Middle School Inquiry Lab on the Nervous System
In this lab students will compare the rate at which the nervous system processes information visually, orally, and tactually.
Each inquiry lab will contain an essential question that will drive the lesson and make students think. For this lesson, the essential question is:
- How does the response rate of the nervous system differ between oral, visual, and tactile (touch) stimuli?
BACKGROUND INFORMATION AND MATERIALS LIST:
Students will begin the lab by reading the essential question and background information. This can be done individually, as lab groups, or as a whole class. If you consider lab groups, you also might include some type of whole class formative checks before digging into the lab.
Materials List:
- meterstick
PROCEDURE:
In this lab, students will get to experience how different types of messages affect reaction times. Through a series of tests, students will have to see exactly how long it takes for their brain to receive and respond to information sent. This hands-on approach gets students wanting to see if they can improve response time and sees how they stack up with the rest of their classmates.
CONCLUSION
Students will go back to the essential question and write a CER (Claim, Evidence, Reasoning) to conclude the lab. Once completed, students will reflect back on their learning by answering the following questions:
- Which stimulus did your group respond to the best? Explain why you think you responded faster to this stimulus.
- Explain why it takes time for a message to travel along nerve pathways.
- How would your results compare to group members that were 25 and 70 years old? Explain.
MODIFIED AND INDEPENDENT INQUIRY VERSIONS
All of the Kesler Science inquiry labs come with three different modification levels. Each lab is differentiated using the icons below.
STANDARDS ALIGNMENT
TEKS: 7.12B – Identify the main functions of the systems of the human organism, including the circulatory, respiratory, skeletal, muscular, digestive, excretory, reproductive, integumentary, nervous, and endocrine systems.
