Negative feedback model build
Open your materials, follow the steps, then turn in your work.
Build and run a physical model of blood-glucose negative feedback involving insulin and glucagon.
1. Open your materials
Use the materials named in the first step below. Open lesson resources.
2. Start the work
Review how the pancreas senses high and low blood glucose.
Show all 5 required steps
- Review how the pancreas senses high and low blood glucose.
- Build a feedback loop model using cards or tokens for glucose, insulin, and glucagon.
- Simulate a meal by adding glucose and trace the insulin response.
- Simulate fasting and trace the glucagon response.
- Record how the model returns glucose toward the set point.
Lost your place? Back after a break? Make sure your card model has glucose, insulin, and glucagon pieces, then run both cases: add glucose to simulate a meal and trace insulin, then simulate fasting and trace glucagon, and record how glucose returns toward the set point.
Check your work before submitting
- Model correctly shows insulin lowering and glucagon raising glucose.
- Notes describe return to set point as negative feedback.
3. Turn in your work
DueCheck Schoology- Hand in
- Feedback loop diagram showing insulin and glucagon responses for both a meal and a fasting scenario, with labeled negative-feedback arrows.
How to submit and name your file
Use the submission route shown on today's today's page.
In Schoology, open your course and the assignment for this lesson. Attach your file, select Submit, and check that it appears in the submission.
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Check the section number beside Human Anatomy and Physiology in Schoology.
Assignment: Wk10 Lab notebook: Negative feedback model build
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How this lesson connects
Keep using what you learned last class: The endocrine system can coordinate distant organs because hormones travel through shared blood, so that any cell can be reached, while receptors decide which cells actually respond. Today: Negative feedback holds a variable near its set point because the body senses a deviation and triggers a response in the opposite direction, so that any push away is met by a correction back.
Unit 2 guide: what to keep and use nextOptional: listen or watch a unit review▸
Need help? Warm-up, timing, and directions▸
💡 Big idea: holds a variable near its set point because the body senses a deviation and triggers a response in the opposite direction, so that any push away is met by a correction back.
- 0-10Review: how does the pancreas detect blood-glucose change?
- 10-25Build feedback model: assign card roles for glucose, , , and pancreas sensor
- 25-42Meal simulation: add glucose tokens and trace response to set point
- 42-58Fasting simulation: remove glucose tokens and trace response
- 58-70Record loop diagram with labeled arrows showing
- 70-80Pair-share and submit loop diagram
- • Every time you eat, your pancreas launches a cascade to keep your blood sugar in a safe range.
- • Today you will build that cascade with cards or tokens so you can see the loop in action.
- • Modeling is a core scientific practice and a skill tested in the Evaluate Body Systems WebXam domain.
- • You will run two scenarios: eating a meal and fasting, recording what happens each time.
- • is released when rises; is released when it falls.
- • opposes the change that triggered the response, returning the variable toward its set point.
- • Diabetes results from disruption of this , linking pathophysiology to concepts on the WebXam.
PLTW connection and today's work
Complete any reflection or check-in linked to the feedback-model activity in Activity 2.2.1 The Endocrine System (Lesson 2.2 Everything Endocrine) on myPLTW; finish it after running both the meal and fasting simulations.
Today's stopping point: Gland-and-hormone task is done; today the feedback-model task should show complete.
PLTW activity titles identify the course connection. If your account will not open, use the posted materials for today and tell Mr. Mendoza. Do not mark an online activity complete unless you completed it.
Course connection
- Activity 2.2.1 The Endocrine System
Use the turn-in directions at the top of this page. Do not create a second submission unless your teacher asks for one.
Show another explanation or a smaller first step
Need help? Choose a starting point
Lesson resources: reading, slides, and vocabulary▸
The deck carries the prior idea forward, lets you inspect an analogy, maps the rule to biology, and ends with the same evidence decision and exit ticket used on this page.
Generated from this lesson's canonical data with a red-team citation check.
The endocrine system can coordinate distant organs because hormones travel through shared blood, so that any cell can be reached, while receptors decide which cells actually respond.
holds a variable near its set point because the body senses a deviation and triggers a response in the opposite direction, so that any push away is met by a correction back.
A thermostat compares a room reading with a set point and changes the heater.
- What is measured?
- What is the target?
- What response reduces the difference?
detects a change and produces a response that reduces that change.
Body systems use many interacting signals and delays, not one simple thermostat wire.
- • Room reading maps to the measured variable.
- • Set point maps to the regulated range.
- • Heater response maps to an response.
Driving question: You eat a candy bar and your spikes, yet an hour later it is back to normal; what mechanism detected the spike and pulled it back down without overshooting?
What you already know: The endocrine system can coordinate distant organs because hormones travel through shared blood, so that any cell can be reached, while receptors decide which cells actually respond.
New idea: holds a variable near its set point because the body senses a deviation and triggers a response in the opposite direction, so that any push away is met by a correction back.
Visual or model: F1. F1. A lesson illustration or teaching diagram for Negative feedback model build. Use it with E1-E3; it is a model or context image, not experimental or patient data. What to notice: Trace the labeled structure, movement, or system relationship that connects form to function.
- Observe or measure the relevant feature in model build.
- Organize the observation with a stable evidence ID.
- Apply this rule: detects a change and produces a response that reduces that change.
- Choose the option the evidence supports and state the limit of the conclusion.
Real biomedical example: You eat a candy bar and your spikes, yet an hour later it is back to normal; what mechanism detected the spike and pulled it back down without overshooting?
What the evidence supports: E1-E3 and F1 support the daily take-home when the response meets the stated success criteria.
What it cannot prove: The package does not support claims beyond this lesson's or any real patient diagnosis.
- • : A chemical messenger made by glands and carried in the blood to distant organs, where it controls processes like growth, , and mood.
- • : An organ that releases hormones directly into the bloodstream to control distant body processes such as growth and .
- • : A control cycle in which the output of a process feeds back to adjust that same process, helping the body keep conditions stable.
- • : A made by the pancreas that lowers blood sugar by signaling cells to take in glucose from the blood.
- • : A made by the pancreas that raises blood sugar by signaling the liver to release stored glucose when levels drop.
- • : The body's ongoing process of keeping internal conditions like temperature, blood sugar, and pH steady despite changes in the outside environment.
Use it now: Choose one decision option. Cite E1 and E3, then explain how the rule connects the evidence to your choice.
Go further, optional: The source links below are optional enrichment. Every fact required for today's local evidence decision appears in this lesson package.
is dynamic regulation: sensors, control processes, and effectors use feedback to keep selected physiological variables within ranges that support cell and organ function.
Limit: A single feedback diagram simplifies interacting set ranges, delays, feedforward signals, local controls, and differences among individuals.
detects a change and produces a response that reduces that change.
Limit: Body systems use many interacting signals and delays, not one simple thermostat wire.
Model correctly shows lowering and raising glucose.
Limit: E3 defines the classroom product or success criterion. It is not independent scientific evidence and cannot justify a clinical or causal claim.
PLTW-HAP-2027-03-24 · Simulated classroom evidence scenario
Your role: anatomy and physiology consultant
Decision: Your team must decide what the evidence from model build supports before submitting the notebook record named on today's page.
- • Show and working together to push glucose back down after the candy bar spike.
- • Test the model with a low-glucose push first, since a spike alone cannot show the loop correcting both directions.
- • Build the model so lowers glucose when it is high and raises it when low.
Response: State one choice, cite at least two evidence IDs, explain the rule that connects them, and add one limitation. Submit it as the notebook record.
Claim ceiling: Today's evidence supports a classroom claim about model build. It cannot prove causation, diagnose a real patient, or justify action outside this room.
Reason for review: Your team must decide what the evidence from model build supports before submitting the notebook record named on today's page.
Context: The body keeps internal conditions stable using : it senses when a value drifts from a set point and triggers a response that pushes it back, over and over.
- • T1: Review how the pancreas senses high and low .
- • T2: Build a model using cards or tokens for glucose, , and .
- • T3: Simulate a meal by adding glucose and trace the response.
- • T4: Simulate fasting and trace the response.
- • T5: Record how the model returns glucose toward the set point.
- • E1: is dynamic regulation: sensors, control processes, and effectors use feedback to keep selected physiological variables within ranges that support cell and organ function.
- • E2: detects a change and produces a response that reduces that change.
- • E3: Model correctly shows lowering and raising glucose.
Measurements: Use only the measurements, units, graph, or counts supplied in today's task. No additional patient measurement is implied.
Figure finding: Teaching diagram for model build. Trace the labeled structure, movement, or system relationship that connects form to function. This is a teaching model, not patient or experimental data.
Uncertainty: This is a composite classroom scenario. Missing history, measurements, or confirmation tests remain unknown and limit the conclusion.
Mean = sum of values / number of values. Median = middle ordered value. Range = maximum - minimum.
For 2, 4, 4, and 10: mean = 20 / 4 = 5, median = 4, and range = 10 - 2 = 8.
Mean, median, and range keep the measurement unit. Order the values before finding the median.
Calculate the requested summary for today's supplied values, then write what it reveals and what it hides.
Students often think Students think and both push glucose in the same direction, or that one alone handles both high and low sugar.. The trap: They work in opposite directions: lowers glucose when it is high, raises glucose when it is low. Treat them as a team pulling the same way and your cannot correct in both directions, which is the whole point of a set point.
Negative feedback loop for blood glucose (set point about 90 mg/dL):
Meal scenario (glucose rises):
- Blood glucose goes up.
- Pancreas releases insulin.
- Insulin moves glucose into cells, so blood glucose falls back toward the set point.
Fasting scenario (glucose falls):
- Blood glucose goes down.
- Pancreas releases glucagon.
- Glucagon releases stored glucose from the liver, so blood glucose rises back toward the set point.
Why this is negative feedback: each response opposes the change that triggered it (high glucose triggers lowering, low glucose triggers raising), pulling the variable back to the set point.
This model shows the level of evidence and organization needed to complete: A feedback-loop diagram showing the insulin response to a meal and the glucagon response to fasting, with labeled negative-feedback arrows showing return toward the set point.
- Date and label the entry.
- Record the procedure, observation, or design decision clearly.
- End with what the evidence means and the next step.
Keep the structure. Replace the question, facts, measurements, and evidence. Then recheck units, vocabulary, and whether the conclusion goes beyond the evidence.
Also due today: Submit your loop diagram on Schoology.
- CER:
- Claim, Evidence, Reasoning: make a claim, back it with evidence, explain your reasoning.
- SOP:
- Standard Operating Procedure, the exact steps to follow (especially in a lab).
- Tracker:
- Your PLTW progress log where you record completed evidence.
- myPLTW:
- The PLTW course site where you do the online activities. Find it in Clever with your Microsoft sign-in, right next to Schoology.
Tap the speaker to hear a term. Add two of these to your notebook glossary with a definition and an example in your own words.
Pick just 2 or 3 words from today and make them yours: write what each one means in your own words, name the context clue or evidence that helped, then give one example from what you actually did in Negative feedback model build. Try your own words first; the glossary is there if you get stuck. This is voluntary and counts as extra credit, so keep it short.
Saved on this device. Show Mr. Mendoza or add these to your notebook glossary to claim the extra credit.
Hand-picked readings, videos, and interactives for this lesson, all free and from authoritative open organizations (NIH, CDC, OpenStax, Khan Academy, PhET, HHMI, and more).
A fillable, Cornell-style notebook for Unit 2: Research Ready. Type your notes, cues, and summaries right in the PDF, or print it and write by hand. Each lesson page has a cue column, a notes column, and a summary box, plus dated lab-record pages you can turn in.
HBS Unit 2 notebook: Research Ready Fillable PDFCornell notes + lab recordsOpenVetted readings and references for this unit. Use them to prepare, to catch up if you were absent, or to go deeper on today's target.
Practice: try a question, then check your answer▸
Claim ceiling for this check: Today's evidence supports a classroom claim about model build. It cannot prove causation, diagnose a real patient, or justify action outside this room.
Blood glucose rises to 150 mg/dL after a meal. Name the hormone released, the direction it moves glucose, and why the loop is called 'negative' feedback.
Write an answer and pick a confidence to unlock the key.
Fast retrieval with instant answers, not the commit-then-reveal check above. Try each from memory first: write what you remember about the earlier units, then check yourself here.
Missed class or ready for more?▸
Run this before you touch the bench. It is built from the real lab procedure, so the decisions you make here are the ones you will make with the equipment in your hands.
What today's skills lead to. These are real health-science careers this course builds toward. Tap one to see, on the US Department of Labor's O*NET site, what the job actually involves, what it pays, and how fast it is growing.
Run your glucose feedback model through one meal and one fasting cycle, recording responses at each step.
MedlinePlus: Blood SugarUse the submission route shown on today's today's page.
Class still runs. Complete the online activity above (it's self-guided). Need the concept taught without a teacher? Use this authoritative explainer:
MedlinePlus: Endocrine DiseasesYou've passed Unit 2, so the optional extra-credit track is open. Complete reserved-unit work from home, including virtual labs, for extra credit. Each item shows its correct submission route.
Open the extra-credit track- CompleteEvery required part of the artifact is present, nothing left blank.
- AccurateThe science and the data are correct and match the evidence.
- Scientific reasoningYou explain your claim with evidence and reasoning (CER), not just an answer.
- Professional communicationClear, organized, labeled, and written the way a clinician or scientist would.
- SubmittedGo to Schoology to turn this in. Submit one PDF. Put your first and last name in the document header. Name the file: FirstName LastName - Assignment Title - YYYY-MM-DD.pdf. If you cannot get in, see Mr. Mendoza. Do not skip the work.
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