Exploring Homeostasis and Feedback Loops with Diabetes   

Eleanor Kemp
Biology, Environmental Science
10 (45-50 minute) class periods
High School Honors Biology
v1

Overview

This series of lessons is designed to help students understand how negative feedback loops help to maintain a dynamic equilibrium within the human body. Students will engage in 3-D lessons and activities to recognize that the function of the endocrine system is to regulate and coordinate multiple organ systems in order to preserve homeostasis.  Students will learn about the role of glucose as an energy molecule in our body and the hormone/receptor mediated mechanism that controls the molecule's uptake into cells.  Students will use modeling software to understand the constant flux of hormones and glucose levels that, over time, produce a stable system. 

Standards

Next Generation Science Standards
  • Expand Collapse   Life Science
    • [HS-LS2] Ecosystems: Interactions, Energy, and Dynamics
  • Expand Collapse   NGSS Crosscutting Concept
    • Patterns
    • Causation
    • Systems
    • Stability and Change
  • Expand Collapse   NGSS Practice
    • Analyzing Data
    • Asking Questions, Defining Problems
    • Using Models
Computational Thinking in STEM
  • Expand Collapse   Data Practices
    • Analyzing Data
  • Expand Collapse   Modeling and Simulation Practices
    • Using Computational Models to Understand a Concept
  • Expand Collapse   Systems Thinking Practices
    • Investigating a Complex System as a Whole
    • Understanding the Relationships within a System

Credits

Unit designed by Eleanor Kemp a teacher at Lindblom.

Acknowledgement

These lessons utilize resources from Project Neuron, a curriculum program developed by the University of Illinois, and HASPI (Health and Science Pipeline Initiatives).