"Fear my botany powers!" -Mark Watney, The Martian

This week, we will be ramping up our reading of the Martian to cover 2-3 chapters per week. Most of this is done orally, but some reading will have to be done silently when the students have some down time. The available science information that is accessible from this novel is just outstanding and the sophomores are almost begging me to read it--that is VERY exciting for any teacher. For parents who have seen the movie, check out this TedEd to help explain some of the science concepts from the film.

The physics students are also continuing to work through the velocity equations and will participate in a PhET lab tomorrow to help reinforce the concepts of motion in one dimension, velocity, displacement, and acceleration. PhET is free online chemistry, biology, and physics simulations for students produced by the University of Colorado Boulder.

The physics students will finish this up with the physics of Car Crashes, a film produced by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety which I think is a PERFECT and valuable lesson for these future drivers.

Biology this week will be learning about the unique properties of proteins, specifically enzymes and their roles as biological catalysts. We will be working with a VERY awesome laboratory exercise from a company called Edvotek. I participated in a workshop with Edvotek at last year's #NSTA Reno conference and was truly impressed by their products. The company was founded by scientists who were troubled that their own child was not interested in science and realized that science needed to be more accessible and hands-on at the secondary level. I second their discovery 100%! The lab, "What's in My Lunch" will be a quantitative ELISA testing for proteins in milk and relating that back to the concept of food allergens. An ELISA is the acronym for an enzyme-lined immusorbent assay.

BioRad, another high quality biochem/biotech company for secondary and college institutions created a web module on exactly what an ELISA test is. The students will also be reviewing this in class.