Title: The Private Eye

Description: The goal of this kit is to instill in students the thinking habits of a scientist: "looking closely at the world, thinking by analogy, changing scale, and theorizing."  Students examine both natural and man-made objects with their 5X jeweler's loupe, describe the objects by using analogy, asking "What else does it remind me of?", and relate form to function by considering "Why does it look like that?".  The relevance to genetics is mainly in developing students' observational skills, facility with magnifiers, and knowledge of the scientific process.  Through their observations, students learn about genetic variation, evolution, and organismal development and life cycles.

Strengths: The simplicity of this resource is its great strength.  Students learn how to use the loupe to observe and then repeat this over and over with new objects.  This resource also cultivates in students an interest in further exploration and discovery.  The kit comes equipped with a class set of 36 jeweler's loupes, a 50X microscope, specimen collection, instructional video, resource books, and an excellent and fun-to-read teacher's guide.

Weaknesses: This resource is not a specialized genetics resource per se, but does have great utility in laying the foundation for further study in all the sciences.  Assessments are somewhat narrowly focused on using analogies in creative writing activities.

Keywords: Variation, biodiversity, evolution, human, plant, animal, fruit fly, the scientific method

Genetics concepts addressed: 1, 7
(view genetics concepts)

Other subjects addressed: Physics, Mathematics, Technology, Reading, Writing, Communication, Social Studies, Art

last updated 6/09/00