INQUIRY ADVENTURE:
BIOLOGY!
SUPPLEMENTAL QUESTIONS
Overview
Welcome to Carnegie Science Center’s Inquiry Adventure: Biology!
Your curated experience is designed to provide your students with applied experiences to
supplement their understanding of key content areas in biology. In the pages that follow, you will
find questions that you may choose to discuss with your students while they are visiting, watching,
experimenting, or interacting with the many activities here.
These questions are designed to get students thinking on a deeper level: about what they are
doing, how the science that they are witnessing is related to their everyday lives, and why it is
important. In addition to the questions that directly relate to today’s themes, there are also
questions that relate to secondary topics such as engineering practices and careers in biologyrelated fields.
The questions are categorized based on particular exhibits in the Science Center and based on
those to which the students are being directed on their data cards. They are designed to be openended and to stimulate the students’ curiosity, thereby leading them to ask additional questions
about what they are seeing and learning. Included with some questions is an explanation to assist
chaperones in guiding the students with their inquiries.
Materials Required
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Additional Resources
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Additional Notes
-Bathrooms are on located every floor.
Teacher Guide
Sports Works
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How does the size of an animal relate to its heart rate? Why?
Because the ratio of surface to volume in their large blood vessels and airways is
larger for small animals than for large animals. At the surface of a blood vessel,
blood hardly moves because it is in contact with the vessel’s walls. So the more
surface you have, the harder it is to pump blood. This means small animals have to
work harder than large animals to get blood to each of their cells. But large animals
and small animals use the same kind of pumping machinery (i.e., muscle fibers), so
the only thing small animals can do to make up the difference is to run their pumps
faster.
Why does your heart beat faster when you exercise? What is your body trying to
accomplish by doing that?
When you exercise, your cells are using energy. When they do, they not only require
more oxygen for the chemical processes to occur, but they also generate more byproducts (like carbon dioxide) that need to be disposed of. When your heart beats
-Please use the ramps to move through
the museum and save the elevators for
those who need them.
-In general, you should arrive for shows
at least 10 minutes in advance of the
published start time.
Teacher Guide
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Omnimax:
Mysteries of the
Unseen World
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faster, more blood moves through your body, carrying more oxygen from your lungs
to you cells and more carbon dioxide from the cells back to your lungs to be exhaled.
How would having bigger lungs help you to be a better athlete?
Larger lungs means more surface area where oxygen can be brought into the blood
and carbon dioxide can be removed from it. Therefore, larger lung capacity means
that the transfer of these substances is more efficient. However, the delivery of
oxygen and carbon dioxide depends on more than just your lungs, so a strong heart
and vascular system are also necessary for peak athletic performance.
Why do you think that your heart rate increased more during the jumping jacks
than it did while running in place?
This likely happened because jumping jacks involve more muscles than running in
place. As a result, there was higher total demand for oxygen as well as a greater
amount of carbon dioxide that had to be removed from the body. Therefore, you
heart rate increased more to meet your body’s needs.
Of the exercises you did, which do you think help you to build the most muscle in
your body? Why?
What is meant by the term “cardio workout”? Are you building muscle when you
do “cardio” workouts? Which muscle are you building?
When you do cardio workouts, you are working on your heart muscle – arguably the
most important muscle in your body. You are not building the size of your heart, but
rather its efficiency. The more you exercise your heart, the stronger it will be to
meet the needs of your body.
Why do coaches suggest that athletes eat lots of carbohydrates the night before a
sporting event?
Carbohydrates contain a large amount of stored energy that is easily converted in
your muscles when you do long periods of exercise. This strategy is often used for
workouts lasting longer than 90 minutes to maximize the storage of energy in the
muscles.
What is the connection between the heart rate and the breathing rate?
Your heart rate increases to deliver more blood to and from your body’s cells. Your
breathing rate will increase or decrease as your heart rate does to ensure that there
is enough oxygen for the increased blood supply to also provide a way to eliminate
the increased amounts of carbon dioxide in the blood that is returned to the lungs.
What are some things that are hard to see with the naked eye?
Invite students to think about things that they can’t see because they’re too small,
too fast, too slow or just invisible. What did they notice in the movie? What other
things can they think of?
What are some plants or animals that have adaptations that we might be able to
learn from for human purposes?
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Teacher Guide
Biomimetics or biomimicry is imitating models, systems, and elements in nature for
the purpose of solving complex human problems. For instance the tiny hooks on
Velcro imitate the seed dispersion method of bur-bearing plants. Discuss what other
animal or animal adaptations could be used to solve human problems?
3. Why do you think there are so many microscopic forms of life living on us?
Many microscopic bugs and bacteria live on our skin and everywhere else on and in
our bodies. These guests affect us in a variety of ways: some bad, some good. Some
bacteria and viruses cause infections. Helpful bacteria are passed from mother to
baby. Some microscopic creatures defend our skin and intestines from diseasecausing bacteria. Discuss some of the microscopic creatures seen in the movie.
4. What’s the grossest thing you found out in MOUW? The coolest thing?
Let students discuss items from the movie that intrigued them.
5. What creatures can see different wavelengths of light that we can’t?
Bees and mosquitoes, to start. What are the benefits to these animals of being able
to see different wavelengths?
6. What technologies can help us see wavelengths of light we can’t?
Thermal (infrared) cameras. X-ray machines. How do these technologies (and
others) help people?
7. How do dead things help living things?
Decomposers, such as some bacteria and fungi get their energy by eating dead
organisms. Decomposers have the ability to break down dead organisms into
smaller particles and new compounds, resulting in fertile soil that provides
important building materials for plants.
8. What’s unique about a dragonfly?
That all four wings move independently of one another to control its flight. It’s the
only flyer in nature that can do that.
9. How does a gecko climb up smooth glass?
A gecko’s toes have ridges covered with arrays of stiff, hairlike setae. Each hair can
only transmit a very small force, but because there is a large number of these hairs
the total force is sufficient for the animal to walk on ceilings and climb vertical
surfaces.
10. What are some facts about spider’s silk?
Spider’s silk is a protein. All spiders produce silk and most produce more than one
kind, some up to seven different kinds. It is proportionally both stronger and more
flexible than steel. The Darwin’s Bark spider has the strongest silk, considered to be
10 times more durable than Kevlar. Discuss the facts learned in the movie.
11. What is the ‘nanoworld?’
The ‘nanoworld’ refers to the world at a microscopic level. Nanoscience and
nanotechnology are the study and application of extremely small things and can be
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Teacher Guide
used across all the other science fields, such as chemistry, biology, physics, materials
science, and engineering. Discuss the benefits of nanotechnology.
BodyStage: It’s
Alimentary,
Watson.
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What is the purpose of the GI Tract?
What is the importance of saliva, bile, bacteria, and stomach acid?
What is a sphincter and can you name one?
As your body digests food, what types of things are absorbed?
Exhibit Gallery
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Find a robot in roboworld that is able to see distance. How is the way that it sees
distance different from the way that humans do?
Humans (and animals) require two eyes to gauge distance because our brain uses
triangulation. This means that, based on angle between the object and each eye, our
brain can calculate and estimate how far away an object is. Robots send out a pulse
of light or sound and measure the time it takes for the reflection to return to their
sensor (like sonar or radar). Encourage students to close one eye and try to gauge
distance. They will recognize that humans require both eyes to triangulate the
distance of an object.
Why do you think that the basketball shooting robot has a much higher scoring
percentage than humans?
Can you think of an application where light waves are used to measure the
distance to an object? Radar in airplanes.
How about sound waves? Sonar with ships and submarines. Echolocation used by
bats to “see” in the dark and by dolphins to locate prey underwater.
Can you think of a way that a thermal camera could be used to lower energy
consumption?
By looking at a building from the outside on a cold day, a thermal camera can “see”
the warmest spots on the building. These are the areas where heat is leaking from
inside the building to outside and are the places that, if insulated properly, can
reduce large amounts of energy loss.
I Spy…. Are there things that happen too slowly for the human eye to see and
recognize?
Can you find the following joints on robots that are not shaped like people:
a. Hinge joint
b. Ball and socket joint
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Engineering
Practices
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How are a helicopter and a dragonfly similar?
How are they different?
If you were going to build a machine that could climb anything, what kind of
animal might you look to for ideas on how to do it?
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Teacher Guide
Career Awareness
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What is a career where you might do all of your work looking through a
microscope?
What are jobs that are now done by robots that used to be done by humans?
What are some jobs that are now done by humans that will likely be done
exclusively by humans in the future?
Can you think of 3 different jobs where you would need to understand biology?
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