Data Science, Human Geography, & Environmental Justice Youth Project (DL compatible)

Data Science, Human Geography, & Environmental Justice Youth Project

Inspired by Undesign the Redline PBLs, Rebecca Solnit’s Infinite City, and the intersectionality my students navigated every day, I resolved to honor their distance learning investment by making the ecosystem and data analysis about their new pandemic-era environment. My students wanted to learn how to help, instead of remaining silent and isolated from what science was wrestling with in reality, both in terms of research and outreach. Learning human geography in the context of how to define life during the pandemic and how to design metrics for answering scientifically testable questions was one way they could figure out how to cope with daily catastrophe and grief.

STEP ONE: SURFACE EXISTING KNOWLEDGE & ESTABLISH COMMUNITY CONTEXT.

First I asked students to mark on a blank map of San Francisco where they lived (or where they were willing to report) in relation to the school. Students noticed certain patterns and created questions about it said about the students or the school.


STEP TWO: INVITE SHARING SOMATIC OBSERVATIONS TO IDENTIFY LAYERS OF PATTERNS.

We used a padlet to share the 5 senses we could describe in our own separate neighborhoods across the city, and used that to create a summary of the communities and the questions they presented.

Students developed their own sense of purpose and curiosity when their sense of intersectionality was acknowledged and made explicit through formalized data.

Some possible prompts:

  • What kinds of places do you go to relax or be at peace? Any green spaces? How far away are they?

  • What kinds of people live near you? How would they describe themselves?

  • How do the people around you make a living?

  • What products do you or people around you use? What brand names do you see most often?

  • What medical or health needs do you notice in people around you?

  • What sounds do you hear around you?

  • What smells do you sense?


STEP THREE: IDENTIFY ISSUES.

Approach: Question Formulation Technique based on recent headlines. Gathered a Jamboard of recent headlines based on patterns identified in Step 2 and asked students to add questions. Students then discussed further in another Jamboard to talk further about experiences in the city. During physical classroom learning, students used post-it notes and others added to a padlet.

Preview (distance-learning Jamboards)


STEP FOUR: EXPLORE AND ANALYZE DIFFERENT LAYERS AND TYPES OF DATA TO INFORM FOCUS.

To further spark our ideas for identifying the issues our communities experienced, we then examined a slide deck I created of 30+ KWL slides of San Francisco maps (biological, historical, cultural, political).

Preview:


STEP FIVE: RESEARCH AND CRITIQUE A SPECIFIC STRATEGY

Template side for describing and evaluating the solution

Are the strategies used by adults addressing the problems identified?

How does the data support your analysis?

Gallery: examples of factors examined


STEP SIX: CREATE A NEW STRATEGY

Students choose from options below:

Examples of student projects

(Template for students choosing to use Slides)


STEP SEVEN: SELF-EVALUATE

Students complete this rubric and grade themselves.


Afterword

The following year, I used it to help bridge interdependent relationships (kelp, their own neighborhoods where they've identified a/biotic factors, etc. and carrying capacity (Rapa Nui, Keeling Curve, covid curve).

I feel like I can do a lot more with this and I will continue to update the slides, embedded links, and more in-depth maps. Feel free to copy and use for your own needs.

DBQ: use of neurological scans in criminal sentencing hearings

Task:

  1. Randomly assign students 1 of 4 neurological scans (PET, EEG/MEG, fMRI, CT).

  2. Using docs & science notebook, students follow question prompts to evaluate their neurological scan for use in criminal sentencing hearings and the use of scans generally.

 

Basics

Document-Based Question: Use of Neurological Scans in Criminal Sentencing Hearings

Use: summative assessment for nervous system

Class: HS elective Physiology (11/12)

Resources & Scaffolds: open notebook, student worksheets from activities, annotated source documents labeled w/ specific relevant questions

Student examples: DM me if you're a teacher and would like to see ~70 student responses from a heterogeneous urban public high school.

 

Description

Introduction

Nervous about posting this because I worry I’m overstepping, but I want to build something better, so I’m sharing a final exam essay my physiology students said they enjoyed taking because they felt like they’d learned a new aspect of applying what they’d learned, and because it affected something ongoing in their lives and in the lives of their peers. This is my clumsy attempt at a summative assessment that asks they apply our investigations into the nervous system and cognitive neuroscience to a real question about US criminal sentencing outcomes.

Background & motivation

I based it on a MacArthur conference I attended w/ neuroscientists & jurists. Some of my Ss have been in detention or have relatives who are incarcerated, and stated they appreciated applying and learning about this element of how we use science & what we need to bridge the gaps. Credit to Francis X. Shen whose work inspired me to create this prompt.

Before you begin

Please carefully frame the realities of the social justice implications, invite Ss to Wellness to decompress, & check in advance for triggers. I blanked-out nonrelevant portions but provide the entire annotated pdfs here for any teacher who needs background.

Disclaimer

I was in science and law before entering teaching, and my nervous system unit frequently integrates modern neuroscience research/fads with student metacognition, so your results may vary. You’ll notice the final mentions influential cognition experiments and also expects students to have reviewed and evaluated the discussed neurological scans already in a previous lesson.

PART ONE OF TWO. Prompt:

How should we use <randomly assigned neurological scan> in US criminal hearings?


PART TWO OF TWO. Readings:

  1. Reading A: Jones & Shen. 2012. INTERNATIONAL NEUROLAW: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS, p. 349, T.M. Spranger, ed., Springer-Verlag, 2012 Vanderbilt Public Law Research Paper No. 1-5.

  2. Reading B: Jones et al. 2013. LAW AND NEUROSCIENCE. The Journal of Neuroscience, November 6, 2013, 33(45):17624-17630. DOI:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.3254-13.2013

  3. Reading C: Mclatchie et al. ‘IMAGINED GUILT’ VERSUS ‘RECOLLECTED GUILT’: IMPLICATIONS FOR FMRI.

  4. Reading D: Jones et al. 2009. BRAIN IMAGING FOR LEGAL THINKERS: A GUIDE FOR THE PERPLEXED. 2009 STAN.TECH.L.REV.5. SSRN ID: 1563612. Available at http://stlr.stanford.edu/pdf/jones-brain-imaging.pdf

  5. Summary sheets for Ss missing papers: Reviews neurological scans, limitations, etc. Various sources.

Database: "Evolution's Rainbow: Diversity, Gender, & Sexuality in Nature & People"

I support teaching scientific discovery as a continuous process of testing and revising our models for explaining natural phenomenon. Every challenge to our existing knowledge offers an exciting learning opportunity for better understanding our world. Here is a brief inventory of examples from Stanford biologist Joan Roughgarden’s Evolution’s Rainbow: Diversity, Gender, and Sexuality in Nature and People from University of California Press, 2013 ed.

I am grateful for the privilege to openly discuss these many examples of the myriad spectrum of sexuality, polymorphisms, and gendered behavior in living things. (For anyone who has had their identity silenced or erased, what is “natural” is far more “queer” than anyone can imagine.)

My inventory of more than 200 species uses Roughgarden’s terminology, but all typos and misunderstandings are my own; please comment with corrections. I’ll continue cleaning up the formatting.

Lesson (2x): Forensic Entomology

What these files add:

  • abridged (optional) background readings w/ checks for understanding

  • editable Slides w/ enhanced, labeled, enlarged images of important evidence

  • re-orders agenda for more student discussion & asking questions

  • cards for scaffolding asking questions about evidence

  • videos for discussion

  • reflection exit ticket

Task: Using climatological data, forensic insect evidence collected from deceased human, experimental entomology data, and research on blow fly life cycles, estimate the time of death for a homicide victim.

General question: If entomologists study insects, how does their research help us estimate time of death?

Major concepts: Science as inquiry & modeling, evidence & inference, all organisms must be able to obtain and use resources, grow, reproduce, and maintain stable internal conditions, energy as heat.

Real historical events: This uses a real homicide case from 1986 and incorporates scans of the forensic examiner’s notebook, the news articles, letters among investigators, experiments performed by the entomologist, and photographs of the insects collected.


Agendas

I. Blow Fly Life Cycle & Accumulated Degree Hours

1. Introduction

a) Do Now - murder trial

b) Turn & Talk: Sample of ____? collected from body as evidence (good opportunity for realia)

c) Request from State of Connecticut

2. The Life Cycle of a Blow Fly

a) Document: Forensic Examiner’s Report

b) Worksheet: Blow Fly Life Cycle

3. How Weather Affects Blow Fly Life Cycle

a) Document: Preliminary Climatological Report

b) Worksheet: Accumulated Degree Hours & weather data

II. Experimental Design for Time of Death

4. Designing an Entomology Experiment to Solve a Problem

a) Card Sort & Reveal: Asking the Right Questions

optional: Rear flies on raw liver!

b) Document: Entomology Case Experiments

c) Discussion & Worksheet: Entomology Case

5. Videos About Forensic Examination

a) Career: A Day in the Life of a Forensic Pathologist

b) Career: Forensic Examiner without the Mess…Camila the Cryptanalyst

6. Exit Ticket: Reflection on Media Coverage



Setup Decisions: “Asking the Right Questions Activity”

Decision 1:

Option a) Print double-sided.

Option b) Print single-sided and staple on top of each other.

Decision 2:

Option a) Ss flip over all the cards and make a conclusion together.

Option b) Ss flip over a few cards at a time and revise their explanation.

Option c) Ss flip over only X number of cards, chosen by group agreement, and make conclusions based on the answers. Compare class answers.

Sources

  • NIH, Visible Proofs: exhibition of the history of forensic anthropology (answer keys on website & on file by request)

  • William Krinsky, Yale University School of Medicine

  • Henry Lee, Connecticut State Police Forensic Laboratory

Lesson (3x): Cellular Respiration set

Includes

  • Do Nows (3 questions each) for each lesson

  • Gallery walk of average family’s weekly meal around the world

  • 1 full lab investigation w/ procedure, data charts, & questions

  • 1 extension lab investigation

  • Organizes cellular respiration by input & output

Time: 3 lessons (~70 min each)
Goals: NGSS HS LS 1-7
Essential question: What happens when humans get tired?

 

Lesson 1: Sugar

Lesson Question: How do humans get energy from food?

Lesson 2: CO2 output

Lesson Question: Does your body produce more/less CO2 when you exercise?

Lesson 3: O2 input

Lesson question: How does O2 affect your cell's energy?

Assessments

  • Do Nows, 2 lab investigations with analysis questions, note-taking

  • Next iteration will add a rubric and more scaffolded examples of a nutritional plan

Sources

  • Created whilst at the Exploratorium’s Summer 2018 Teacher Institute, using their generous support and resources

  • Hungry Planet: What the World Eats by Peter Menzel

  • coaches at the Exploratorium Summer Teacher Institute (Daisy, Devin, & Katie)