
For both designed and natural systems, conditions that affect stability and factors that control rates of change are critical elements to consider and understand. |
Artificial Selection (v) Australian Red Foxes and Rabbits in the 1850's |
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Structure and Function
The way an object is shaped or structured determines many of its properties and functions. |
Darwin’s Finches: Evolution of the Galapagos Finches (Natural Selection, Adaptive Radiation) Microscopic Images of Different Cells: Cell Specialization & Differentiation (v) |
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Systems and System Models
A system is an organized group of related objects or components; models can be used for understanding and predicting the behavior of systems. |
HIV Resistance & Immunity mRNA Vaccines (v) |