Biology Lessons Part 2: Population Biology

Lesson 2.6: How Do Flowering Plants Reproduce? Knowledge Mapping Teachers' Guide

Time	Approximately 1 hour.
Objectives	Once you have completed this knowledge mapping exercise you should be able to:
	1.	Design a Knowledge Mapping lesson involving the SemNet® software without using a starter net.
Exercise 1	Preparing a Knowledge Mapping Exercise for Fifth or Sixth Graders
Introduction		Imagine that you are teaching this lesson, "Flowering Plant Reproduction", to your class of fifth or sixth graders. They are familiar with mapping using SemNet because you have been using it all semester.
	1.	The first thing is to determine the goal. Supposing you want your students to learn about the structure (and to a lesser extent the function) of the flower and its parts.
	2.	The next thing is to decide upon an assignment. Let's ask the students to work in groups to construct a network describing a "perfect flower" ­ one that contains both male and female parts. They should include the 32 concepts in Table 1, and any other concepts they wish to add.
Table 1. Thirty-two concepts for describing flower structure. 1-8 9-16 17-24 25-32 angiospern filament ovary roots anther flower ovary wall seed color flowering plant ovule seed coat cotyledon fragrance petal seedling egg fruit pistil sepal embryo germination pollen stamen female part growth of pollen tube pollination stigma fertilization male part pollinator style
	3.	Tell your students that all of these concepts should have two or more connections and at least half (16 concepts) should have three or more connections.
	4.	Tell your students that they can use the following relations.
Assymetric Relations   First Relation Name Second Relation Name Clock Settings has a kind called is a kind of 7:00/2:00 has part called is a part of 6:00/12:00 produces is produced by 2:00/8:00 has an example called is an example of 4:00/10:00 has the characteristic is characteristic of 5:00/11:00 has a function is a function of 4:00/12:00 develops into develops from 3:00/9:00 has a process called is a process in 3:00/10:00 is defined as is the defintion of 4:00/12:00 contains is contained in 6:00/12:00 protects is protected by 4:00/10:00 includes is included in 7:00/1:00 follows is followed by 3:00/9:00   Symmetric Relations   Relation Name     Is the same as   11:00 Is connected to   4:00
	5.	Give your students the following starter net which contains the 32 concepts and 15 relations shown above, along with a printed copy of these two tables..
	6.	When they have finished, ask your students to review one another's nets (in pairs of groups) and make suggestions for improvement.
	7.	Give them time to polish their nets
	8.	Ask your students to print out the concepts in their nets in graphic format, compact screen, 6 per page, with two or more connections.
	9.	Then ask them to cut out the graphic frames, paste them on a poster baord in a way that shows the relations among concepts, and add pictures to illustrate ideas.
Refer to the 2.6g Flowering Plant Reproduction net as a resource to see how we describe these ideas.