Provide a metaview, lifting students into a wider view of the concept. Use another medium (not reading or writing) to connect students' personal knowing to the concept (i.e. visual arts, music, movement, metaphor, etc.) Involve learners in reflective production that blends the emotional and the cognitive.

Show VIDEO "Models" from Search for Solutions.

Objective: To have the students move from the general idea of a model to the special use of models in science by showing a video that shares several specific examples of scientific models.

Activity: To make the bridge to scientific models, specifically that of Watson and Crick's DNA model, the students are shown the Search for Solutions segment on Modeling. This segment is one of nine, twenty minute segments which are readily available on a free-loan basis and may be copied by the school. In this segment on Modeling, several examples both historical and current are shown. One of these features, Linus Pauling, and how he made a paper model of the alpha helix while recovering from a cold. Oodles of noodles (found in the supermarket and very inexpensive) can be brought in their package--tightly coiled to fit. Then boil them right before their very eyes. They relax and you can start to spread them out a strand at a time to show that chromatin, about a meter of it, must be VERY tightly coiled to fit inside the nucleus of a cell.

Assessment: Student attention and response to the video.