The MBER-Biology Year-Long Sequence (The“Subway Map”)
- *Read Suggested Pacing Guides*
- *Information About NGSS Alignment*
- *Navigate to Individual Units (via the Year at a Glance page)*
Models are by nature interconnected.
Working to really understand Natural Selection, for example, ultimately leads to an exploration of Inheritance. Exploring a model for Growth and Development draws not only upon ideas about Inheritance, but also from an exploration of environmental effects on phenotype and the allocation of matter and energy in organisms. Ideas in science do not stand alone but are intimately connected, often in complex ways. Our understanding of science, then, comes through iterative generation of, integration of, addition to and re-generation of models. As we develop new model ideas, they inform other ideas we already hold and help us to better explain the phenomena we observe in the natural world.
This MBER-Bio sequence draws upon the interconnectedness of models... while simultaneously recognizing that time (i.e. a school year) is linear.
Our first challenge as a team was to “linearize” the sequence while recognizing the web-like relationship among the ideas. As you can see in the sequence map, our solution was to visualize the year as a series of loops. On its own, each loop addresses a larger driving question. In the purple evolution loop we ask, “How do populations change over time?” As we explore organismal biology in the red loop, we ask, “How do organisms get the matter and energy they need to survive?” We develop ideas about the generation and inheritance of diverse traits in the blue loop, and we explore questions about the interactions among organisms in the green loop. Stepping back, however, one can also see that the loops inform one another. After the exploration of organismal biology in the red loop, students can apply their understanding of matter and energy to the cycles we see in ecosystems (green). Organismal biology also allows the class to return to exploring ideas about selection (purple loop) we introduced earlier in the year. With an understanding of organismal biology and what it means to survive and ultimately reproduce, we have a language for talking about fitness. This helps us to understand the evolution of seemingly mal-adapted traits such as the colorful trailing tail of a tropical bird. The return to evolution at this point in the year also drives the classroom into an exploration of genetics in the blue loop models. How are traits actually inherited? And then if the answer is “DNA”, how does such a simple code lead to the incredible diversity of traits evolution uses to fuel change over time? Ultimately, the return to evolutionary questions as we “loop back” throughout the year allows us to address the driving question for the full year, “How do we explain all of the unity and diversity we see on this planet?”
Coherence has been a driving principle in the design of this sequence. We strongly believe students learn best by building their own understanding and returning to some key ideas again and again.
That said, there is more than one path through the resources that would satisfy these criteria. Built into the representation here are two paths through both the red loop and the blue loop. In the red loop, the exploration of two alternative phenomena for making sense of how eating gives us the matter and energy we need, leads to two related but separate pathways through the remainder of organismal biology. In the blue loop you will need to decide to explore Mendelian genetics first or molecular genetics first. In the case where you need to make a choice, know that either alternative will allow your students to build the models. The journey by which they do so will be somewhat different. In the same manner, YOU may re-sequence this series of resources and keep track of your alternations using the “my curriculum” tools. As you become more familiar with the questions, models and materials on this website and become a masterful facilitator of sense-making, YOU will have insights about how to best sequence your students exploration of biology. What matters is not the particular sequence you choose, but that it be mindful, and that you explicitly communicate the coherence (the relationships and connections both within and between models) to your students as you go along. We look forward to hearing from you and other members of the community as these hard-earned insights come to fruition. In the meantime, we hope you find the materials created for these looped-together models helps you to build a classroom where students feel empowered to make sense of the many how and why questions we have about life on the planet.