Encourage tinkering with ideas, relationships, connections. Set up situations where students have to find information not readily available in school texts. Provide opportunity for students to design open-ended explorations of the concept. Provide multiple options so students can plan a unique "proof" of learning.
Experiments
Objective: To give the students the opportunity to experience blood circulation in their own bodies and in other living things.
Activity: Have the students observe the blood circulation in the tail fin of a goldfish. This activity includes: wrapping a goldfish in wet tissue to keep it alive, placing the fish in a petri dish, spreading the tail fin on a glass slide and placing a coverslip over it, focusing a microscope (high power) on the tail fin, and observing the single-file movement of blood cells through the capillaries in the tail fin. Next, have the students measure their own blood pressures and pulses at rest and after a vigorous activity. Have them also measure the same in members of their immediate families. Tell them to log the results, making comparisons and contrasts.
