Day 26 - Brine Shrimp Lab Project - Stephanie Pratt, Marshall Simonds Seventh Grade Science

 This post originally appeared on Mrs. Pratt's Blog

7A students have designed their own experiments to determine the effect of hatching and/or survival of brine shrimp!  Students worked in teams of 4-5 members.

• First, the students designed their experiment and laid the foundation.  Here's what they did: they wrote a problem and explained their purpose.  Then they wrote a hypothesis they could test.  Last, they drew a diagram of their experiment and listed/obtained materials.

• Next, students set up their experiments!  What creative ideas they had!  Some of the fantastic ideas that students came up with were:  the effects of different colored lights on the hatching of brine shrimp, the effects of a black light on the hatching of brine shrimp, which pH level can support live brine shrimp survival?, does music allow for better hatching rates of brine shrimp?, what foods allow brine shrimp to survive better?, and finally the effect of temperature on brine shrimp survival/hatching rates.

• Then, students collected data with their iPads by taking picture and videos to document progress.  Students created diagrams, graphs, and data tables so they could analyze the results of their experiments.  Each team created a shared google doc.  The google doc proved to be an excellent tool to allow students to collaborate on the lab report (students were happy with the success of this, too).  This way each member really could contribute in a meaningful way and they could support one another in learning how to write a lab report.

• Finally, the teams each created a presentation of about 5-7 slides in Explain Everything app or in the Book Creator app.  They presented their experiments in front of the the class.