Westridge Class of the Week: Ms. Chabot’s 7th Grade Life Science Class

For this edition of Westridge School’s Class of the Week, we visited Ms. Chabot’s 7th Grade life science class. Students performed experiments using bromothymol blue (BTB), a pH indicator, to measure the effects of physical activity on carbon dioxide production.

Students worked in groups to come up with different ways in which to test their hypotheses. Would more physical activity mean more or less carbon dioxide was produced? Would different types of physical activities make a difference?

To begin, students blew air through a straw into a cup of BTB liquid while a fellow group member timed how long it took for the BTB to turn from blue to green or yellow, indicating the presence of carbon dioxide.

From there, the students came up with different variables to test how physical activity would change how long it took for the BTB to react. Some girls ran around the basketball court and playground, while other students could be seen jumping rope, swinging, dribbling a basketball and “mall walking” around the playground.

The groups then tapped into their mathematics knowledge, compiling the data using an online graphing software first introduced in Ms. Lukens’ 7th Grade math class during a recent graph lesson.

Each group in Ms. Chabot’s class will also work together to produce a lab report on their findings.

So how DID physical activity affect the amount of carbon dioxide their bodies produced? Ask a Westridge 7th grader to find out!

View more photos at: http://bit.ly/classoftheweekmschabot

Westridge School, 324 Madeline Drive, Pasadena, (626) 799-1053 ext. 200 or visit www.westridge.org.