Link It

DART Goals:

This activity will focus the students' attention on the effects of alcohol on the neurons and muscles of organisms. It will increase student understanding of the effects of alcohol on human nervous system and muscular system function.

Students should develop an opinion regarding the use of alcohol and other drugs in their own lives.

Students should develop an understanding of and competence in the use of scientific research methods as they learn to formulate a hypothesis, perform laboratory techniques, make and record detailed observations, analyze their observations and develop reasonable conclusions, write up their experience in a formal laboratory report, and generate a list of questions for possible further laboratory experiments.

Links to the California State Science Content Standards:

Investigation and Experimentation standards are fundamentally addressed in this laboratory experiment. Students are asked to select and use a variety of appropriate scientific tools and techniques, to formulate explanations using logic and evidence gathered during the procedures, to identify possible reasons for inconsistent results, to recognize the usefulness and limitations of models, and to investigate a science-based societal issue, alcohol use.

In addition, this lab addresses many of the Biology/Life Science standards in the areas of cell biology, genetics, evolution, and physiology.

Links to other curricular areas:

This laboratory extends easily across both biological content and general curricular areas.

A discussion of this laboratory has a place in the social sciences classroom: the issue of laws pertaining to legal drinking age, restrictions on youth driving, penalties for drunk driving and other laws aimed at preventing,curtailing, or eliminating substance abuse could be examined in light of scientific evidence about how these substances affect the human body.

The content of this laboratory applies directly to a health education and to a human anatomy and physiology classroom. Discussions of alcohol use and abuse could expand to other substances of abuse as well, and their ensuing effects on human function - physiological,psychological, and social.

The fact that a 10% alcohol solution greatly increases nondisjunction in C. elegans leads to a series of possible genetics-based inquiries in a biology or biotechnology classroom.

The knowledge that C.elegans is a free-living soil nematode invites inquiry into its role in world ecosystems.