5:15 PM - 6:45 PM
[O07-P08] A trial of inquiry based learning by using CO2 sensor 2nd report
★Invited Papers
Keywords:CO2 concentration, Earth's environment, Astrobiology, soil microbiology, inquiry-based class
This is the second report of “Route to Astrobiology, a trial of inquiry based learning in high school” presented at JPGU 2023. Here we would like to describe our continued activity. In the first report we have argued difficult situations in performing inquiry based class at high schools. Among many existing difficulties the essential one is a paradoxical situation where teachers’ endeavor to improve the class sometimes discourages student’s inquiry curiosity. Particularly in considering scientific experimental subjects as a main part of inquiry base lecture well-preparedness is sometimes harmful for promoting autonomous thinking. Although we have proposed several practical remedies to get around the difficulties the essential part is to change the concept of teachers towards the class. It is essential to include open-ended type experiments, which allows eneough room for students to think.
We report practical performance of inquiry based experiment in several high schools. The purpose of the class is to provide possible experience to cope with scientific research work. In the later term students are to conduct a research subject selected by their curiosity. This class is designed as a preparatory role before doing research work so that entire course of research should be contained from breeding curiosity, experimental design, hand and head moving experiment, result exploration and summarizing and presentation of the results. The subject is to monitor bacteria’s activity by measuring concentration of CO2 caused by respiration process of bacteria. The sensor we used is a portable sensor with WiFi monitoring:RATOC Systems RS-WFCO2. This is quite suitable for high school experiments because of enough precision and wide dynamic range and reasonable price. CO2 concentration is one of the most important subjects to appeal to serious high school students. At the first stage students collect soil samples from various locations in the campus and measure CO2 concentration emitted from soils. During 1 week interval between the class some soils emit more CO2 and some do not depending on the concentration of bacteria. The students have recognized CO2 concentration reflects the number of bacteria. After data retrieval and data processing using student’s information terminal we propose further question: what controls the activity of bacteria? What kind of material and process enhances the activity? and what degrades the activity? What is nutrition to bacteria and what bacteria dislikes? We required each group to propose one interesting idea of matter/process and let them check their estimate by experiments. The ideas students proposed have quite wide varieties and some are quite naive and some are out of our(old people) understanding but important point is those stem from their own consideration. Some of extraordinary idea and unexpected results will be shown in the poster. The last day of the class we hear presentation of their idea why they select the material/process as well as the results and interpretation. In the first report we utilize commercially available humus soil as bacteria source but this is quite heterogeneous and bacteria concentration varies from sample to sample so that it is difficult to compare results between different situation. This time we used commercially available bacillus natty mixed with soy bean powder. This is an excellent bacteria source which make possible to conduct quantitive comparison.
This experimental subject can provide versatile extension in astrobiology, health care, space agriculture, environmental consideration, carbon cycle,,,,,
We will show our experimental box used in the class and several examples of unexpected results in front of the poster.
We report practical performance of inquiry based experiment in several high schools. The purpose of the class is to provide possible experience to cope with scientific research work. In the later term students are to conduct a research subject selected by their curiosity. This class is designed as a preparatory role before doing research work so that entire course of research should be contained from breeding curiosity, experimental design, hand and head moving experiment, result exploration and summarizing and presentation of the results. The subject is to monitor bacteria’s activity by measuring concentration of CO2 caused by respiration process of bacteria. The sensor we used is a portable sensor with WiFi monitoring:RATOC Systems RS-WFCO2. This is quite suitable for high school experiments because of enough precision and wide dynamic range and reasonable price. CO2 concentration is one of the most important subjects to appeal to serious high school students. At the first stage students collect soil samples from various locations in the campus and measure CO2 concentration emitted from soils. During 1 week interval between the class some soils emit more CO2 and some do not depending on the concentration of bacteria. The students have recognized CO2 concentration reflects the number of bacteria. After data retrieval and data processing using student’s information terminal we propose further question: what controls the activity of bacteria? What kind of material and process enhances the activity? and what degrades the activity? What is nutrition to bacteria and what bacteria dislikes? We required each group to propose one interesting idea of matter/process and let them check their estimate by experiments. The ideas students proposed have quite wide varieties and some are quite naive and some are out of our(old people) understanding but important point is those stem from their own consideration. Some of extraordinary idea and unexpected results will be shown in the poster. The last day of the class we hear presentation of their idea why they select the material/process as well as the results and interpretation. In the first report we utilize commercially available humus soil as bacteria source but this is quite heterogeneous and bacteria concentration varies from sample to sample so that it is difficult to compare results between different situation. This time we used commercially available bacillus natty mixed with soy bean powder. This is an excellent bacteria source which make possible to conduct quantitive comparison.
This experimental subject can provide versatile extension in astrobiology, health care, space agriculture, environmental consideration, carbon cycle,,,,,
We will show our experimental box used in the class and several examples of unexpected results in front of the poster.