Bottorff ADI

My activity focuses on preparing students to succeed on the performance indicator 3210.3.1. This indicator asks students in biology I in the flow of matter and energy unit to be able to interpret a diagram that illustrates energy flow in an ecosystem.

I envision most students developing and presenting an agent-based model that displays the relationships between a producer, a consumer, and a predator. This 3-tier predator prey relationship could include graphs to help analyze variables in the system.

One graph could display the average energy of populations, so, assuming that the code incorporates the fact that only ten percent of energy is transferred between trophic levels, students could then see how producers, consumers, and then predators have the most, less, and the least amounts of energy in a simple system.

Another graph could display the number of agents in each population. In conjunction with various buttons, ones that add or delete agents of each trophic level, students can investigate the effects of removing or adding agents to a trophic level. For example, by adding many more producers after a steady population has been reached, students can see that with more producers, consumers have more food and can reproduce more, then allowing the predator population to grow.

After developing models (probably in small groups), students would be encouraged to present their models to the class for critique and subsequent revision. Students would be free to choose any producer, consumer, and predator and could even choose a consumer, a predator, and a predator to the initial predator as long as there is a clear progression of energy through the model.

Besides developing an agent-based model, students could also investigate energy flow in ecosystems using a simpler food web. Using this model, students could still successfully investigate how removing or adding trophic levels could affect the number of individuals in other trophic levels.

To spur model development, I would ask a series of specific questions. To promote argument-driven inquiry, I would more or less follow the specific series of steps. I would first help students in a class discussion identify the task (investigating the flow of energy in ecosystems); I could create a desire to investigate this phenomenon by asking students during the class discussion to hypothesize why there are so many producers, plants, algae, etc., while there are comparatively fewer consumers and even less predators (generally speaking). To generate population size and energy data, I would direct students to use agent-based modeling; alternatively, students could search for food web data online.

At this point, I would ask students to break into small groups and produce tentative arguments to explain the phenomenon of energy transfer in ecosystems. Then, students could present their ideas in groups and then work to critique others and refine their own explanations. Lastly, I would direct students to reflect on this process of argument-driven inquiry with questions such as “How did creating and then refining a hypothesis promote understanding?” and “How might you work in the future to maintain a routine of revision and self-critique?” In this way, students are engaged in inquiry and an atmosphere that values evidence and critical thinking is created.

One of the key advantages of ADI is offering students the chance to be incorrect, i.e. in their initial hypotheses, without the fear of punishments, i.e. failing grades, usually associated with being incorrect. In this way, students can realize that being wrong can lead to new insights through subsequent reflection and revision! Another advantage of this system is the focus on creating the desire for students to resolve natural phenomena rather than simply replicating textbook knowledge.