WWF Princeton 2000		Thalassiosira Cleve 1873 emend. Hasle 1973

Teacher Instructions:

This activity is an inquiry based research writing scenario that enables students to use data collected at the Woodrow Wilson Environmental Institute 2001 on the campus of Princeton University.  The  research project also appears on this website, complete with data, graphs, results/discussions, and conclusions. To use this as an inquiry activity with students, you will need to download student activity one and two to a disk and print out the student instruction sheet and data sheet. After selecting these pages, save to your hard drive or drive A (floppy disk) for use on the computers in your lab.

Possible uses of this activity include: 
-inquiry question development, 
-introduction to laboratory design, 
-quantitative data analysis, 
-assessing results, and
-evaluating the significance of  conclusions based on global findings.  
This may be a reasonable way for students to experience simple research before attempting independent research on their own.  Teachers may provide additional directions to level the activity for grade and student abilities.

After reading about the laboratory setup and examining the data, students begin by writing a question (problem) that can be answered by the data collected by researchers. The scenario premise is that they will be evaluating a small facet of the research to determine if it should continue to receive funding.  In reality, they are modeling all sections of a well designed research project where the data has been collected with equipment that most secondary schools will not have available.  This activity is not a replacement for true inquiry experimentation but may be a good way to review the scientific method before beginning experimental research.

With the data given, expect to see student generated questions such as:
Does carbon dioxide concentration affect cell growth (counts)?
Does carbon dioxide concentration affect the amount of chlorophyll A in a population of diatoms?  (fluorescence)
Does carbon dioxide concentration affect the amount of  CA produced by a diatom population? (quantitative measure of CA enzyme) 
Does carbon dioxide concentration affect the pH of the growth medium? (pH)
Is carbon dioxide a limiting factor in global diatom growth? (cell counts over time in various concentrations of carbon dioxide)
Is a nutrient such as silicate or nitrate or phosphate a limiting factor in diatom population growth? (concentration of one of these in each of the carbon dioxide growth bottles.)

An experimental extension has been included for teacher's having access to minimal equipment.  This lab has not been field tested.

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