Teachers TryScience

Before beginning this activity, you may want to view this video, which provides you with a practical how-to.

• Biodome Engineering Design Project

This activity can be conducted as either structured or open-ended design. For a more structured lesson, guide the students to build model biodomes as described in Figure 1 (below) while still giving them room to add some changes of their own. Otherwise, provide students with a variety of materials and set them loose to design a biodome structure of their own imagination (see Figure 2 below).

Each section of the procedure should be done during a different class period. These class periods do not need to be consecutive but be aware of the life cycles of the plants and animals you’ll be using.

Be sure to try this activity on your own before doing this with students.

Gather materials and make enough copies of the Biodomes Engineering Design Project Workbook and Engineering Design Process Handout, one per team or per student. (Staple the pages together to make workbooks.)

• Biodome Engineering Design Project Workbook

• Engineering Design Process Handout

With the Students

Part 1: Designing Your Biodome

Divide the class into engineering teams of two to four students each.

Give each group a Biodomes Engineering Design Project Workbook and Engineering Design Process Handout.

1. Have students decide on a name for their engineering design team (and record it on the first page of their workbook).
2. Instruct the students to brainstorm ideas on what a biodome would contain for a given environment. (Provide teams with an environment, perhaps the local environment.)
3. After the students have brainstormed their ideas and shared a few with the class, have them pick one of their ideas from which they will build their team's model biodome.
4. Next, have students draw a picture of their biodome design in the space provided in their workbooks. (Note: For a simple biodome structure, follow the Figure 1 instructions, have students design uniform biodomes, and provide them with a variety of materials, soils and seeds for the interior. For a more open-ended project, instruct the teams to creatively design their own biodome structures and materials [see Figure 2].)

Figure 1                     Figure 2

Part 2: Building Your Biodome Structure

1. During this class period, provide each group with the supplies they need to build the structure of their designed biodome.
2. Provide time for the students to build their biodome structures. Remind them that they need a tight seal on their biodome, so that it becomes a completely contained mini-environment (use tape or hot glue, preserving the ability to open/close the biodome for future steps).
3. Have students answer the questions in Part 2 of the workbook. Remind them that engineers often encounter challenges many times during the engineering design process, before they achieve a finished product.

Part 3: Energy Flow in Your Biodome

1. Instruct students to sit together with the members of their engineering design teams.
2. In their workbooks, have students explain their biodome environment and make a list of the organisms that could be found if their biodome was built on a larger scale.
3. Next, have students draw one or more food chains or food webs to show the flow of energy through their biodome environment. Have them consider the relationships of the food sources and consumers in their individual biodomes.
4. Have all or several student teams share their food chains or food webs with the class. Discuss the flow of energy through each of their model biodomes.
5. Engage the students in a class discussion about their biodomes. Questions: From where does the energy to sustain your biodomes originally come? (Answer: The sun.) How will you make sure that sunlight gets into your biodome? Where are the air and water sources for your biodomes?

Part 4: Plants in Your Biodome

1. Instruct students to sit together with the members of their engineering design teams.
2. Discuss basic plant needs with the students (food, water and energy from the sun).
3. Have students place soil, sand, rocks, ponds, or earth features into their biodomes, according to their designs.
4. Next, have students plant several seeds in the soil of their biodomes.
5. Remind students to record in their workbooks what they are adding to their biodomes.
6. Next, have students water their biodome and seal it up tightly.
7. Ask students to review their food chain drawings and the plants they placed inside their biodomes. Will these plants support their food chains? If not, what changes will they need to make to their food chains? Tell them that engineers often have to make adjustments to their projects as they learn new information or change their materials (in this case, seeds) from their original design.

Part 5: Animals in Your Biodome

1. Before starting Part 5, you should give the plant(s) added in Part 4 time to grow.
2. Instruct students to sit together with the members of their engineering design teams.
3. In their workbooks, have studentsrecord observations of what happened to their biodome since they last added something.
4. Inform the students that today they will collect animals from outdoors to place into their biodomes. Before they go outside to collect the animals, they need to plan what kind of animals they can have inside.  (If you are providing animals from the pet store, describe the range of animals available.)
5. Make a list on the board of possible animalsthat the students may find to put in their biodome. (Ideas: snails, June bugs, lady bugs. Worms will be added in the decomposition activity, Part 6.) Also make a list of food sources that those animals require.
6. Ask the students what kinds of problems they might have in picking which animals to put inside the biodome. Explain that they do not want the animals to be eaten by the other animals in the biodome. If this happens, all the animals would die once their food source is gone. Also explain that engineers are often limited by the materials that are available to them. In this case, the students are limited to the animals they can find outside their classroomor the ones you have provided, which are mostly insects.
7. After giving instructions on outdoor policies, give the students some time go outside with nets and jars to collect insects for their biodomes.
8. Returning to class, ask the students to place their animals into their biodomes and observe what they see.
9. Have students add water, if needed, to their biodome and seal it up tightly.

Part 6: Decomposers in Your Biodome

1. Instruct students to sit together with the members of their engineering design teams.
2. In their workbooks, have student record observations of what happened to their biodome since they last added something.
3. Inform the students that today they will collect worms from outdoors to place into their biodomes. The worms help to break down animal and plant wastes into more useful soil and nutrients.  (If worms are not available outside, the teacher should provide.)
4. Ask the students what kind of problems they see with putting animals and plants into a biodome. Lead them to realize that it is very difficult for humans to make a safe atmosphere for all the different types of plants and animals and that often some of the plants and animals die in their new locations. While the idea of biodomes is a very popular one, there have not been many successes. Engineers work with biologists and other scientists to try their best to design environments in which the animals can live as if they were in nature.This helps scientists make observations about how living and nonliving things interact that might be difficult to make on a larger scale.
5. After giving instructions on outdoor policies, give the students some time to go outside to with jars or paper cups to collect worms for their biodomes.
6. Returning to class, ask the students to place their worms into their biodomes and observe what they see.
7. Have students add water, if needed, to their biodome and seal it up tightly.

Part 7: Review & Evaluation (after completion of the model biodomes)

1. Instruct students to sit together with the members of their engineering design teams.
2. In their workbooks, have students record observations of what happened to their biodomes since they last added something.
3. Have students answer the review and evaluation questions in their workbooks.
4. Exhibit the completed model biodomes, along with the completed team workbooks in the school library, display cases or at parents' night.
5. Have students make a bar graph representing the class' biodome diversity.  You may want to refer to the video below on graphing data.
   

    Representing Data

   
    

6. Have students make a bar chart of the animals and plants they included in their biodomes. Gather all class data and make a class chart as a demonstration. From the data, ask the students how biodome engineers make sure they gather an appropriate sample of plants, animals and decomposers. (Point out that most of students probably gathered the easiest animals and plants to find. What would happen if biodome engineers did this? Would it be a good representation of life?  (Answer: No. If engineers only picked species that were easy to find, they would leave out many other species that may have an important role in the biome. They would be working with incomplete information.) Then, ask the students to do this for their own biodomes.
7. By having students make detailed observations and keep accurate accounts of their process in their workbooks, you will be able to make comparisions across different groups,as well as draw conclusions about the energy flow within each system.

Safety Issues

• Warn students to be careful when cutting plastic bottles. Or, depending on the ability of the students, cut the plastic bottles in advance of the activity.
• Set up a hot glue gun station that either the teacher or a classroom assistant supervises. Do not hand out hot glue guns unless students are able to use them responsibly and safely.
• Be aware of any student allergies to insects, grasses, etc.
• Warn students not to try to capture potentially dangerous insects, such as bees, wasps or spiders.
• Be sure to monitor students when they are outdoors.

Troubleshooting Tips 

Limit the materials that students are permitted to use to create their biodomes, otherwise, the biodomes tend to become large and resource demanding. This approach mirrors the real world, in which engineers are usually given size, budget and/or resource limitations. One way to limit size is to set a maximum footprint area, such as one square meter or one square foot.

To give the seeds more time to grow, consider swapping the order of Parts 3 and 4, so the seeds are planted earlier in the model biodome development process.

For Part 5, if insects are not available outside (due to the weather or other limitations), consider purchasing a small supply of snails (often free since they usually have too many) from a pet store, or potato bugs from a science lab. Note that snails and aquarium plants should not go down the drain or into a nearby stream as both are nasty invasive species. Instead, explain to the students that you'll find a home for them, and then either return them to a suitable aquarium elsewhere or destroy them.

Make sure that students are taking detailed notes and observations throughout the process to allow for comparisons and conclusions during Part 7.