
Workshop Resource

Life Science
6-12
Middle / High School
Data analysis provides evidence for posing scientific arguments and generating models. Tree ring and WFP data are collected then used to make arguments about climate change and inheritance patterns during this workshop. Analysis of tree ring data as indirect evidence about how the climate of a region has changed over time. Participants will identify patterns and differences in tree rings, compare climate data with tree formation, and construct an argument about what is happening with the climate in the region.
Wisconsin Fast Plants® data are used to examine the inheritance patterns of two different traits resulting from dihybrid crosses. Students, working in pairs, collect phenotypic traits for a parent generation, the F1 and F2 generations and then a model is generated and evaluated. The data set is enlarged from the initial pair of students with data from the table and the model is revised and evaluated. Again, the data set is enlarged to all groups and a second model revision and evaluation completed, illustrating, and explaining the importance of sample size when building a model. Participants make a claim about a proposed inheritance pattern using the final model and support or reject the claim with a Chi-square analysis computed on the aggregate data.