RET Back in the Classroom


RET Teacher:	Ankie Meuwissen
Subject:	General Science - Human Body
School:	Braintree High School
Grade Level:	7
RET Project Connection	Underground Exploration with Ground Penetrating Radar Modeling

1. Topic/Goal: Students will get an understanding on how doctors are able to detect tumors that are invisible to the human eye, and will be able to find applications of similar techniques outside the medical world.

2. MA State Standard(s) Life Science Strands 5 and 6

3. Essential Question: How can various types of cancerous tumors be detected?

4. Materials: Clay, Objects to hide in the clay, toothpicks, rulers

5. Lesson Development: "The Clay Mystery Challenge and Review"

6. Concluding the Lesson: We will wrap the lesson up with an extension into other fields where similar ways of detecting the invisible might be used, such as finding ground pollution, land mines, oil, etc.

7. Evaluation/Assessment: Review of student work in notebook and during labs. Topic will also be included in chapter test.

CHALLENGE

Your group is provided with a clay ball. In this clay ball an object is hidden. It is your job to figure out what kind of object it is - as accurately as possible.

RULES

Your clay ball is very sensitive and NO PART may be taken off the ball.

The object inside explodes upon air contact, so at no time may any parts of it be exposed to the air.

PROCEDURE

1. Record the number of the bag here:____

2. With your group discuss ways to solve the challenge.

3. Write the solutions down and figure out which is the best solution.

4. When you agree upon a best solution, raise your hand and explain the solution to the teacher.

5. We will then try to find the materials you may need for the challenge.

6. Lastly, you will try to figure out what the object inside your clay ball is, and describe it as accurately as possible below:

7. When finished, fix any and all damage done to your clay ball, put it back in THE SAME Ziploc bag it came in, and return it to the teacher. You will tehn be provided with an even more challenging hidden object and repeat the process you just used to describe this object as accurately as possible. Record the bag number and results on the hidden object below:

Bag number_________