July 17 Thursday

These are the Big ideas:
1. Math is the key to science. Much research is done through Mathematical simulations. Students must understand the relative size of things in the Universe and the effect of adding another zero as a beginning to explain what scientists are doing.

2. Functions are everywhere. Students will understand how graphs/distributions are created by functions. Not only what the graphs represent, but how we can utilize the information once it is compiled.

3. Students will understand the importance of proteins and the reasons researchers are studying them. They will understand how math is used in research and the things that we can do with the information it provides us.

The main thing I am taking from the research is how exciting the things that are being done at ASU are. What kinds of things we are researching, how the research is accomplished, and what will be done with it.

I had no idea about how math was being used to simulate what cannot be seen. Even though the math and physics is way beyond my capabilites, and certainly my students, I feel I have a good general understanding of what is trying to be accomplished, some of the things that have come from the research, and what they are hoping to find. Each day the explanations by the researchers were creating analogy after analogy in my head. These are what I will share with my students to help them understand what I have to share with them.

My students have difficulty seeing a longterm purpose for their math. With the information analogies I have to share, I hope my enthusiasm for what I have seen will be contageous.

The activities I am initially envisioning for the students will include Arizona Math Standards, Strands 1, 2, 3, and 5! I believe I can use the experiences from the summer in nearly every unit that we cover this year.

The 3 Main activities to address the 3 Main ideas are:

Powers of 10 - Two different short videos and a book to get their minds into motion. There are some existing activities to start with, then some modeling ideas for the students to create from their new experiences are still forming.

Boltzmann Game - Students will play an adapted version of the game to gather, graph, and analyze data. All three aspects will be assessed for understanding. Students will see how the knowledge is applied by playing the "Marble Game", which helps to explain how scientists perform the simulations in their research.

Movie Making - Students will create short videos from shapshots so they will better understand how increments of time effect what scientists can observe in their simulations, and also what they might miss, if the do not use the correct resolution.

Protein Folding Simulations in PyMol - students will observe and hopefully personally manipulate the images they see in PyMol of the proteins and their movements.

After our discussions today, I thought of something new to take to the students that might really spike their interest; this research into protein folding is being used in pharmaceutical research and the treatment and maybe prevention of diseases and conditions. This protein folding research might help to identify ways we can cure or prevent learning disabilities or at least understand them a little better. Many of my students feel there is something wrong with them, that they need or want their self perceived defect to go away.

This has given me some ideas for some research into what other research is currently being done in this area.

July 16 Wednesday

Michael Thorpe's topic today was How do we get students to understand the relationship of size between quarks and the universe? He showed us the video "Powers of 10" and another presentation he had about quarks. He had some great ideas to assist our students to think about the differences.

July 15 Tuesday

Michael Thorpe shared one of his favorite movies with us today, "Life Story". It is based on the book "Double Helix" by James Watson. It is the account of his discovery of the double helix and the Noble Prize he received for his work. It was much better than it sounds, Jeff Goldblum played Watson.

July 14 Monday

Spent the morning working on our poster. Good collaboration.

July 11 Friday

Normal Mode Analysis was the topic for today. We found some protein videos in YouTube that we can share with our students. Nevin, the grad assistant went through the process where we can create our own movies using the protein database models opened into PyMol so we can show our students how the different proteins have different movements for the functions they provide. Researchers use this information to better understand the relationship between structure and function.

July 10 Thursday

Daniel Barr went over Normal Mode Analysis with us today. He reviewed the time steps involved in the simulation process. He went over some of the things that Arjan introduced the other day to make sure we got it. Daniel helped me with PyMol also.

David and I went over some more of the project, coming along nicely.

The tours in the afternoon were great. The Spiderlab was very interesting, have been looking forward to that. I hadn't realized we would be seeing the NMR. We have been talking about it in our protein research so was especially excited to see that and learn more about it.

Decision theatre was neat, wish we had time to see the brain.

July 9 Wednesday

This morning, Dr. Lindsay took the CBP group on a tour of the Bio Design Center. Wow! The things that they are doing they are amazing. The research alone is mindboggling. The facility is beautiful, and the layout that encourages interaction among disciplines and projects seems to be the only way to do things. What better way to inspire ideas than to have the interaction between these bright minds, bouncing ideas off of each other, questioning and explaining. I was watching two men drawing on a white board and discussing. Don't know what they were talking about, but it looked important.
Dr. Lindsay is so well versed in all of the topics being researched. He has a tremendous ability to explain what is going on in terms that are understandable. Many commented on how much we appreciated him taking time from his day to take us around.

David and I made very good progress on our poster today. We also had an opportunity to sit down with Banu to get a preview on what she would like us to focus on for our project. She will not be going over it with the class until Friday. We now have a good idea of what she would like, and have some time to develop some ideas. We believe it will fit in well with what we wanted to do with the Movie Maker.