Our overall objective is to promote authentic

science, ambitious teaching, and an orientation to science pursuits among elementary students participating in a

university-school-community promise program through

inquiry focused on mosquitoes and human

health.

Goal #2

Informal and formal science educators will demonstrate

competence in authentic and ambitious science teaching and model an affirming orientation

toward cultural diversity in science.

Goal #3

Community residents will display more accurate

understandings and transformed practices with

respect to mosquitoes in the urban ecosystem in

service of enhanced health and well-being.

Goal #1

Historically-excluded youth will develop authentic

science knowledge, skills, and dispositions, as well as identification with science,

and motivation for continued science study.

Lesson Activities Lesson Goals1 Initial Model Building

Students will listen to a recording of crickets chirping and then generate initial explanations/models to answer the questions: How do crickets make that noise? Do other crickets hear the noise, and if so, how?

• Develop and compare possible models/explanations for the cricket sounds they heard (anchoring event).

• Connect science ideas to their experiences and knowledge from in and out of school.

• Communicate science ideas• Support ideas with evidence

2 How Crickets Chirp (part 1): Observing Cricket Body PartsStudents will refer to their initial ideas of how crickets make a chirping sound (from lesson 1) and suggest what physical structures they might be able to observe if each idea is true. Then they will observe crickets under a dissecting scope and suggest body parts that might be used to make a chirping sound. They will use the evidence gathered today to revise their models of how crickets chirp.

• Suggest structures that might enable a cricket to chirp (structure and function)

• Revise their models/explanations of cricket sounds

• Communicate science ideas• Support ideas with evidence

Katherine Richardson Bruna, Ph.D.1, Gale Seiler, Ph.D.1, and Lyric Bartholomay, Ph.D.21Iowa State University, 2University of Wisconsin-Madison

Acknowledgements: This project was supported by the Office Of The Director, National Institutes Of Health under Award Number R25OD020213. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.

Young Scientists and Ambitious Teachers Improving Health in an Urban Ecosystem

The Urban Ecosystem Project is a supporting program of the ISU 4U Promise—a partnership between Iowa State University and Des Moines Public Schools—benefiting the youth and families of King and

Moulton elementary schools. Learn more at www.ISU4U.org.

Created: a print-rich

environment to capture

students' answers to the question "Why

and how do mosquitoes

buzz and bite?”

Developed: an innovative phenomenon-based Mosquitoes and Me curriculum

Implemented: a curricular component in which students used their learning in

the design and redesign of mosquito traps

Captured: students’ changing conceptions of mosquito phenomena