IBSE Final

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 Sarah is working in a laboratory testing new antibiotics. She needs to grow 10 million

bacteria for her experiments. If she starts with 10,000 bacteria and grows them in a flask

for 24 hours, will she have enough bacteria?.

 Sarah could take samples and count the bacteria using a microscope, but it's finals

week, and she doesn't have time. Instead Sarah could quickly calculate how many

bacteria she will have grown using a mathematical model, or mathematical

representation, of bacterial growth. This will save Sarah time so that she can produce

the new antibiotics soonest possible.

 These models include diagrams, physical replicas, mathematical representations,

analogies, and computer simulations.

 Scientists use models to represent their current understanding of a system (or parts of a

system) under study, to aid in the development of questions and explanations, and to

communicate ideas to others (NGSS Lead States, 2013). Ex: Newton’s Second Law

(usually writtenF=ma).

Introduction