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Middle School • Fungi and life processes • Legacy Series

Nov 17, 2016

These videos are part of a Legacy Series, meaning that they were produced earlier than the other case studies you see on this website. These have been so popular with our viewers that we’ve included them here.

Last year Ms. Bauer taught a unit on fungi but had the sense that the unit was dry and that the students were not able to retain a lot of the information they learned. The focus was on fungi as a kingdom and the students learned about the phyla within the kingdom. They did a series of activities such as a mushroom walk around the school, making spore prints, and learning about the ecological role of fungi. They also did an experiment to create the “best recipe” for yeast metabolism. The students were actively involved in the experiment but their focus tended to be on how much carbon dioxide was produced by the yeast. Students read about the role of sugar in cellular respiration and chose to manipulate the carbohydrates and sugars they gave to the yeast but some students also chose to add items like lemon juice. Most students understood a chemical reaction took place but some students did not attribute the reaction to a metabolic process in the yeast–visualizing something more like vinegar and baking soda as the reason for gas production.

This year Ms. Bauer shifted the focus of the unit to the interrelationships of fungi life processes. Fungi were used as examples to show how these life processes characteristic of all living things. She chose to focus on the role of fungi in decomposing matter, how they digest matter, how they use cellular respiration to generate energy from sugars and why they use this energy—which is chiefly used for reproduction. In this way the unit shifted from being about yeast as a topic with some focus on processes east do to being about an explanation for why yeast decompose matter.

Students worked to develop the following model, which includes the processes of extra-cellular digestion, absorption, and cellular respiration:
Complex carbohydrates + enzymes > sugar and oxygen > energy + carbon dioxide

To focus the students on the idea that yeast exemplify processes of all living things and to generate student interest, Ms. Bauer used the essential question “How am I similar/different than a fungi?” to frame the unit.

Pre-unit interview with the teacher
Days 1, 2: Eliciting experiences
Day 2: Building background knowledge
Days 3 ,4: Initial explanations of decomposition
Days 4, 5, 6 Yeast experiment Round 1
Day 6 Building knowledge & refining the model
Day 7 & 8 Investigating digestion & respiration in yeast
Day 9 &10 Generating evidence-based explanations
Day 11 Applying and extending the model
Days 11 & 12 Folding in reproduction
Day 12 Synthesizing ideas

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This site is primarily funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) through Award #1907471 and #1315995