The question led students to think about what excretion is. They came up with many other questions such as "Is faeces edible and is urine drinkable?" Students went on to find out the components of urine and faeces and whether they contained any useful nutrients that could be utilised by the human body.
The enzyme catalayse in yeast cells catalysed the breakdown of hydrogen peroxide into water and oxygen gas, resulting in bubbles formed. Students were allowed to smell and hold the test-tube, and using their observations, they were asked to provide a hypothesis of the contents in the test-tube.
“In the past 50 years, humans have consumed more resources than in all previous history.”
“What’s so wrong about cutting down trees?” Jaslynn asked. Ideas surfaced included having lesser trees to photosynthesize to construction of buildings where trees used to stand.
At this point, Jaslynn introduced a video reflecting Man’s impact on the environment over the lifetime of mankind.
After the video clip, she started the discussion in KF with the following question: Putting our knowledge together - What did you learn from the video?
Another teacher, Irene, showed a video clip on different kinds of wildlife in Singapore. She then proceeded to ask them to think about the features of the animals shown to them that would help them adapt to their environment for survival.
Their initial theories of matter were:
The classification was varied, with some classifying according to the materials used while others classified according to the function of the objects (e.g.: household item, cutlery)
Under the voting scaffold ‘I chose this because’, students were to read all the groups’ compositions and post a note on the view of the group composition which they liked the best. They were also prompted to state their reasons for their choice, as well as to quote phrases from the original piece to support their stand.