Unit 2.2 Everything Endocrine: endocrine glands, hormones, feedback loops, the blood sugar and insulin model, the glucose CER, then Challenge Accepted opens with experimental design.
Your PLTW coursework: Human Body Systems ▸ Unit 2: Research Ready ▸ Lesson 2.2 Everything Endocrine ▸ "Activity 2.2.1 The Endocrine System"
What to do if absent- 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.
Week overview - Everything Endocrine: hormones, feedback loops, and the blood-sugar model
Build a working model of a loop and use it to explain how and keep in a healthy range.
- 1List the major endocrine glands you can find on a body diagram and note one each releases.
- 2Define , , , and in your own words in your notebook.
- 3Set up the blood-sugar model with cards or tokens to represent glucose, , and .
- 4Run the model after a meal: show how rising glucose triggers and lowers it back toward set point.
- 5Run the model during fasting: show how falling glucose triggers and raises it back toward set point.
- 6Sketch the full loop and label the , sensor, response, and return to .
- • You will be able to match key hormones to the endocrine glands that release them.
- • You will be able to trace a loop from back to set point.
- • You will be able to explain how and balance .
Open any day for its full lesson, the work due that day, and guided notes.
Written CER analyzing blood-glucose graph data: claim about restoration, two specific data-point evidence entries, reasoning naming .
Written personal stance on using C. elegans in research, citing one justification and acknowledging one genuine ethical concern.
Labeled sample experiment with independent, dependent, and controlled variables identified, plus a written confounding-variable example.
Team research design plan: testable question, defined variables, target , poster section outline, and assigned member roles.
- Hook: your body runs a silent chemical thermostat every minute, and today you build the model that shows how it works.
- Today's goal: prove you can trace a loop and explain the and balance with your model.
- This week's Monday bioethics debate: who should pay for when the price keeps people from staying healthy?
- Reminder: your graded feedback-loop organizer and model evidence live in the PLTW course shell, not on loose paper.
Do this: Advance the PLTW Everything Endocrine benchmark by completing the online evidence on glands, hormones, and feedback regulation in the course shell.
- • Endocrine glands release hormones that travel through the blood to target tissues.
- • A loop returns a variable like toward a set point.
- • lowers and raises it, working as a balanced pair.
- • Model a loop using , sensor, response, and set point.
- • Explain how and maintain glucose .
📋 PLTW evidence due: completed feedback-loop organizer modeling blood-glucose regulation with and , submitted on the class site.
All PLTW activities are completed inside the PLTW course environment: this page only gives direction.
Use this chart to keep your place. Nothing on it is turned in through the portal.
| Day | Work | Turn in |
|---|---|---|
| Monday · Mon, Apr 5 | Glucose data CER analysis | Written CER analyzing blood-glucose graph data: claim about homeostasis restoration, two specific data-point evidence entries, reasoning naming negative feedback. |
| Tuesday · Tue, Apr 6 | Animal research ethics debate | Written personal stance on using C. elegans in research, citing one justification and acknowledging one genuine ethical concern. |
| Wednesday · Wed, Apr 7 | Variables and controls | Labeled sample experiment with independent, dependent, and controlled variables identified, plus a written confounding-variable example. |
| Thursday · Thu, Apr 8 | Evidence for | |
| Friday · Fri, Apr 9 | Research design and poster plan | Team research design plan: testable question, defined variables, target sample size, poster section outline, and assigned member roles. |
- M: Philosophy for Kids / John Carroll bioethical debate
- T: teacher background notes + PLTW launch task
- W: lab / data or model work
- F: submit tracker + weekly evidence
Turn in: Unit 2.2 Everything Endocrine: endocrine glands, hormones, feedback loops, the blood sugar and insulin model, the glucose CER, then Challenge Accepted opens with experimental design. weekly work due Feedback-loop organizer.
Go 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.
Open Schoology PDF upload helpIf you cannot get in, see Mr. Mendoza. Do not skip the work.
4 panels from the illustrated semester.
Fiction. There is no such student. The lessons, labs and dates are the real planned course; the student, the classmates and the conversations are invented.
This explainer accompanies the PLTW lab protocol: watch it before lab.
Most days, this class is your PLTW coursework: and PLTW is online and individual. So being out usually just means doing exactly what we did in class, from home.
Open Clever, then myPLTWSign in to Clever with your district Microsoft account to open Schoology or myPLTW. Follow today's posted steps. If myPLTW will not open, use the posted alternative and tell Mr. Mendoza. Turn in your completed work through the Schoology assignment.
You can't do those from home: do this instead: Teacher-posted data/model packet, same objective. Supplemental: Khan: endocrine system; diabetes/blood sugar.
Class still runs. A substitute will post today's plan: complete the online activity above; it's built to be self-guided. Need the concept taught without a teacher? Use this authoritative explainer:
MedlinePlus: Endocrine Diseases
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).