Our Latest Adventures!

So I'm pretty sure I've already explained that I teach 7th grade at a STEAM school, which is by far the craziest, most rewarding career anyone could have!  There's never a dull moment with these kids.  This week, we tackled our second dissection of the year- The brain dissection!  I like to time this dissection every year to coincide with the season premiere of the Walking Dead.  Why?  Well because TWD is awesome! Why else?  No, seriously, many of my students are fans of the show as well, so this is just another way to make a connection between class and the real world for them.

Whenever I start this lesson I send out a staff email to remind folks that my room, the hall, and everyone that passes through is going to smell like formaldehyde.  I forgot to do this with the heart dissection last month and the janitor started getting calls from staff that they smelled an electrical fire.  Oops!  Sorry John!

This picture brings me so much joy because it reminds me of just how quirky and fun middle school kids can be.  These boys keep me on my toes, and I love them for it.  As you can imagine, I have to allow time in my day to explain "why you can't eat the sheep brain," and "no we can't dissect human brains and here's why..." and "Yes, it's a real sheep brain.  Yes, the sheep it came from is dead."

Even though I teach biomedical engineering, one of my primary focuses for this lab is the Language Arts standard of reading and following multi-step written directions. We have heard over the years from our industry partners that they struggle to hire graduates who have this skill.  Thus, I make it clear to my students that their ability to read and follow directions directly relates to their future professions.  

I allow the students to choose their own groups, but I will modify when needed to insure there are some strong readers in the groups so that if a student struggles with reading there is someone there able to provide support, and that there's at least one person per team willing to touch the specimen.  At the beginning of the year in enforce lab partner roles and responsibilities, something like this, and I make it well known that I have zero tolerance for foolishness on lab days. Once the students get the hang of it, the roles happen naturally because the expectation is established.  Kids really do appreciate roles, structure, expectations, and consistent consequences for those in violation of the expectations.  I've found that if I start to slip myself, they remind me of what is expected and I best follow through with what I've said would happen!  They're always watching! Moral of the story, don't ever make promises you can't keep!

These girls were super excited about this dissection because the last time we dissected, I posted their picture to Twitter and our state department of education re-tweeted it!  They were Twitter celebrities in our home state!

The essential question for this Problem-Based Learning Unit is, "How does the brain work, why is it important, and what happens when doesn't work correctly?"  I'm still practicing my essential question writing, so if you have a better one, please share!  We started with studying the senses, which tied to our previous lesson on homeostasis.  This lead us to studying the brain and thus to the brain dissection so that we can explore the brain regions, their function, and how they relate to the senses.

The next phase of this Problem-Based Learning Unit will be to explore the neurological disorders that can affect the brain.  During this phase, I typically use the ELA research and presentation standards to allow students to do a presentation on their selected disease/disorder.

And just for fun, we throw in some studies on zombies.  Among other things, I use the older resources from the CDC on zombies for this part. I've collected quite a bit of resources for a Zombie PBL on my Pinterest page, and my Pearltrees page if anyone is interested.

We round out the Brain PBL with a focus on exploring the different medical inventions and innovations involved with diagnosing brain disorders and diseases.