AAAS Project 2061 Textbook Evaluations

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Biology: The Dynamics of Life. Glencoe/McGraw-Hill, 2000

Matter and Energy Transformations: Instructional Analysis

I: Providing a Sense of Purpose

Conveying unit purpose

Rating = Poor
The material meets indicator 1 and minimally meets indicator 5, but does not meet indicators 2–4 and 6.

Indicator 1: Met
The material provides purposes for individual chapters but not for units. Chapters provide explicit statements of purpose. At the beginning of each chapter, the student text includes brief sections titled “What You’ll Learn” and “Why It’s Important.” For example, the chapter on ecology begins with the following statements:

What You’ll Learn

• You will describe ecology and the work of ecologists.
• You will identify important aspects of an organism’s environment.
• You will trace the flow of energy and nutrients in the living and nonliving worlds.

Why It’s Important
To understand life, you need to know how organisms meet their needs in their natural environments. To reduce the impact of an expanding human population on the natural world, it is important to understand how living things depend on their environments.

p. 36s

And the chapter on cell energy starts out with the following statements:

What You’ll Learn

• You will learn what ATP is.
• You will explain how ATP provides energy for the cell.
• You will describe how chloroplasts trap the sun’s energy to make ATP and complex carbohydrates.
• You will compare ATP production in mitochondria and chloroplasts.

Why It’s Important
Every cell in your body needs energy in order to function. The energy your cells produce and store is the fuel for basic body functions such as eating and breathing.

p. 226s

Unit introductions do not begin with a question or problem that students will be trying to solve in the unit. Instead, they define the topic students will be studying. For example, at the beginning of Unit 2: Ecology, teachers are instructed to have students focus on a photograph and then explain what ecology is:

Ask students to look at the scarlet macaws in the photograph and describe how these birds are dependent on both living and nonliving things in their environments. Explain that ecology focuses on the interactions that take place in an environment.

p. 34t

Students might surmise that since “Ecology” is the title of this unit, they will be studying about interactions that take place in an environment. Similar vague introductions are provided for other units that include information relevant to the key ideas about matter and energy transformation (Unit 3: The Life of a Cell, pp. 142–143st; Unit 10: The Human Body, pp. 920–921st).

Indicator 2: Not met
Purpose statements for chapters and units are not likely to be comprehensible to students. Unit purposes include vague terms, while the chapter purposes include technical terms that are not likely to be familiar to students.

Indicator 3: Not met
Neither unit nor chapter purposes are likely to be interesting or motivating to students. No problem or question is provided that could spark interest.

Indicator 4: Not met
Students are not asked to think about the purpose statements. Each chapter begins with a Getting Started Demo feature in the teacher notes which is described as providing “an inquiry approach to starting the chapter” (p. 17T). While the Getting Started Demos could provide opportunities for students to think about the purpose statements, the Getting Started Demos for the chapters addressing the key ideas were not related to the purpose of each chapter.

Indicator 5: Minimally met
Readings within the chapters reflect the bulleted list of objectives under the What You’ll Learn headings. However, few of the MiniLabs and Problem-Solving Labs are clearly linked to these bulleted statements. For example, labs on the Salt Tolerance of Seeds (p. 38s), the effect of temperature on food production (p. 39s), and organizing trophic level information (p. 52s) are not linked to the bulleted statements on page 36s. Similarly, labs on why humans store excess energy as fat (p. 228s), how photosynthesis varies with light intensity (p. 232s), and using isotopes to follow molecules through chemical reactions (p. 234s) are not linked to the bulleted statements on page 226s.

Indicator 6: Not met
While each chapter provides a summary of the main ideas and vocabulary of the text sections (e.g., pp. 63s, 247s), these are not linked to the purpose statements at the beginning of the chapter.

Conveying lesson/activity purpose

Rating = Poor
The material meets indicator 1 and somewhat meets indicator 3, but does not meet indicators 2, 4, and 5.

Indicator 1: Met
Three features can help to convey the purpose of readings for students:

• Section titles—such as Nutrition and Energy Flow (p. 48s), Photosynthesis: Trapping the Sun’s Energy (p. 231s), and Getting Energy to Make ATP (p. 237s)—inform students about what information will be presented in those sections.
• Section Preview Objectives—such as “Compare how organisms satisfy their needs,” “Trace the path of energy and matter in an ecosystem,” “Analyze how nutrients are cycled in the abiotic and biotic parts of the biosphere” (p. 48s) and “Relate the structure of chloroplasts to the events in photosynthesis,” “Describe the light-dependent reactions,” “Explain the reactions and products of the light-independent Calvin cycle” (p. 231s)—state what students should be able to do after reading the section.
• Section introductions—for example, at the beginning of the section Nutrition and Energy Flow, the text states:

  What eats what? The oriole eats the grasshopper. The grasshopper eats the grass. Organisms, such as the oriole, grasshopper, and grass, need nutrition for growth, repair, and energy. How they satisfy their nutritional needs is an important part of their niche, and an important focus of ecology.

  p. 48s

Each section starts with an introductory paragraph to help convey the purpose of the reading to students (e.g., pp. 231s, 237s).

Indicator 2: Not met
Both section titles and objectives include technical vocabulary—such as “photosynthesis,” “ATP,” “biotic,” “abiotic,” and “Calvin cycle”—that may not be comprehensible to students who have not already studied the topic.

Indicator 3: Somewhat met
Students are given some opportunities to think about section titles, objectives, and introductions with the Bellringer activity in the teacher notes at the start of each section. For example, at the start of the section Nutrition and Energy Flow (p. 48st), teachers are asked to display a transparency showing a hawk flying over a body of water with a snake, frog, insects, and plants along the shore. Two questions at the bottom of the transparency to be asked of students are: “What is the source of all energy in this ecosystem?” and “What path does this energy take to get to the hawk?” (p. 48t).

Indicator 4: Not met
The material does not convey or prompt the teacher to convey how the material is tied to the chapter or unit purpose.

Indicator 5: Not met
The material does not engage students at appropriate points in thinking about what they have learned so far and what they need to learn next.

Justifying lesson/activity sequence

Rating = Fair
The material somewhat meets indicator 1, but does not meet indicator 2.

Indicator 1: Somewhat met
In its treatment of this topic, the text moves from presenting transformation of matter and energy at the ecosystem level (unit 2) to the cellular level (unit 3) to the organism level in humans (unit 10). Given that students are most familiar with the human organism, this sequence of units makes little sense. Furthermore, processes are mentioned in the ecosystems unit that are not explained until later units.

Sometimes the sequence of subsections within a chapter seems logical. For example, a section titled “ATP in a Molecule” (which could be more aptly named “Energy in a Molecule”) moves from describing why cells need energy to how ATP stores energy to how cells tap into the energy stored in ATP (pp. 227–229s). Other times, the sequence makes little sense. For example, even though understanding energy is more difficult than understanding matter, Section 2.2: Nutrition and Energy Flow first presents information on how organisms obtain energy, then describes how matter and energy flow in ecosystems (including the loss of energy at each trophic level), and then concludes with a discussion of matter cycles (pp. 48–59s).

Indicator 2: Not met
The material does not convey a rationale for the sequence of units or chapters or for the sequence of readings or other activities within chapters.

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II: Taking Account of Student Ideas

Attending to prerequisite knowledge and skills

Rating = Poor
The material meets no indicators.

Indicator 1: Not met
The material does not alert the teacher to specific prerequisite ideas or skills.

Indicator 2: Not met
The material does not alert teachers to the specific ideas for which prerequisites are needed.

Indicator 3: Not met
The material does not alert students to prerequisite ideas or experiences that are being assumed.

Indicator 4: Not met
The material does not adequately address prerequisites in the same unit or in earlier units. None of the prerequisite ideas on energy transformation are addressed. For example, the text compares the ATP yield from lactic acid fermentation, alcoholic fermentation, and cellular respiration (p. 241s) and notes that plants store energy as starch whereas animals store it as glycogen (p. 163s), but never reminds students that “Arrangements of atoms have chemical energy” or that “Different amounts of energy are associated with different configurations of atoms and molecules....” And even though the text treats the prerequisite idea that “Carbon and hydrogen are common elements of living matter” (pp. 145–146s), this treatment comes after its presentation of the carbon cycle in ecosystems (pp. 56–57s). The text does mention the idea that “Food provides the molecules that serve as fuel and building materials for all organisms” in the context of introducing the role of carbon in organisms:

Did you ever hear the saying, “You are what you eat”? It’s at least partially true because the compounds that form the cells and tissues of your body are produced from similar compounds in the foods you eat.

p. 161s

However, even though the text has already presented ideas about atoms and molecules, it does not clarify that food provides molecules that serve as building blocks. And the text does not indicate that molecules from food serve as the source of fuel for organisms.

Indicator 5: Not met
The material does not make connections between ideas treated in a unit and prerequisite ideas. While the text states a prerequisite idea about atoms and molecules in its presentation of the chemistry of life (pp. 145–146s), it does not connect it to the idea that “Plants make sugar molecules from carbon dioxide (in the air) and water” (Idea a₁) (pp. 56s and 234s). For example, the text does not indicate that the sugars (and molecules derived from them) contain lots of carbon, which is why carbon is such a common element of living matter.

Alerting teachers to commonly held student ideas

Rating = Poor
The material meets no indicators.

Indicator 1: Not met
The material does not present specific commonly held ideas that are relevant to the key ideas and have appeared in the scholarly publications. Teachers are not alerted to any of the following commonly held student ideas, identified in the research literature, that may interfere with students learning the key ideas:

1. Students think that food is whatever nutrients organisms must take in if they are to grow and survive rather than those substances from which organisms derive the energy they need to grow and the material of which they are made (American Association for the Advancement of Science [AAAS], 1993, pp. 120, 342; Driver, Squires, Rushworth, & Wood-Robinson, 1994, p. 27).
2. Students think that food is a requirement for growth rather than a source of matter for growth (AAAS, 1993, p. 343; Driver et al., 1994, p. 60).
3. Students think that plants get their food from the environment (mainly from the soil) rather than manufacture it themselves (AAAS, 1993, p. 342; Driver et al., 1994, p. 30).
4. Students think that plants have multiple sources of food rather than that plants make food from water and carbon dioxide in the air, and that this is their only source of food (AAAS, 1993, p. 342; Driver et al., 1994, pp. 31, 60).
5. Students may think that organisms and materials in the environment are very different types of matter and are not transformable into each other (AAAS, 1993, p. 342).
6. Students may not believe that a plant’s mass may increase mainly due to the incorporation of matter from carbon dioxide (a gas) (Driver et al., 1994, pp. 32, 39).
7. Students may think that plants do not respire, or that they respire only in the dark (Driver et al., 1994, p. 34).
8. Students tend to regard food that is eaten and used as a source of energy as belonging to a food chain, while the food that is incorporated into the body material of eaters is often seen as something different and is not recognized as the material that is the food at the next level (Driver et al., 1994, p. 35).
9. Students may think that dead organisms “rot away”; they do not realize that the matter from the dead organisms is converted into yet other materials (AAAS, 1993, p. 343).
10. Middle school students seem to know that some kind of cyclical process takes place in ecosystems. Some students see only chains of events and pay little attention to the matter involved in processes such as plant growth or animals eating plants. They think of the processes in terms of creating and destroying matter rather than in terms of transforming matter from one substance to another. Other students recognize one form of recycling through soil minerals but fail to incorporate water, oxygen, and carbon dioxide into matter cycles. Students may see no connection between the oxygen/carbon dioxide cycle and other processes involving the production, consumption, and use of food (AAAS, 1993, p. 343; Driver et al., 1994, p. 65).
11. Students may think that matter and energy are converted back and forth in everyday (non-nuclear) phenomena (Schneps & Sadler, 1988).

Indicator 2: Not met
None of the commonly held ideas are presented or explained.

Assisting teachers in identifying their students’ ideas

Rating = Poor
The material minimally meets indicator 1, but does not meet indicators 2–5.

Indicator 1: Minimally met
The material provides very few questions that could be used by the teacher to find out what students know before instruction begins. The material provides teachers with a Bellringer activity to introduce each section (e.g., pp. 48t, 231t, 237t). Even though these activities include questions—such as, “What is the source of energy in this ecosystem?” and “What path does this energy take to get to the hawk?” (p. 48t), and “Which of these organisms require energy?” and “How does the manner in which these organisms get energy differ?” (p. 237t)—the questions all focus on ideas to be learned in earlier grades rather than on finding out what students know or what their misconceptions might be about the key ideas. In addition, each chapter begins with a Getting Started Demo feature in the teacher notes which is described as providing “an inquiry approach to starting the chapter” (p. 17T). While the Getting Started Demos could be a source of questions to identify student ideas, the Getting Started Demos in the relevant chapters were not related to the key ideas.

Indicator 2: Not met
There are no questions to be examined for comprehensibility.

Indicator 3: Not met
The questions are not identified as serving the purpose of identifying students’ ideas.

Indicator 4: Not met
None of these questions ask students to give explanations or make predictions.

Indicator 5: Not met
The material offers no suggestions for how teachers can probe beneath students’ initial responses to questions. For example, the teacher’s guide does not tell the teacher to listen for his/her students’ responses or to avoid correcting their ideas at a given time. Without these warnings, it is unlikely that the questions provided will be used to elicit student ideas. And no suggestions are given that might help teachers interpret student responses in light of the published misconceptions.

Addressing commonly held ideas

Rating = Poor
The material meets no indicators.

Indicator 1: Not met
The material does not explicitly address any commonly held ideas on this topic. However, in one instance teachers are told to correct a commonly held student idea by telling them the correct answer without giving any supporting evidence:

Point out that, like animals, the cells of plants contain mitochondria. Mitochondria present in all eukaryotic cells produce the ATP that provides the energy for the cells. Therefore, plant cells carry on respiration as well as photosynthesis.

p. 190t

Indicator 2: Not met
The material does not include any questions, tasks, or activities that are likely to help students progress from their initial ideas.

Indicator 3: Not met
The material does not include suggestions to teachers about how to take into account their own students’ ideas.

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III: Engaging Students with Relevant Phenomena

Providing variety of phenomena

Rating = Poor
Since the rating scheme depends on how many phenomena meet both of the indicators, the report for this criterion is organized to reflect the overall rating rather than each indicator judgment.

The material provides no phenomena to support the key ideas. While a total of four phenomena were sighted that could be used to make key ideas credible, none was explicitly linked to a key idea. For example, two phenomena were included that could, potentially, support key ideas about energy transformation, but neither was used to do so.

First, students observe that energy is released from a burning peanut (p. 230t), but their observations are not linked to the idea that plants store sugars for later use (part of Idea b₁) or to the idea that “Other organisms...get energy to grow and function by oxidizing their food” (part of Idea c₂). Students also analyze data showing how the rate of photosynthesis varies with increasing light intensity (p. 232s), but the data are not linked to the idea that light energy is transformed into chemical energy.

A similar situation exists for activities related to matter transformation. Two activities were included that are relevant to the idea that “Plants make sugar molecules from carbon dioxide (in the air) and water” (Idea a₁), but neither was explicitly linked to this key idea.

First, students read about an experiment with radioactive isotopes of oxygen that allowed van Niel to trace the path of oxygen in photosynthesis, but the experiment expects students to be able to follow the isotope rather than to relate it to the key idea (p. 234s). Second, students observe that plants make starch in the presence of light but not in its absence; but the only link is found in the answer to an analysis question: “In what part of the leaf did carbon fixation slow or stop? The covered part received no light and therefore could not carry on photosynthesis, which is a carbon fixation process” (pp. 240–241t).

No other relevant phenomena are provided.

Providing vivid experiences

Rating = Poor
Since the rating scheme depends on how many phenomena meet all of the indicators, the report for this criterion is organized to reflect the overall rating rather than each indicator judgment.

The material meets no indicators. Given that no phenomena were provided, there is essentially nothing to be judged for vividness.

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IV: Developing and Using Scientific Ideas

Introducing terms meaningfully

Rating = Poor
The material meets no indicators.

Indicator 1: Not met
The material does not link new technical terms to relevant experiences. With few relevant phenomena (see discussion in Category III), there seems to be little point to using the terms other than having students learn their definitions. For example, terms like “trophic level” (p. 52s), “photosynthesis” (p. 231s), and “cellular respiration” (p. 237s) are defined in the abstract with no helpful examples given to make the terms concrete for students. Even when the terms are linked to a representation, the representation is often incomprehensible and hence is unable to provide a concrete experience to make the terms meaningful to students. For example, see the pyramid of energy diagram (p. 54s), carbon cycle diagram (p. 57s), nitrogen cycle diagram (p. 58s), and Calvin cycle diagram (p. 235s). Some representations include additional new terms (e.g., “Calvin cycle” on pages 234–235s), making it even less likely that they will help to clarify the new terms needed to communicate about the key ideas.

Indicator 2: Not met
The material does not restrict the use of technical terms to those needed to communicate intelligibly about the key ideas. The key ideas about matter and energy transformations are introduced along with many unnecessary terms such as “autotrophs,” “heterotrophs,” “thylakoid,” “granum,” “stroma,” “electron transport chain,” “NADPH,” “NADP+,” “photolysis,” “carbon fixation,” “Calvin cycle,” “PGAL,” “RuBP,” “glycolysis,” “citric acid cycle” (and names of intermediates), “FADH₂,” “FAD,” “alcoholic fermentation,” and “lactic acid fermentation.”

Representing ideas effectively

Rating = Poor
Since the rating scheme depends on how many representations meet all of the indicators, the report for this criterion is organized to reflect the overall rating rather than each indicator judgment.

The material includes only one representation that could help students make sense of one of the key ideas. Out of the dozen or so representations examined, only one satisfies all three indicators. To clarify the idea that “At each link in a food web, some energy is stored in newly made structures but much is dissipated into the environment as heat....” (Idea d₂), the text uses a diagram to represent the energy loss at each trophic level in an aquatic ecosystem; and colored bars show the decrease in energy at each trophic level (p. 54s). The teacher’s guide suggests the following explanation to help students make sense of the diagram:

Have students imagine a roped-off patch of forest. All the producers, herbivores, and consumers are put into piles. Ask which pile would be the largest. the producer pile Explain that a biomass pyramid is made after weighing the piles. Burning the piles and measuring the energy leads to a pyramid of energy. Counting organisms leads to a pyramid of numbers.

p. 54t

No diagrams or analogies are provided to represent the idea that “The chemical elements that make up the molecules of living things pass through food webs and the environment, and are combined and recombined in different ways” (Idea d₁). Diagrams of the carbon cycle (p. 57s) and nitrogen cycle (p. 58s) use words rather than symbols to represent the substances involved, so the idea of combination and recombination is not conveyed. This is understandable, since information about atoms and molecules is presented later in the text. Yet even after the text has presented this information (pp. 146–151s and 161–165s), its diagram of the Calvin cycle fails to convey the idea that chemical elements are combined and recombined in different ways (p. 235s).

Demonstrating use of knowledge

Rating = Poor
The material meets no indicators.

Indicator 1: Not met
The material does not demonstrate the use of key ideas or suggest how teachers could do so.

Indicator 2: Not met
No demonstrations are provided.

Indicator 3: Not met
No demonstrations are provided.

Indicator 4: Not met
No demonstrations are provided.

Providing practice

Rating = Poor
Since the rating scheme depends on how many practice tasks meet all of the indicators, the report for this criterion is organized to reflect the overall rating rather than each indicator judgment.

Two kinds of questions and tasks were considered for this criterion: Chapter Assessment questions at the end of the chapter, and student tasks and questions within the chapter requiring application of ideas presented in the text. The material does not provide a sufficient number of practice questions for the key ideas. While questions are provided for some key ideas, most questions only require students to repeat information found in the text. For example, the following tasks are provided for the idea that “At each link in a food web, some energy is stored in newly made structures but much is dissipated into the environment as heat....” (Idea d₂):

As energy flows through an ecosystem, energy __________ at each trophic level.

1. remains the same
2. increases
3. decreases then increases
4. decreases

p. 64st, question 7

Which of the following is true concerning the flow of energy and matter in an ecosystem?

1. Both energy and matter are recycled and used again.
2. Matter is recycled and used again, energy is lost.
3. Energy is recycled and used again, matter is lost.
4. Neither energy nor matter are recycled and used again.

p. 64st, question 9

During all energy conversions, some of the energy is converted to ________________.

1. carbon dioxide
2. water
3. heat
4. sunlight

p. 248st, question 3

These questions mainly involve restating information found in the text. No questions are provided asking students to use these key ideas in novel situations. The only question provided that could have been useful was not counted because the suggested response did not explicitly focus on the key idea:

The county of Avorare has many starving people. Should you encourage the people to grow crops such as vegetables, wheat, and corn, or is it better to encourage them to use the land to raise cattle for beef? Crops are better because growing them takes less land than raising cattle. Crops provide more energy for people than cattle, at a higher trophic level.

p. 59st, question 5

For the idea that “Plants make sugar molecules from carbon dioxide (in the air) and water” (Idea a₁), the following questions are provided:

Which of the following would decrease the amount of carbon dioxide in the air?

1. a maple tree growing
2. a dog running
3. a person driving a car to work
4. a forest burning

p. 64st, question 6

Plants absorb carbon dioxide from the air, and with the sun’s light energy they make high energy carbon molecules.

pp. 65s, 64t, question 19

Plants must have a constant supply of carbon dioxide for photosynthesis, but they provide oxygen for cellular respiration.

p. 248st, question 11

How are cellular respiration and photosynthesis complementary processes? Photosynthesis stores energy, whereas respiration releases energy, and the products of one process are the reactants of the other process.

p. 248st, question 22

Only question 6 above involves a novel application of a key idea; the other questions merely involve repeating information found in the text.

For the other key ideas, no more than a single question is provided and it is not novel.

The material does not provide a sequence of questions or tasks in which the complexity is progressively increased. Only individual questions are provided.

The material does not provide students first with opportunities for guided practice with feedback and then with practice in which the amount of support is gradually decreased.

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V: Promoting Students’ Thinking about Phenomena, Experiences, and Knowledge

Encouraging students to explain their ideas

Rating = Poor
The material minimally meets indicator 2, but does not meet indicators 1 and 3–5.

Indicator 1: Not met
The material does not routinely encourage students to express their own ideas about key ideas on matter and energy transformations. While the material provides several features in the teacher’s guide that could be a source of relevant tasks or questions—for example, Biology Journal, Discussion, Reinforcement, Portfolio, Meeting Individual Needs—few of the tasks or questions focus on the key ideas. For example, nearly all the tasks in the ecology chapter focus on food webs rather than on matter or energy transformations:

Have students work in pairs to list some of the foods they have consumed in the past 24 hours. Then have each pair determine if they were a first-order, second-order, or third-order consumer of each food.

p. 51t

Have students compare trophic levels to the organization of a business. Ask them to diagram a specific business to show how each level of employee supports the next level.

p. 52t

And the tasks in the cellular energy chapter focus mainly on ideas outside the scope of the key ideas:

Divide the class into three groups. Ask each group to discuss chloroplasts, the light reactions, or the Calvin cycle and present a short report.

p. 232t

After the class has performed MiniLab 9-1, have the students write a story describing the pathway taken by the radioactively labeled oxygen in the van Niel experiment.

p. 234t

Have students make a poster of the citric acid cycle. Compare it to the Calvin cycle. Note that the Calvin cycle uses ATP and electron carriers such as NADP to produce glucose while the citric acid cycle produces ATP and electron carriers, including NADH and FADH₂, as it burns glucose.

p. 239t

A few questions or tasks are relevant, but they are woefully insufficient to give students a chance to express their ideas about the key ideas about matter and energy transformations:

Have students assume they are a “packet” of light energy from the sun with a value of 100 energy units. Have them trace their path through a simple food chain and indicate their value at each level. Remind them that energy is also lost to the environment at each level.

p. 55t

Have students work in groups to prepare a concept map describing the carbon cycle. Included in this map should be terms such as consumers, photosynthesis, respiration, decay, and producers.

p. 57t

Ask students where the energy in their food comes from. Students should trace energy to the sun. Work through some simple food chains as part of the discussion.

p. 236t

Indicator 2: Minimally met
For the few tasks aligned with the key ideas, students are sometimes asked to clarify, justify, or represent their ideas about matter and energy transformation. For example, students are asked to represent their ideas with a concept map in the following task: “Have students work in groups to prepare a concept map describing the carbon cycle. Included in this map should be terms such as consumers, photosynthesis, respiration, decay, and producers” (p. 57t).

Indicator 3: Not met
The material does not provide opportunities for each student to express his/her ideas about matter and energy transformations. None of the questions in the Biology Journal feature are relevant.

Indicator 4: Not met
The material does not include specific suggestions to help the teacher provide explicit feedback to students, nor does the text provide feedback.

Indicator 5: Not met
The material does not include suggestions on how to diagnose student errors, explanations about how those errors may be corrected, or recommendations for how students’ ideas may be further developed.

Guiding student interpretation and reasoning

Rating = Poor
The material meets no indicators.

Indicator 1: Not met
The student text provides Section Assessment questions at the end of each section of text, Analysis and Critical Thinking questions at the end of lab activities, and Discussion Questions and some Reinforcement questions in the teacher notes. However, few of the questions are specific and relevant to the key ideas. For example, the questions provided for the section on matter and energy flow in ecosystems do not focus on the matter and energy transformations involved:

1. What is the difference between an autotroph and a heterotroph?
2. Why do autotrophs always occupy the lowest level of ecological pyramids?
3. Give two examples of how nitrogen cycles from the abiotic portion of the environment into living things and back.
4. Describe a food chain that was not presented in this section.

p. 59s

Discussion Questions in the teacher notes for this section focus on food webs rather than matter or energy transformations:

Ask students to explain what the arrow in all food chains represents. The arrow shows in which direction matter and energy are moving through the food chain. Why must all second-level organisms be consumers? By definition, these organisms feed on or consume other organisms. Why must all third-level organisms be carnivores and not herbivores? By definition, these organisms feed on other animals and are therefore meat or flesh eaters.

p. 50t

Section Assessment questions in the cellular energy chapter also do not focus on the key ideas, focusing instead on details not considered important for science literacy:

1. Why do you see green when you look at a leaf on a tree? Why do you see other colors in the fall?
2. How do the light-dependent reactions of photosynthesis relate to the Calvin cycle?
3. What is the function of water in photosynthesis? Explain the reaction that achieves this function.
4. How does the electron transport chain transfer light energy in photosynthesis?

p. 236s

And very few of the questions at the end of lab activities focus on the key ideas on matter and energy transformations, even when the activities could have been related to these ideas. For example, after observing that a leaf exposed to light turns dark when mixed with iodine whereas a covered leaf does not, students are asked, “In what part of the leaf did carbon fixation slow or stop? The covered part received no light and therefore could not carry on photosynthesis, which is a carbon fixation process” (p. 241t). The same is the case for the question to be asked after students observe that a burning peanut gives off energy: “Ask students to describe the form of energy released during burning. Energy is released as light and heat” (p. 230t).

Indicator 2: Not met
None of the questions in the Section Assessments, Discussion Questions, Reinforcements, or at the end of lab activities have helpful characteristics such as framing important issues, helping students make connections between their own ideas and the presented scientific ideas, or anticipating student misconceptions.

Indicator 3: Not met
None of the questions in the Section Assessments, Discussion Questions, Reinforcements, or at the end of lab activities involve scaffolded sequences of questions, which could guide students from phenomena or their own ideas about phenomena to the scientific ideas.

Encouraging students to think about what they have learned

Rating = Poor
The material meets no indicators.

Indicator 1: Not met
The material does not give students an opportunity to revise their initial ideas based on what they have learned.

Indicators 2 and 3: Not met
The material does not engage students in monitoring how their ideas have changed.

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VI: Assessing Progress

To assess students’ understanding of concepts at the end of instruction, Biology: The Dynamics of Life provides a Chapter Assessment guide with individual chapter tests. Chapters 3, 10, and 38 from the 1998 edition of the assessment guide were examined for the first two assessment criteria (the 2000 edition of the assessment guide was unavailable at time of review). According to the Teacher Guide, the student text includes a three-page Chapter Assessment at the end of each chapter that can be used to “determine whether any substantial reteaching is needed” (p. 33T). Hence, relevant items in Chapter Assessments for Chapter 2: Principles of Ecology, Chapter 10: Energy in a Cell, and Chapter 35: The Digestive and Endocrine Systems were examined for the third assessment criterion, Using Assessment to Inform Instruction.

Aligning assessment to goals

Rating = Poor
Since the rating scheme depends on how many assessment tasks meet both of the indicators, the report for this criterion is organized to reflect the overall rating rather than each indicator judgment.

Biology: The Dynamics of Life includes only three items in the 1998 test booklet for Chapter 3: Principles of Ecology, Chapter 10: Energy in a Cell, and Chapter 38: Digestion and Nutrition that assess any of the key ideas, which is far from sufficient. One question is included that assesses the idea that “Plants make sugar molecules from carbon dioxide (in the air) and water” (Idea a₁):

Which of the following equations best represents photosynthesis?

1. C + O₂ + H₂O → CO₂ + HOH
2. 6CO₂ + 6H₂O → C₆H₁₂O₆ + 6O₂
3. 6C + 6H₂O → C₆H₁₂O₆
4. C₆H₁₂O₆ → 6CO₂ + 6H₂O

Chapter Assessment, pp. 56 and 300, question 6

And two items are provided to address the idea that “At each link in a food web, some energy is stored in newly made structures but much is dissipated into the environment as heat” (part of Idea d₂):

Energy that passes through a food chain is lost to the environment as (heat, matter).

Chapter Assessment, pp. 14 and 279, question 6

As matter and energy move from grasses to coyotes, the amount of available energy

1. always decreases and population size always increases.
2. always increases and population size always decreases.
3. always decreases but population size may increase or decrease.
4. increases or decreases but population size remains the same.

Chapter Assessment, pp. 15 and 280, question 4

The material provides a couple of other items, but these items also require knowledge of technical terms:

The process by which autotrophs use energy from sunlight to build carbohydrates is called photosynthesis.

Chapter Assessment, pp. 55 and 300, question 2

Water, carbon, and nitrogen are released back into the atmosphere during (symbiosis, decomposition).

Chapter Assessment, pp. 14 and 279, question 7

Lastly, the material provides a few items that focus on the details of experimental design rather than on the key ideas about matter and energy transformation (see pages 59–60 in Chapter Assessment, and the following):

In an experiment to determine whether green plants take in CO₂, a biologist filled a large beaker with aquarium water to which she added bromothymol blue. She exhaled CO₂ into the solution of bromothymol blue to turn it yellow. Then she placed a sprig of Elodea into two test tubes. She left the third test tube without Elodea to serve as a control. She added the yellow bromothymol solution to all three test tubes and placed a stopper in each. Next, she placed all the test tubes in sunlight. After several hours in sunlight, the bromothymol solution in the test tubes with the Elodea turned blue. The brom[o]thymol solution in the control remained yellow.

What conclusion can be drawn from the observations? Explain.

Chapter Assessment, p. 58, question 4

No other items are provided to assess the key ideas about matter and energy transformations.

Testing for understanding

Rating = Poor
Since no assessment tasks were aligned to the key ideas, the report for this criterion is organized to reflect the overall rating rather than each indicator judgment.

Of the relevant assessment items described under the previous criterion, none require understanding of the key idea. Clearly this is not sufficient to assess students’ understanding of the key ideas examined here.

Using assessment to inform instruction

Rating = Poor
Since the material provides few tasks for this criterion, this report is organized to reflect the overall rating rather than each indicator judgment.

No indicators are met. The material does not use embedded assessment as a routine strategy. Only a handful of relevant questions are included in Chapter Assessments for Chapter 2: Principles of Ecology, Chapter 10: Energy in a Cell, and Chapter 35: The Digestive and Endocrine Systems (shown earlier for the criterion "Providing practice" in category IV).

The material does not assist teachers in interpreting student responses to diagnose what learning difficulties remain.

According to the Teacher Guide, the student text includes a three-page Chapter Assessment at the end of each chapter that can be used to “determine whether any substantial reteaching is needed” (p. 33T). However, no specific suggestions are provided on how to use the information from the items to make instructional decisions.

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VII: Enhancing the Science Learning Environment

Providing teacher content support

Rating = Minimal support is provided.

The material provides minimal support in alerting teachers to how ideas have been simplified for students to comprehend and what the more sophisticated versions are. Content background notes usually summarize the student text (e.g., p. 34t, Unit Overview; p. 48t, Key Concepts) or briefly elaborate on one or a few student text concepts (e.g., p. 228t, Background). Overall, the teacher content support is brief, localized, and fragmented.

The material does not usually provide sufficiently detailed answers to questions in the student book for teachers to understand and interpret various student responses. While most answers include expected scientific responses, little, if any, additional information is provided to help teachers field potential student questions or difficulties (e.g., p. 241t, Analysis, answer 2; p. 248t, Applying Main Ideas, answer 22). In addition, some answers are brief and require further explanation (e.g., "carbon dioxide and water" [p. 249t, Thinking Critically, answer 25]). Some questions go unanswered (e.g., p. 226s, Getting Started Demo; p. 231t, Bellringer).

The material provides minimal support in recommending resources for improving the teacher's understanding of key ideas. The material lists references in introductory notes (p. 50T, Teacher Readings) and in the "National Geographic Teacher's Corner" section at the beginning of each chapter (e.g., "'How the Sun Gives Life to the Sea,' by Paul A. Zahl, February 1961" [p. 226Bt]). While these resources might help teachers improve their understanding of the key ideas, the lists lack annotations about what kind of specific information the resources provide.

Encouraging curiosity and questioning

Rating = Minimal support is provided.

The material provides a few suggestions for how to encourage students' questions and guide their search for answers. For example, an assessment task asks students to generate questions to quiz their classmates (e.g., p. 42t, Assessment).

The material provides a few suggestions for how to respect and value students' ideas. Teacher notes state that multiple student answers should be acceptable for some questions (e.g., p. 65t, Thinking Critically, answer 24). Journal activities elicit students' ideas about particular concepts and issues (e.g., p. 56t, Biology Journal). In addition, some tasks ask students to design their own experiments (e.g., p. 56t, Assessment; p. 59s, Section Assessment, item 6).

The material provides a few suggestions for how to raise questions such as "How do we know? What is the evidence?" and "Are there alternative explanations or other ways of solving the problem that could be better?" However, it does not encourage students to pose such questions themselves. Specifically, the material includes a few tasks that ask students to provide evidence or reasons in their responses (e.g., p. 56st, Analysis, item 3; p. 245st, Analyze and Conclude, item 2).

The material provides a few suggestions for how to avoid dogmatism. The first chapter portrays the nature of science as a durable yet dynamic human enterprise in which all people can participate (e.g., pp. 11–25s). The material also discusses current biology topics (e.g., pp. 580–583s, Focus On) and issues (pp. 62s and 968s, Biology & Society) related to chapter content. However, the material also contributes to dogmatism by presenting most of the text in a static, authoritative manner with little reference to the work of particular, practicing scientists and expecting single, specific responses for most student tasks.

The material does not provide examples of classroom interactions (e.g., dialogue boxes, vignettes, or video clips) that illustrate appropriate ways to respond to student questions or ideas. However, a limited sense of desirable student-student interactions may be gained from general guidelines (p. 32T, Group Performance Assessment) and particular directions for cooperative group activities (e.g., p. 43t, Project; p. 232t, Assessment).

Supporting all students

Rating = Some support is provided.

The material generally avoids stereotypes or language that might be offensive to a particular group. For example, photographs include a diverse cultural mix of students and adults (e.g., pp. 5s, 228s, 241s), but the number of photographs that include people throughout the material are few.

The material provides some illustrations of the contributions of women and minorities to science and as role models. Most of the contributions of women and minority scientists, however, appear in separate sections within each chapter entitled Cultural Diversity. Cultural Diversity features include information about particular scientists or cultural groups related to the chapter content. For example, one Cultural Diversity feature asks students to research how different cultural groups use medicinal plants in current and historical times (p. 584t). The material also includes a related feature entitled Careers in Biology. The Careers in Biology feature briefly describes scientific occupations related to the material, provides information on how students can learn more about the careers, and includes photographs of scientists, who are sometimes women or minorities (e.g., p. 40st). All of these sections highlighting cultural contributions are interesting and informative, but may not be seen by students as central to the material because they are presented in sidebars and teacher notes.

The material suggests multiple formats for students to express their ideas during instruction and assessment, including individual journal writing (e.g., p. 55t, Biology Journal), cooperative group activities (e.g., p. 952t, Project), laboratory investigations (e.g., pp. 244–245s), whole class discussions (e.g., p. 255t, Discussion), essay questions (e.g., p. 59st, Section Assessment, item 3; Chapter Assessment, p. 58, question 4), oral reports (e.g., p. 35t, Final Report), written reports (e.g., p. 58t, Portfolio), research projects (e.g., p. 240t, TechPrep), visual projects (e.g., p. 55t, Reinforcement), concept mapping (e.g., p. 57t, Meeting Individual Needs), modeling (p. 234st, MiniLab 9-1), and portfolio (e.g., p. 57t, Assessment). However, the material does not usually provide a variety of alternatives for the same task in either instruction or assessment.

The material does not routinely include specific suggestions about how teachers can modify activities for students with special needs. However, the Teacher Wraparound Edition gives general suggestions in introductory notes (pp. 30T–31T) and provides additional activities and resources for students of specific ability levels. At the beginning of each chapter, teacher notes link chapter activities to various learning styles (e.g., p. 226t, Multiple Learning Styles) and provide a key to activity codes for English language learners and different ability levels (e.g., p. 36At, Key to Teaching Strategies). Within each chapter, activities for students with special needs are entitled Meeting Individual Needs (e.g., p. 229t). Other additional activities within chapters include Extension (e.g., p. 230t), Reteach (e.g., p. 59t), and Reinforcement (e.g., p. 58t). Supplemental program resources provide further additional activities and resources for students (for a description, see pp. 20T–27T).

The material provides some strategies to validate students' relevant personal and social experiences with scientific ideas. Some text sections relate specific personal experiences students may have had to the presented scientific concepts (e.g., p. 37s). In addition, some tasks (e.g., p. 58t, Portfolio; p. 956t, Assessment: Performance) ask students about particular personal experiences they may have had or suggest specific experiences they could have. However, the material rarely encourages students to contribute relevant experiences of their own choice to the science classroom. Overall, support is brief and localized.

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