Action Research Midterm Progress Report
Mayme Walters & Jennifer Olker
East High School – 10th grade Regular and Honors Biology
Introduction
Issue
Students have difficulty understanding how to work with data, create or interpret graphs,
and use graphing programs such as Microsoft Excel. These skills are valuable for
excelling on the standardized tests and continuing on in the sciences (in secondary school
and beyond).
By incorporating real biological data to match the existing biology curriculum, we hope
to supplement the information provided through lectures, laboratory activities, and the
textbook. These datasets also provide an additional source of concrete experiences that
can provide motivation for learning biology topics [3].
Research Question: Is it possible to incorporate real data and graphing into the existing
10th grade Biology class? Does this improve the students’ ability to graph data or
interpret charts?
Project Goals
1. Incorporate real data and graphing into curriculum (practicality, application)
2. Improve students’ ability to make graphs
3. Improve students’ abilitiy to interpret data
4. Improve students’ ability to use Excel
5. Improve student attitude towards working with data
Methods
Investigation: To investigate this question we will add real data and graphing examples
and assignments to the existing biology lessons, where possible.
Evaluation: For each added data/graph example or assignment, we will evaluate the
“success” of the component after the lesson is completed. At the end of each grading
period, students’ assignments will be examined for change. Ruberic was developed to
evaluate the five project goals, with 12 students selected from 1 class period for
assignment evaluation.
Conclusions
Data sets can be incorporated into the current curriculum with sufficient preparation time,
but lessons require large chunks of class time. Additionally, teachers must be prepared to
address technical difficulties and provide hand-graphing options. We determined that it
is possible to incorporate real data and graphing into curriculum, and these additions are
especially beneficial when they supplement unit lessons. Data sets can provide the
concrete experience that motivates learning and leads to greater student engagement and
understanding. Adding smaller graphing components may be more practical than
creating new full lesson plans for graphing.
Lesson
Stream Macroinvertebrate Sampling
Additional Task
Make bar chart by hand to compare collected data (all
classes) to data from 4 North Shore Streams
Excel introduction –
types of charts
Create line graph of tadpole growth data from J. Olker
experiment
Comparative Mammal
Physiology:
2 lessons
Make scatterplots comparing heart rate & size to body
weight. Worksheet.
Egg Lab (Osmosis)
Osmosis experiment done at home, with scientific
journal, measurements, and graphing
Cell Cycle Duration
Worksheet
Interpret graphs of duration of phases of mitosis
Stream Macro-invertebrate Sampling
Comparative Mammal Physiology
A
B
C
resting
heart rate
body weight (beats
species (kilograms) per min)
188
70
pig
70
human 65
18
110
dog
600
mouse 0.025
35
elephant 4400
257
rabbit 3.6
blue
90000
7
whale
0.345
300
rat
D
heart
weight
(grams)
455
313
126
0.14
21386
6.8
E
heart weight
per unit
body weight
(g/kg)
F
G
total heart
life
beats
expectancy per lifetime
(years)
30
80
13
1.5
60
9
260000
80
1.2
5
Plot heart rate (bpm) and body weight (kg)
in log-log scale
Plot total heart beats and body weight (kg)
in log-log scale
1000
y=total heart beats per lifetime
10000000000
y=heart rate (bpm)
100
10
1
0.1
0.01
0.001
0.001
0.01
0.1
1
10
100
1000
10000 10000
0
x= body weight (kg)
Cell Cycle Duration Worksheet
1000000000
100000000
10000000
1000000
100000
10000
1000
100
10
1
0.01
0.1
1
10
100
1000
x= body weight (kg)
10000 10000
0